Dedicated to the gulf coast

KNUCKLEHEAD

14 years ago

Here I am once again & as promised I will only post images of life that is not visible from the surface.
Many people tend to think that life in our oceans consists mostly of fish, crabs, shrimp, & shellfish, like oysters, scallops clams & snails, plus mammals like dolphins, whales, & I have to also mention turtles, the darlings of the gulf.
What many don`t realize is that the above mentioned species make up a small fraction of the biodiversity of the oceans.
In the following images, try & look beyond the main subject, & look to the backgrounds of the images. Every bit of color is a living organism.
The purple on the reef structure is coralline algae.
Every little nook & cranny has little “bugs” living in them.
Every little filament you see is some kind of worm.
The reef is covered with billions & billions of life forms, & I`m just talking about these numbers, pertaining to my reef tanks.The sand at the bottom contains billions of these per cubic inch.
Now these are the bottom of the food chain, but also sometimes the first to die off when the water chemistry is changed by even parts per billion.
When the first link in the food chain is destroyed, the other links fall apart in rapid succession. That`s why I post these images. They are not spectacular in any way as images, but as examples of the spectacular life in the oceans that the planet depends on.
Regardless of their microscopic sizes.

Giant Cup
(Elephant Ear)