It’s hard to believe that after more than 350 dives on Bonaire, we’re still seeing so many new things every month. April brought us nine first time captures including a shortnose batfish, spiny fileclam, whitenose pipefish, Caribbean twospot octopus, green bubble weed, spoteye hermit crab, Atlantic hairy triton (shell), yellowhead jawfish (with eggs) and a club-tipped anemone.

We also witnessed some amazing behaviors, like a music volute that fall down a sandy embankment, landing upside-down and then turning itself upright again. Then there were mating greater soapfish, walking slate pencil urchin and two-spined sea stars, and a terrific macro shot of a spotted cleaner shrimp nibbling on something. Plus, we saw a uncommon critters, among which were an orange ball corallimorph, fingerprint flamingo tongue, three rowed sea cucumber and a rooster tail conch.

Although this is a fairly nice summary, it doesn’t do the footage any justice. You’ll have to watch the video for a better experience. :-)


UNCOMMON SEA LIFE AND FIRST TIME CAPTURE IDENTIFICATION

We primarily use two sources to validate sea life we don’t recognize. The first is Florent's Guide To TheTropical Reefs which can be found at https://reefguide.org. Its free and has lots of pictures, but is not comprehensive. The second is “The Reef Set: Reef Fish, Reef Creature and Reef Coral (3 Volumes)”. The box set can be found on Amazon; however with all our travels, we also purchased the eBooks (http://fishid.com/store/product-categ...) so we don’t have to carry an extra five pounds of paper in our luggage. :-) We also reference other sources from time to time as well.

Here are some links to more information/images about animals from this video.

Music Volute - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluta_...
Orange Ball Corallimorph - https://reefguide.org/orangeballcoral...
Yellowhead Jawfish - https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/a...
Shortnose Batfish - https://biogeodb.stri.si.edu/caribbea...
Spiny Fileclam - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_lima
Slate Pencil Urchin - https://reefguide.org/carib/slatepenc...
Roostertail Conch - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliger_...

CAMERA EQUIPMENT

Underwater Camera - iPhone 15 Pro Max
Underwater Housing - Divevolk Seatouch 4 Max
Underwater Lights - Kraken Hydra 8000 WRGBU
Camera App - Black Magic Camera App
Macro Lenses
Divevolk +8 Close-Up Lens
AOI UCL-900 +15 Close-Up Lens