Coral is a fascinating organism that has puzzled divers and snorkelers alike regarding its classification. Is coral a plant or an animal? You can easily mistake a coral for a plant as its appearance is plant-like and it can grow on the ocean floor. However, coral is, in fact, an animal that belongs to the phylum…
Harlequin shrimp and snapping shrimp for one are very hard to take photos of but we are lucky to have snapped one or two for you. Here is what else you should now about them. Harlequin Shrimp They are definitely one of the most beautiful marine invertebrates in the world – just look at them.…
Mantis shrimp and squat shrimp are the first two shrimp we would like to introduce to you in more detail. Mantis Shrimp They are carnivores that grow to up to 10cm in length while a few can reach 38cm. There are fish stabbing, grasping and smasher versions of mantis shrimp. The smasher feeds on snails and hermit…
About 1000 species of shrimp live in the tropical seas. To name just a few here we go: Harlequin shrimp Banded Boxer shrimp Hinge-beak shrimp Anemone shrimp Imperial shrimp Sea star shrimp Whipcoral shrimp Thin armed shrimp Cleaner shrimp Tapestry marble shrimp Snapping shrimp Squat shrimp Featherstar shrimp They can be herbivores, plantivores, carnivores or…
Fish relationships come in all types; some are easy and others are more difficult. Some fish live in families or harems, some in pairs and then there are the ones who live completely on their own. Here are are few of the relationships we spot while diving and snorkleing in the Maldives. Harems Harems form…
As promised, we reveal the secrets of how to spot marine creatures. We all wonder how our dive guides are able to spot animals so small, well camouflaged or too far away. Sometimes we couldn’t even see them after he/she showed them to us. Dive guides don’t have special masks or a hidden lens ……
To engage divers and snorkelers here at Kihaa Maldives every Wednesday evening we do a PowerPoint presentation in the hotel library where we talk about the life on a coral reefs. It is fun and educational, we show photos and videos that we have taken throughout the year and we give you some more background…
Here we are, back with some more interesting underwater symbiotic relationships. It looks like it is an endless topic, in a good way. Batfish and Green Turtle This is an odd pair that I never paid much attention to, but it caught my eye when I was going through some underwater turtle pictures. Suddenly I…
There are so many interesting symbiotic relationships happening underwater that we thought we should come back with more on the subject. If you missed our first article, you can read it here. There we explained the different types of symbiosis and introduced you to two interesting pairs. This month, we decided to talk about two…
Symbiotic relationships occur when two different organisms live together. We can divide these relationships in 3 types: Mutualism: when both individuals benefit from the relationship; Commensalism: when only one benefits from it, while the other species is not affected; Parasitism: when not only just one specie benefits from it but also causes harm to the…
