This is what I have wondered for most of my diving career. The 6th edition of Ruppert/Barnes Invertebrate Zoology textbook published in 1994 seemed to make it pretty clear: “Hermit crabs always use empty shells and never kill the original occupant.” So did the 7th edition published in 2004: “These distinctive decapods appropriate discarded snail shells for use as portable domiciles.” Then …

A Giant Moray circumnavigates Molokini Islet Almost every month brings a new underwater discovery that could be titled “Who Knew?” This summer a Giant Moray (Gymnothorax javanicus) has been sighted numerous times at the islet of Molokini. Although common farther west in the Pacific in places such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia, this eel is rare in Hawaii. So …

Any frequent Maui diver or snorkeler has witnessed innumerable green sea turtles with tumors, some as large as a baseball, and sometimes completely covering a turtle’s eyes. It’s a painful sight, even more so because these tumors are more prevalent in areas where we humans reside, and because we are most likely responsible for their suffering. Indications are that our …

As promised in my last article, there is more Atlas crab behavior to share. To recap, I had collected a few of these dead coral pieces (which I will sometimes refer to here as rocks) with their resident crabs and kept them in an aquarium for a couple days before putting them back in their neighborhood. Because they are not …

In Greek mythology, Atlas was the Titan condemned by Zeus to hold up the celestial sphere. Have you seen a kind of scruffy drag mark on top of the sand, only to find what looks like a rock or piece of coral rubble at the end of it? I’d seen these for years and every time I turned one over …

The day octopus (Octopus cyanea) is so common in Hawaii that anyone who dives here regularly has seen heaps of them over the course of their diving career. They range from mottled brown to maroon to sometimes even white. But the other day I saw one that was practically glowing with a bright cyan color on its funnel. And it …

The same day that I posted the previous article gushing over the perfection of male-constructed tilapia nests on Maui, a blog article on a Japanese pufferfish nest discovery was posted and picked up by the news media. http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2012/09/18/deep-sea-mystery-circle-love-story/ Since then it has been re-blogged and re-reported hundreds of times. The story is so popular because it appeals not only to …