The magnificent 7

Some songs stuck in your mind at such a point that you easily remember them even if your see a number that is at their title.
Scuba diving in shallow water is one of my favorite habits. There so much light there (guys we are still in Greece) that you don’t need to use strobes to make nice pictures. Also you can see all these schools of juveniles making their first walks around the sea grasses. Small sea breams, wrasses and goatfishes are everywhere and as you have a friend with long patience or the same tastes, you can enjoy a lot scuba diving at 4 or 5 meter. Also it is a good way to be more familiar with our equipment as it harder to control your buoyancy. These schools of young goatfishes make to us excellent company at a June dive as it drove us to all the young wrasses of the area.

Now you see me, now you don't! Lessons in camouflage

The sea is a unique ecosystem hiding many suprises. You may be passing over a 2 kilo octopus or a 1m fish and not see it unless your eye is trained to make out their unique shapes from the exact same color background.
Camouflage is employed by fish, cephalopods, shells and other animals, in an attempt to protect themselves from enemies or carnivores that want to eat them.
For example, at two meters of water in front of a busy swimming area, swimmers have no idea that below them lie hiding two masters of camouflage, a juvenile Sepia officinalis and one of the few species of Scorpionfish that live in the Mediterranean.



Did you spot the cuttlefish (soupia)?

check out a new small video of the same animal playing with another baby cuttlefish just before the middle of the clip
on our you tube channel


This scorpionfish, Scorpaena porcus as the name suggests, has a potent poison on its spines, causing the biggest and strongest men or women to cry like babies for approximately three days, if they are unlucky enough to accidentally tread on one.
It is in no way aggressive and relies purely on its camouflage to get its' food, by sitting as in meditation, completely still
waiting for an unlucky fish or crabs to swim by and then opening its gills slightly, creating suction.
The poison is used purely for protection, for bigger enemies. Scorpionfish are quite hard to identify, but we know this one is Scorpaena porcus because the tentacles over its eye are longer than it is wide, and it lacks the bottom chin appendages!

Santa gifts.

Santa gifts sometimes are real extraordinary. You can find them inside your camera’s memory stick with no explanation how they exist there. This photo is this kind of gift.
It is something completely unusual because I have seen a lot of pictures with S.saurus bite so big victims to his jaws. But this is not a S.saurus it is a Trachinus radiatus which has a much smaller mouth than S.saurus. And the most impressive is that the victim is not a small Sparidae fish or a C.chromis but a juvenile of the family Rajidae!!! Most of the times that I don’t take a nice picture of an interest subject I think “next time will be better”. Unfortunately for this subject I don’t think that will be a next time. But who cares? The sure is that sea will always impress me with the strange behaviours of her habitants and if the sea wants we will be there for a lot of years inform you for all the strangeness of the Eastern Mediterranean Inhabitants.

Have a nice new year with a lot and wonderful dives!
May the next year be fairer for marine animals?

Hexaplex trunculus

Attacking a Callista chione bivalve shell.

The hatching of the eggs doesn't happen at the same time as you can see from this photo.

One common gastropod of the Mediterranean Sea is the Hexaplex trunculus or Banded Murex. This snail was very popular through the ancient times because it was used to produce purple dye. It is also used as bait for long-lines. A hunter with great success against bivalve shells (photo)but it also likes dead fishes. It is powerful enough to make holes in bivalve shells. Fishermen attract them by throwing dead fishes and crabs. Over its shell can grow weeds, asbestolithic weeds and sponges. The most impressive point in its life is its reproduction. It has separate sexes and a lot of individuals spawn over the same place making that strange group of eggs that we can find in the shallow water (photo). The first nymph stages of his life passes inside the egg and it hatches as a crawling shell. It lives in polluted areas and sometimes this results in finding female animals with male genitals.

Octopus - the magnificent 8

Everyone who visits the Greek islands is familiar with the picture of the hanging bodies of the octopus. Famous for his tasteful meat octopus is the most popular food for the summer. Fortunately the population of the octopus doesn’t seem to be endangered because of the fishing. If it lives in good conditions with plenty of food can grow up to 10kgr extremely fast. It is very famous for his skills and abilities that make it one of the most impressive marine animals and a very good hunter. During the day he hunts near his nest but on the other hand in the night makes long walks searching for food (video) It can camouflaged near the rocks and burry himself in the sand (photo) in order to do ambush his victims. Also it seems to be very clever as it can open cans and glass jars if it wants to take the containment. It has been proven that it can learn and remember tricks for a long time. Octopuses are territorial animals and usually in the area you will find individuals of the same size. Some of them are very good builders and make a well style nest using rocks over the sand. They also use rocks to block the entrance of the nest (video). When the octopus is afraid it makes a red and white coloration ring around his eyes and ejects ink (photo).

A night excursion! filmed by Michalis Adamtziloglou

An octopus trying to mime the color of the sand

Burried alive to ambuscade the enemies.

Reproduction time, one of the male tentacles has the hectocotylus which is the tentacle that carries the spermatophores. The female gametes are inside the mantle. These two animals seem to be afraid of each other.

Ejecting ink to have more time to run and hide.

A well style nest.

Octopus uses rocks to hide and block the entrance of the his nest.

After mating come the eggs some species can lay up to 500.000 eggs. The female guards the strings of eggs for about a month. She is a very caring mother!, this time however she left her nest for a little sea stroll.

Octopus is a usual issue for ancient Greek amphoras (this from the Minoan civilazation)

Octopus also can be protagonist or inspire some very funny situations

Josephine's moon-shell

1.follow the signs
2.find her

3.admire her.

-watch out for the eggs.
-photos taken at Kolimpithres beach Paros. (Don't swim there without a big buoy) at May 2009.

Baby hunter!

-First picture from Artaki and second from Daphni beach. Both places are at central-west Evia island.
-Third picture taken from a small aquarium. The cuttlefish isn't bigger than 1,5cm!!!!
-Cuttlefish are very good in ambushing for his food. For that purpose they can change rapidly their colors and bury themselves under the sand (first photo)
-They can hunt other fishes and crustaceans with similar size.
-They can grow up to 45cm.

The spiral of life!

- This spiral of eggs belongs to a species of a nudibranch.
- Most of the times they are a perfect spiral like the one on the left.
- It is very fragile and easy to be disturbed (right) so perfect your buoyancy and don't touch please(babies inside)!
-Most of the times I have seen it, it's on rock cliffs, probably for aeration