^^ The gorgeous Slender Filefish, Monacanthus tuckeri, is most often found hanging head down like this, amongst the soft corals. This one is a juvenile, about 1″ long.
Not my first time in Bonaire, and not even my first post with pictures from Bonaire. I keep going back because the shore diving is great fun. (Plus, there is the thing with the Minnesota winters being so long and cold.) We saw squid several times, including the pair below. These are Caribbean Reef Squid, Sepioteuthis sepioidea, and they didn’t mind me taking pictures while they were gettin’ it on. (Not my first underwater porn photo shoot, either):
I had the awesome experience of finding a new-to-me fish. It took perhaps longer than it should have to ID this guy, because I thought he was some kind of wrasse, but he turned out to be a Lantern Bass, Serranus baldwini. He is stunningly gorgeous, only about 1″ long:
Next up is one of my favorites, and I would spend an entire dive trying to get a shot of one, if only my dive buddies would agree. This is a baby Smooth Trunkfish, Lactophrys triqueter. They bobble about like wee balloons, and turn away just when you have the perfect shot lined up. I must have a thousand butt shots of these guys. Their extreme teensiness makes shooting them a master class in patience. (Hear that, dive buddies?)
And get this: he is smaller than a pea. Hard to find, harder to shoot, this is quite possibly the most adorable thing in the sea:
And finally, no post of mine goes out without some form of nudibranch/sea slug. Here we’ve got a gorgeous pale blue Lettuce Slug, Elysia crispata, about 1.5″ long.
Lots more pictures from Bonaire are in the gallery below:
