Today, I happened to catch a glimpse of something moving beneath a round sponge, at a depth of 15 feet. It was virtually impossible for me to identify exactly what it was, so I hoped that my camera would be able to focus on it.
Once out of the water, I tried to look it up. I figured that it was probably a mantis shrimp, but the edition of Reef Creature Identification that we have didn't include this species. After checking a newer edition and several photos available online, I believe this is a ciliated false squilla.
This little mantis shrimp was about 2 inches long. It kept moving in and out of its burrow, and seemed to be doing "housekeeping."
 |
| Shrimp heading left, with tail end in burrow. |
 |
| Shrimp looking at the camera, with its checkerboard eyes. |
 |
| Heading to the left, again. |
 |
| A view of more of its body as it moves to the left. |
No comments:
Post a Comment