Videos by Poseidon’s Web – Explain the Reef!

Video Sidebar: Fish Bottomfeeding Strategies

This is a video sidebar to a longer feature on “How Fish Feed.” Two minutes in length, it shows four types of fish bottomfeeding techniques to find and capture small crustaceans, mollusks and other invertebrates buried in the sand flats surrounding reefs.  WHEN YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT LOAN SHARKS AND SHADY LAWYERS, “bottom-feeding” is a disparaging term. But for lots of fish and other reef denizens, it’s a productive way of life. We may see a

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 Diving with Manta Rays: Atlantic Giant Manta Encounter

DIVING WITH MANTA RAYS WAS SORT OF A DISTANT FANTASY. I just wanted to see them. The giant Atlantic mantas I had seen in the past were fast-moving and, mouths agape, totally focused on sweeping up the plankton they make their livings on. Suddenly here, there, gone. Spending extended time in close-up choreography with one of these gentle giants was not in my vision. Until it was. The dive was at Flower Garden Banks National

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Bluehead Wrasses – The Great Damselfish Egg-Raid

IF YOU’VE DIVED IN THE TROPICAL ATLANTIC/CARIBBEAN, you’ve almost certainly seen bluehead wrasses. Of course, most of them weren’t blue. The blueheaded members of bluehead wrasse world are terminal-phase males, or supermales. Despite their high visibility, they make up no more than 10 percent of a given bluehead wrasse population. The overwhelming majority of bluehead wrasses are yellow – juveniles or initial-phase adults or something in between. Blueheads (Thalassoma bifasciatum) are among those fish that

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