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Peter Stubley | all galleries >> Underwater >> Belize 2013 > Wire coral shrimp.
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01-AUG-2013

Wire coral shrimp.

A very small shrimp. They live on wire coral (hence the very original name). To give you some idea of scale, the wire coral's diameter is about half your little finger's.

These guys are hard to spot, partly because of their size but also because their colour matches that of the wire coral. Which doesn't show in this shot. In one of those "physics is cool" effects, the strobe light affects the two things differently. Without the strobe, they both look the same green. The strobe brings out the hidden red in the wire coral, while the shrimp is just green. Since predators don't carry big cameras and strobes, the red in the wire coral does not reflect any light (the red light from the sun is absorbed by the water after about 3m/10' of depth) and thus does not usually show.

Nikon D700
1/250s f/22.0 at 60.0mm iso400 full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto
Guest 18-Aug-2013 18:13
Super image under difficult conditions..v
Stephanie18-Aug-2013 13:45
Simply amazing capture and description!
eleanorv18-Aug-2013 00:24
Very Dynamic. Interesting about light and colour.
Sam Rua17-Aug-2013 05:03
I've never heard of wire coral. Cool coral and shrimp. Nice find and capture, Peter.
J. Scott Coile16-Aug-2013 17:44
Impressive isolation on the black void.
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