REDDOG DIVING – KEY
KEY LARGO REEF INVERTEBRATES- CORALS and OTHER COOL
CREATURES
Doug Cook’s Website for Scuba Diving
Adventures
and
Underwater Photography
ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
Last Update July 11,
2008 (More to come as I get time to scan slides)
Doug
graduated from the
Music
to listen to while you take the tour:
(play
but please do not copy)
Doug
was a free lance photo journalist and underwater photography instructor (PUBLICATIONS). His arsenal of photo equipment
included four Nikonos cameras, a RolleiMarine
housing and RolleiFlex camera,
and
an ancient Bolex 16mm movie camera and housing.
Today life is simple and easy with just a Cannon SD-800 in a
WD-PC5 housing:
Still
and video with automatic focus, exposure, and white balance!
These
images were scanned from 35mm slides that have started to show signs of
degradation. They have been restored
digitally where possible.
Please contact Doug Cook with comments and corrections. This collection of photos is a good
representation of the marine life in Key Largo’s
SOFT CORALS
(GORGONIA) – ‘SEA FANS and SEA WHIPS’
WORMS – ‘CHRISTMAS
TREES and FEATHER DUSTERS’
MOLLUSCS – ‘SNAILS
and SCALLOPS’
CRUSTACEANS –
‘SHRIMP, CRABS, LOBSTERS’
ECINODERMS –
STARFISH, SEA URCHINS, and SEA CUCUMBERS
OTHERS – ‘TUNICATES and CORALLINE ALGAE’
Sponges are a diverse and simple life
form. They are the next highest order of
life from one-celled animals. Sponges are formed from colonies of cells (chaonocytes) specialized in pumping and filtering sea
water. Their skeleton is made of a
protein substance called spongin that may be hardened
with needle-like silicate spicules. Sea-water is sucked in from sides of a
sponge, filtered for food, then passed into a central chamber and out through a
larger chimney-like vent hole.
Sponges can be spectacularly colored and
shaped, making interesting macro-photo subjects. Some sponges are known as fire sponge that
can give you a lasting fiery sting if touched.
SIMPLE ANIMALS with TENTACLES
and
STINGING CELLS
(nematocysts-with a harpoon to deliver poison)
(Cnidaria
includes hydroids, hard and soft coral, anemones and jellyfish)
This colonial hydroid can give you a potent sting that will be painful for weeks and may leave a scar.
Fire coral (Millepora) can give a diver painful stings on soft body parts. Your calloused hands may be immune.
Fire Coral, with characteristic mustard yellow color, has overgrown a sea fan.
The jagged hull of
the “City of
Hard corals along with
coralline algae are the builders of a coral reef. They are able to lay down
building blocks of limestone to build the reef structure. They have the highest
biomass production of any ecosystem on the planet. The energy that drives the production is
sunlight for photosynthesis. Hard corals
have symbiotic zooxanthellae (a type of dinoflagellate) in their tissue that
produce energy through photosynthesis and gives coral its characteristic
colors. Zooxanthellae
can provide up to 90% of a coral’s energy requirements. In return, the coral
provides the zooxanthellae with protection, shelter, nutrients (mostly waste
material containing nitrogen and phosphorus) and a constant supply of carbon
dioxide required for photosynthesis. The
actively growing reef needs to be within 100 feet of the surface to get enough
sunlight. Major reef systems can keep up
with rising sea levels and can over time create a solid vertical structure
rising from some 1500 feet to the surface (e.g. Bahama
Banks). Yet the reef ecosystem is finely tuned and fragile needing clean clear
water and a narrow range of ocean temperature (69-86 deg F). Outside of this temperature, the coral may
expel its zooxanthellae (coral bleaching) and die. In
his tenure in the Keys from 1969 to 1982, Doug witnessed very substantial
decline of these beautiful and fragile reefs.
Please contact Doug Cook with an update
on the health of
An
aerial view of Alligator Reef showing the typical ‘spur and groove’ alignment
of reefs in the Keys. This pattern is caused
by constant wave action and sediment runoff through the grooves into the back-reef
and fore-reef zones. The robust reef
framework is formed from coral as building blocks cemented by calcareous (coralline)
algae.
Beautiful
branching
Today
This
magnificent and robust
Watson’s
Reef for centuries and survived many hurricanes.
Macro
of Acropora polyps.
Each polyp, like a sea anemone, has tentacles and a central mouth.
Cocoa
damsel in Staghorn coral (Acropora
cervicornis)
This
coral is fast growing at over six inches per year
in
ideal conditions but this reef died in one season (1981).
Massive mound formers – Brain Coral (Diploria
sp.) It takes hundreds of years to grow to this
size.
A Christmas tree worm on Brain Coral (Diploria clivosa)
Massive
mound formers – Mountain star coral (Montastrea cavernosa) is another slow growing coral
that can grow to
the size of a house. Each anemone like polyp is about 1 cm across.
