Master of Disguise
A decorator crab found living in the aquaria outflow basin at Lizard Island Research Station. In addition to the normal algae, sponges and other natural detritus, this animal has also incorporated bits of plastic and green netting that found their way down the drain in the lab.
Fly on Flower
Golden Nubranch
Gymnodoris, from Lizard Islans, Australia
Electric Blue Giant Clam
A giant clam (Tridacna) from Lizard Island, Australia. Note the tiny black eye spots around the green mantle edge.
Adult Bottletail Squid (Sepiadarium kochii)
Looks like a baby octopus, about the size of the last digit of your pinky, but is actually an fully grown bottletail squid that we caught at Lizard Island
A head on shot of this cute little guy.
Tasty Ink
An ant guzzling the ink from my fountain pen at Lizard Island, Australia. Also pictured: Science!
Green Isopod
Green swimming isopod found at night at Lizard Island, Australia. Possibly Dynamene.
Fire in the Eye
The compound eye of a firefly
Damselfly
Argia apicalis (Zygoptera) chowing down on some unfortunate insect.
A Happy Nudi
Ardeadoris egretta
Nudibranch
Nudibranch from Lizard Island
Cyerce nigricans
Cabbage Whites
A collection male (left) and female of cabbage white (Pieris rapae) butterflies photographed at human-visible and UV wavelengths. Though they look the same to us, creatures that can see UV light will notice that only the females reflect UV. From our review on UV vision - Cronin & Bok, 2016: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/219/18/2790
Macrophiothrix nereidina
Beautiful ophiothricid brittle star from Lizard Island, Australia
Scolopendra morsitans
Fairly large Scolopendramorph from Lizard Island, Australia
British common hermit crab
A large Pagurus bernhardus individual.
Plakobranchus ocellatus sea slug.
From Lizard Island, Australia.
TEAMWORK
Green tree ants, Oecophylla smaragdina, from Lizard Island Australia, working together to bend leaves together for their nests.
Peeking cicada
Linne’s Cicada (Tibicen linnei)
Orange Meadowhawk (Sympetrum spp.)
Found by a pond in northern New Jersey.
Ambush Bug (Phymata spp.)
Waiting for an unsuspecting pollinator. Not particularly well camouflaged in this instance.
Wasp (Polistes sp?)
From Northern New Jersey
Lizard Island Research Assistant
One of the omnipresent huntsman spiders at Lizard Island Research Station. Probably Neosparassus salacius, the Badge Huntsman Spider
Conomurex luhuanus
The Strawberry or Tiger Conch
The Eye of the Tiger... Conch
Oreaster reticulatus
Red cushion sea star, Oreaster reticulatus, From Twin Cay mangrove in Belize
Crayfish
Procambarus clarkii
Calanus finmarchicus
Copepod from the Atlantic
Triops
A Tadpole shrimp
