This strange beast, hard to see against the mucky background, was so difficult to see that I'd lose visual contact with it by the time I snorkeled to the bottom to try to get a picture. I finally squeezed off a couple of frames and was excited about seeing such a weird creature that, in a habitat few people ever explore much (although right off a resort's dock) and being so incredibly cryptic, surely must be a new species. My hopes were shattered, however, by another biologist who told me that his reaction was pretty much the same until he contacted one of his mentors and was told that it was a sea moth (family Pegasidae), long since described and added to the list of known species. Still, with its infinitely strange morphology, this little creature remains one of the definite highlights of my 'weird critter' encounters, and is possibly the weirdest non-human critter that I've yet seen underwater. (Jais Aben Resort dock, Madang)
On my last diving day of my second Kimbe Bay trip I went out on a Walindi boat with a couple of their guests, two Walindi divemasters, and one of their best boatmen (who was also our skipper when I was based at Mahonia na Dari Research and Conservation Centre) — I had a great time and, though I still took notes when I saw barracuda, it's as close as I'd come in years to having what felt like truly 'recreational' dives. While the others were finishing lunch on the shore of a beautiful island, I went off to maximize my last day's water quota by snorkeling in the shallows and stumbled across what looked like a dead seahorse flopping about over sand and rubble. The mild surge right near the shore, over this sand bottom, stirred the water up considerably, but not so much that I couldn't see that the fish was, in fact, quite alive. As far as I remember, the only other seahorse that I'd seen in the wild was one that I found while snorkeling in New Zealand, as a kid, over very shallow seagrass. This black one was massive in comparison and the odds are good that I wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't been so conspicuously contrasted against the white sand — perhaps it was even 'playing possum' because it knew how conspicuous it was. (Restorf Island, Kimbe Bay)