The arrow crab was gently posed there for the
photo.
A Christmas tree worm makes
its home in Mountain star
coral (Montastrea cavernosa). This night dive photo shows the coral polyps
open to snag food from the water with their stinging tentacles. An interesting thing to do is to shine your
dive light at the coral attracting hundreds of swimming worms and then watch
them explode
when they get
caught up in the coral’s tentacles!
A hermit crab posed on Star
coral (Montastrea annularis).
Robust
Star coral (Montastrea annularis)
being assaulted by a boats anchor.
A
Flamingo tongue snail on Lettuce coral (Agaricia sp.)
SOFT
CORALS (GORGONIA) – ‘SEA FANS and SEA WHIPS’
Sea
fans grow aligned in the current to filter food from the water.
A
forest of sea fans and sea whips may replace what was once a healthy hard coral
reef.
A
forest of sea whips.
A close-up of sea whip polyps and tentacles.
The
open polyps of a colonial soft coral.
A Condylactus
sea anemone. The colorful tips can sting
fish prey and pull it into the central mouth for digestion.
Anemone tentacles ringed
with nematocyst stinging cells.
A sea anemone bedded down in
star coral.
A sea anemone looking like a
bowl of grapes at the base of fire coral.
A common moon jellyfish is
about the size of a dinner plate.
The tentacles on the outer
rim carry a mild sting.
The edge of a jellyfish bell
armed with tentacles with nematocyst stinging cells.
A Christmas tree worm
living in a Brain Coral. Their delicate double spiral tentacles filter
food from the water.
They
are very skittish and will pop back into their hole at the slightest passing
shadow.
The
white extension to the lower left is the worm’s trap door (operculum)
A Christmas tree worm
living in a Brain Coral. Their colors are as variable as the spectrum.
A feather duster worm lives
in a leathery tube here amongst coralline algae.
MOLLUSCS
– ‘SNAILS and SCALLOPS’
Flame scallop (above and
below) uses its tentacle to filter feed.
A Flamingo tongue is a colorful
snail (Gastropod) that is just under an inch (2 cm) in size.
They eat soft coral
(Gorgonian) polyps.
Their shell is creamy white but
the colorful mantle extends out over it.
Flamingo tongues
mating. Note the digested sea whip they’ve
been eating.
Flamingo tongue with its colorful
mantle partially retracted.
CRUSTACEANS
– ‘SHRIMP, CRABS, LOBSTERS’
The Spotted lobster (Panuliris guttatus above and below) are
smaller and not commercially regulated.
Hermit crabs are somewhat
shy but amusing and often colorful.
They will inhabit almost any
empty snail shells.
Large ones can even inhabit a conch shell.
Ghost anemone shrimp is
nearly transparent. Its claws are on
top.
They use the anemone for
protection and are immune to its sting.
Ghost anemone shrimp side
view.
Another
smaller type of anemone shrimp.
A
colorful coral or peppermint shrimp. Sometimes they make a
living cleaning parasites off of fish.
ECINODERMS – STARFISH, SEA URCHINS, SEA CUCUMBERS, and CRINOIDS.
Basket Starfish are a large
delicate form of brittle starfish. They
come out at night and climb into a position to catch the current and filter
feed with their hundreds of writhing branched arms. Food is ‘handed to the central mouth. They can grow to over two feet (60 cm) in
diameter.
The common reef urchin Diadema is generally black but can be white as shown
here. They come out to bottom graze at
night. Their spines can be over one foot (30 cm) long and are very sharp and
brittle. They can easily penetrate
through a diver’s wetsuit and puncture the skin. The spines are not poisonous but should be
treated with antibiotic to avoid infection.
This large (loaf of bread
sized) sea cucumber has tube feet on the bottom for locomotion like a starfish.
They come out to bottom
graze at night eating sand to digest bits of food.
OTHERS – ‘TUNICATES and
CORALLINE ALGAE’
A
colony of tunicates.
They are technically not invertebrates since in the larval stage they
swim like a tadpole and have a primitive backbone called a notochord. As adults they settle down in a colony like this
and filter feed. Water goes in one
opening (mouth) and out the other (anus).
You can see the reef
framework of dead coral blocks in this lobster’s cave cemented by
calcium
carbonate produced by encrusting coralline algae.
The coralline algae here is prolific Halimeda whose green plates are composed of calcium carbonate inside. In back-reef and lagoonal environments these can form large island like clumps and produce a prodigious amount of sediment that can become cemented into limestone.
Delicate spiral shapes coralline algae.
Above and below are various other coralline algae.
Please contact Doug Cook with comments and corrections. This collection of photos is a good
representation of the marine life in Key Largo’s
I have tried other resources on the
web and corrected some of my memory lapses.
Feeding sharks, barracuda, moray
eels, and most everything swimming around the coral reefs.