Favoritos de wamoz

Breathtaking expecting mother Argonaut Nautilus I found when walking around the sandbar. I didn’t quite realise what it was until I picked it up, realised she had a clutch of eggs so I gently put her back in her home (but not before snapping this pic and a short clip). I had no idea these weren’t actually real Nautilus, but in fact octopus who masquerade as them. The shell was magnificent to behold. A once in a lifetime experience!

Apparently these wrasse are fond of shrimp for morning tea too! Didn't get to see this particular shrimp for long enough to try and ID it beyond that it appears to also be a pistol shrimp. c.f. 144661419 and 144661420.

A slightly more advanced colony of green coral.
Numerous colonies-most very small-seen throughout this roughly 1 hour shallow subtidal snorkel at low tide, with incoming tide towards end.
(FTR I also note the Rockpool Shrimp on this coral on RHS)

There were about 50, all adults, aggregated in this wide open channel on a rising tide with moderate onshore winds but swell below half a metre. Mediocre to poor visibility between sets. Maximum horizontal visibility about 4 metres. Still an interesting (and easy access) shore based snorkel. (As an aside, One usually sees banded as well as sea sweep at this location but on this day I saw only a few immature sea sweep. )

At rest at the limestone base of the seagrass scarp which forms the outer edge of Syngnathid Hotspot.
(FTR the term Syngnathid Hotspot is a colloquial one that arose decades ago when the location was usually teeming with a good variety of inshore pipefish species. Back then the large expanse of sandy substrate had many small outlier clumps of seagrass, including Posidonia, Amphibolis and zostera, which is where you could always find the majority of species. Over the last few decades and especially the last few years the outlier plants have become very scarce and often completely absent (with some seasonality as expected, for the first decade or so of decline, but now seemingly perennial absence for several years. This seagrass recession is as or more obvious when diving or snorkeling there, when looking at the edges of the dense meadows along the outer edges. These were once only mildly delineated from the outliers in the sandy parts towards the shallowest subtidal. Now there is a large scarp wherever the outer meadows terminate. The scarp is mostly at least one metre high, in places roughly 1.5 metres. Clearly anthropogenic in the main. Foreshore runoff and the nearby Bungala River outflows are responsible.

Subject is the fish resting in the nachos shape sponge. It is a WCC cleaning station, rarely seen unoccupied by one or other clients. Some of the other fish in the 1st image are likely to be waiting their turn for parasite removal.