BlennyWatcher

Congratulations to REEF Board of Trustees members Ned & Anna DeLoach on being awarded the Beneath the Sea Diver of the Year for Arts! 🎉

This honor recognizes their lifetime of dedication to marine conservation and education — and they're far from done. Ned and Anna continue to inspire underwater naturalists around the world with their adventures photographing "Dream Fish." 📸🐠

We couldn't be prouder!

The ocean’s most eligible bachelor or just another blenny having a big hair day? Normally rather drab in color, this male Hairy Blenny is in his nuptial colors, hoping to attract a female.

For fishwatchers, a common name that matches a distinctive physical characteristic of the fish makes identification a snap if you're able to maneuver for a close look. In this case, the cirri above the eyes and on its nape are thick and hair-like. Now we see how they got their common name.

Denizens of shallow rocky shorelines, Hairy Blennies, are found on both sides of the Atlantic, from Bermuda, throughout the Caribbean and down to Brazil. They’re among the largest of the blennies, sometimes reaching 22 cm (almost 9”) in length.

📸 ⁠ Bonaire 2016

A new article from Ned and Anna - Read about seahorses and their kin in the First Quarter 2026 issue of Alert Diver. Read it online: https://dan.org/alert-diver/article/the-quest-for-seahorses-and-their-kin/

Leopard Blenny, in three life stages.⁠
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We photographed the larval fish [image 1] on a blackwater dive in Hawaii but didn’t know it was a Leopard Blenny until we saw an image on the website of larval fish researcher, . ⁠
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Most reef fishes spend their early lives drifting in open water, undergoing dramatic transformations from tiny, clear larvae to ready-to-settle juveniles. ⁠The tiny juvenile [Image 2] and adult [Image 3] were photographed on morning dives in shallows of the Kurkap seamount in the Banda Sea. ⁠
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[Image 1] Post-larval, ready to settle to the reef, 20mm. Photographed November 2021 off Kona, Hawaii during a blackwater night drift dive.⁠
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[Image 2] Juvenile, 35mm, photographed at Kurkap seamount, April 2018⁠
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[Image 3] Adult, 8cm, photographed at Kurkap seamount, April 2018⁠
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Whether in their dark or light form, quarter-inch Pontohi Pygmy Seahorses blend exquisitely with the reef’s kaleidoscopic surroundings.

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Most jellyfish are carnivorous warriors of the sea, trailing masses of see-through tentacles lined with poisonous, multi-barbed darts, tethered and hair-triggered to discharge in tangling clusters at prey contact. Then there are the vegetarian farmers peacefully going about their daily doings near the sunny surface where a golden-brown crop of photosynthetic symbiotic zooxanthellae algae produces nourishment enough for both parties inside eight unstylish, sausage-shaped appendages.⁠
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📸 ⁠ ⁠ Lembeh Strait, Indonesias 2009⁠
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scubadiverslife

We're very proud to be supporting REEF Reef Environmental Education Foundation!

REEF in Action: Marine Conservation Interns Hailey and Mary package up limited-edition sets of 8 notecards (featuring stunning fish images taken by REEF Co-Founder Ned DeLoach) to send out to donors.
REEF campus, Key Largo, FL
[Photo by Maddie Brownfield]

Team Flying Fish - Our Fall 2011 article in Alert Diver magazine, about Yan Alfian and Ned chasing after flying fish in a channel near the island of Ceram. Waiting to board the tender for a night dive, Ned overheard crew talking about a dozen baby flying fish drifting past in float of debris. Ned asked if there was any chance he and Yan could use the other tender to go after them, and in a flurry of rearranging gear and crew, cruise director Wendy Brown made it happen. By the time Ned, Yan, the ship’s engineer (who had been conscripted for the mission) and the tender driver found the fish, they were a good half mile from our liveaboard dive boat, in a stiff tidal current. With the tender crew spotting from above and Yan in the water, Ned got the shot he wanted: the underside of an inch-long flying fish, drifting along the slick, calm surface.

Ned didn't understand why Ben Sarinda, called him back down, insistent that he take a photo of what looked like a half-inch shell. Ben didn’t understand why Ned only took one shot then went back to the boat (low on air, he says). “Shrimp! It was a shrimp!” declared Ben, back on the boat. It wasn’t until Ned downloaded the image that he saw the eye and orange legs … it was a shrimp. The Shell Mimic Shrimp, Vercoia interrupta, described four years earlier by Kim & Fujita, 2004. ⁠⁠During four years of gathering images for the Reef Creature Tropical Pacific book, Ned encouraged our team to "look everywhere, with new eyes, for animals we didn't know existed". This little mimic was out in the open, fooling most of us, a reminder of how many secrets the sea holds.⁠⁠
⁠⁠📸 2008 night dive, Lembeh Strait, Indonesia⁠⁠