This is an Amphiprion clarkii anemonefish tending to developing eggs.  Amphiprion clarkii anemonefish with two sets of eggs at different stages of development (License image) It is probably male, as males of this species tend to be the ones to care for developing embryos. A scene that is nothing out of the ordinary for scuba divers in much of the world's warm waters, right? Maybe not. Take a closer look, and you'll see two sets of eggs, each at a distinct stage of development. The eggs close to the adult look silvery metallic because they are nearly mature, almost ready&nbs ..read more

Yesterday, I mentioned to a friend my tendency to go down rabbit holes. Figuratively of course.  Meaning that I often get distracted by something that I come across and end up delving into a topic that has no relation to whatever I was doing, finding myself hours later having made zero progress on whatever I was originally engaged in, but in exchange, having learned about something that I hadn't planned to investigate. That casual comment then caused me to recall the subject of a previous rabbit hole, which led to more digging around, which led to me&nbs ..read more

I was in a mood recently. A mood to rummage through hard disks to look at old photos.  I do this every once in a while, stumbling across images I like and wondering, "Hmmm, why didn't I ever process that?" This usually leads to a bit of futzing, after which I either get distracted or grow weary of fiddling, leaving the photos to be re-discovered another day. This time I pushed through.  One of the photos I dug up was this image of a pair of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus), with the nearer of the two just commencing her dive to forage. I know the whale is a female beca ..read more

I spent last week in London, with a fantastic group of people: WPY60 Photo Jury, Natural History Museum in the background We were there to judge the 60th edition of the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year (WPY60), organised by the Natural History Museum London. Group dynamics can sometimes be tricky, especially in cases when most people have never met one another.  In this instance though, the chemistry was excellent from the get-go. We worked hard(!), but we also laughed, exchanged information about each other's projects, and learned a ton about organisms and environments around the ..read more

I love coming across things that I never even knew I didn’t know anything about, you know? Take Lophomastix japonica for example. Lophomastix japonica (License image) It is a crustacean, a type of spiny sea crab, though technically not a true crab (infraorder Brachyura). It is one of many members of the infraorder Anomura that have evolved in a similar manner as the Brachyura crabs—a phenomenon called convergent evolution. It is not always easy to tell the two branches of evolution apart. King crabs, for instance, were once considered true crabs but are now generally thought to be an ..read more

明けましておめでとうございます. 今年もよろしくお願い致します Japan marks the change of the lunar zodiac on the first day of the Gregorian (solar) calendar. For many years, I've wondered about how this astro-temporal mismatch came to be. I finally looked into it by doing what all resourceful people do these days. I asked ChatGPT to elucidate. The answer is below, super-duper-heavily edited for clarity, brevity, vocabulary, grammar and style (turns out ChatGPT really needs an editor): Japan used to celebrate new year based on the lunar calendar. However, Japan decided to switch to the ..read more

明けましておめでとうございます. 今年もよろしくお願い致します Japan marks the change of the lunar zodiac on the first day of the Gregorian (solar) calendar. For many years, I've wondered about how this astro-temporal mismatch came to be. I finally looked into it by doing what all resourceful people do these days. I asked ChatGPT to elucidate. The answer is below, super-duper-heavily edited for clarity, brevity, vocabulary, grammar and style (turns out ChatGPT really needs an editor): Japan used to celebrate new year based on the lunar calendar. However, Japan decided to switch to the ..read more

There is a term in Japanese, one that I cannot translate.  It is 親バカ, pronounced oya-baka, which is a compound of the words parent (親) and idiot (バカ). Like many words, the usage can span a range of meaning—from endearment to ridicule—depending upon the context, tone of voice, facial expression and such. It is often applied to people who dote on their pets, sometimes in a derogatory manner, but mostly in a "what an idiot, isn't that so sweet?" sort of way. I confess to being a complete 親バカ. For instance, I take my turtle for walks. This was cause for consternation and chatter in ..read more

Controlling light is fundamental to photography. Adjust shutter speed, aperture, and ISO on the camera just right, and you should achieve a technically sound result—a well-exposed image. Ambient light—both quantity and quality—is limited for those of us who choose to take photographs underwater. So we carry light sources to compensate for relative darkness and dominance of blue. Standard practice is to strive for an evenly exposed image, usually with the help of two strobes, often equipped with diffusers to soften and even-out light. But is that always what you want? Maybe not. Via the followi ..read more

There are some odd creatures in the world. Take this fascinating animal for instance: Pterosoma planum pelagic snail (License image) It is a snail, similar to the curly-shelled ones you've undoubtedly seen on land, except this one swims around in the ocean. Yes, swims rather than crawl. It is carnivorous. It hunts other gastropods as well as small fish and probably other things as well. In the photo above, the pink tube sticking up is the animal's mouth. At the base of the mouth are two eyes/ visual organs. I do not know how good the snail's visual resolution is. Also sticking up, sort of ..read more