They say of marine life that if you can’t eat it or it’s got no practical use then it will never get anything other than a scientific name. Well I have a third reason, being spiked by a sea urchin and needing something pronounceable to swear at! The long-spine urchin, Centrostephanus tenuispinus, is actually quite […]
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It might 12 degrees in the water but winter diving in South Australia is worth a little chilly inconvenience. Today we headed out to the wreck of ‘The South Australian’, a.k.a ‘The Dredge’ and pretty much had the wreck all to ourselves. Visibility was very good at 10 meters, as it often is in winter, […]
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The way this teddybear star (Anthenea australiae) has latched onto that bed of mussels has a kind of possession quality. It’s as if she’s saying ‘Hands off,… My mussels!’ No sooner had I uttered that phrase and I was whisked away into a Sydney dentists office and to his the characters in his marine aquarium. […]
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Such a strange name for a strange creature; Goniocidaris tubaria. Actually this odd looking ball of spikey arms is one of our local sea urchins. There really is nothing typical about the appearance of a sea urchin. They all have a hard body called a ‘last’ but the ‘last’ is an internal structure and not […]
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