Here's another photo of a two-spotted octopus. He's waving a couple arms in the lower part, trying to distract me, and getting ready to jet away to the right. Which is what happened next. Octopi really hate being the center of attention.

When I spotted this 2-spotted octopus near the Mesa in Santa Barbara it was in the open so I swam over to get a photo. I must have looked like a hungry sea lion & it wanted nothing to do with me. It swam into an old concrete pipe to hide so I waited just out of sight & curiosity go the better of it.

A Green Abalone sandwiched between a medium-sized Gray Moon Sponge & a sea star has some algae growing on it's shell. It looks like the Abalone can reach up and eat some of that algae when it gets long enough. Abalone, a moveable feast.

New research into the impact of humans on the oceans is, possibly, the biggest threat the oceans are facing. Australia has had toxic algal blooms (HABs) for 8 months straight and it's getting worse. Fires, sewage, and farming are major components of darkwaves. phys.org/news/2026-01...

This photo is of a Staghorn Bryozoan and it's got dozens of hydrozoans growing out of it. Normally sea slugs like the Spanish Shawl would have eaten the hydroids so I think the Bryozoan may repel the slugs giving hydroids a safe space.

New research into the impact of humans on the oceans is, possibly, the biggest threat the oceans are facing. Australia has had toxic algal blooms (HABs) for 8 months straight and it's getting worse. Fires, sewage, and farming are major components of darkwaves. phys.org/news/2026-01...

It's another Hair Frost morning next to the Skagit River in Washington State.

Next to the giant-spined sea star is a nudibranch known as Hermassinda crassicornis. It eats tunicates, hydroids, and other sea slug. There are some common names for it like the "opalescent nudibranch, but they aren't much help in the ID since the "Fighting Phidiana" nudibranch looks very similar.

The 2-spot octopus in California. This one looks like it's feeding on a top snail at the operculum while fending me off with it at the same time. If they lived longer, then they would rule the seas, but a couple of years isn't long enough for that.

Article in Science "The Arctic’s ‘last ice area’ is showing signs of weakness". www.science.org/content/arti... "Mission to Canada’s Queen Elizabeth Islands reveals degradation of a sea ice haven" Area was once thought to be a possible sea ice refuge for polar bears isn't going to have sea ice.

The Nation has an article "How Elon Musk Turned Grok Into a Pedo Chatbot" www.thenation.com/article/soci... I had been thinking of doing something similar (exposing Mush, errr I mean Musk) but I really didn't want to see him anyway. But somebody should put Musk, Rupert Murdoch, & Trump together.

Today's photo is of a pair of sea hares mating. These are large sea slugs, I once found one that weighed 10 lbs!, and they engage in reciprocal mating where both sexes are active at the same time. Right next to them on the right is a large gray moon sponge. The egg masses get laid nearby.

"In most human populations, lactase activity decreases during mid-childhood (about five years of age), resulting in low levels from that age onwards." Lactase is the enzyme that digests milk sugar so the question of raw milk vs. pasteurized milk is moot. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Another Rock Scallop with prominent eyes. This is a young rock scallop, probably not two years old. With some feather duster worms and a purple urchin. Lots of competition for suspension feeders.

Hey Oil Company Executives! How about this; buy into Trump's totalitarianism by going into Venezuela and I will drive by your station for your competitor's gas and never will I buy any of your products again! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Repost if you agree: The Senate should vote TODAY to extend the ACA tax credits. The House already passed a bill with a three-year extension that would bring down premiums for MILLIONS of Americans. Now it’s up to the Senate. Leader Thune: Let the Senate vote ASAP.

This is Utricina piscivora, the fish eating anemone. It's big too, at least 12" across After a small fire near Refugio CA this anemone was the only large invertebrate left at a site that had been stable for more than 3 decades. Mud covered up all the surfaces and killed off most of the benthic life

More fuel to the fire: Hundreds of iceberg earthquakes detected at the crumbling end of Antarctica’s Doomsday Glacier theconversation.com/hundreds-of-... The Thwaites Glacier can raise sea levels 3M showing signs of collapse. I won't miss parts of the South, but still.

That's a Mexichromis nudibranch. Mexichromis porterae appeared for a couple of years near Santa Barbara during El Niño years when warm water stuck around. They could be found further north up to Monterey but they weren't common.

A pair of Hooded Mergansers (razor-billed ducks) swim away from the photographer on the Sammammish River near Redmond on a rainy day. A lot like today.

So to be clear, with our gov't abandoning our future, we must take up the fight ourselves. Changing our behavior so that dumping less carbon into the seas may help our coastal waterways to become refuges for life instead of dead zones.

Another way to get CO2 out of the oceans, on a local scale, would be to grow seaweeds and take it out of the water for products. Seaweeds are great sources of trace elements for people, animals, and farming. Much better than biosolids fro sewage. Or sink it in deep water as some have suggested.

Looking up sources of CO2 into the seas other than fuel emissions which are going up due to our corrupt gov't Bing lists "These include... decomposition of organic matter". There are ways to easily prevent some of this CO2 from entering the oceans by changing behavior.

I posted this as my dog, a rescue, used to eat sticks frequently primarily because she wasn't fed properly before I got her. So I steered her into playing with kelp instead. But the posts on seaweed are because there are direct & indirect ways to reduce CO2 getting into the oceans. More to follow.

I always liked the eyes of this Ling Cod. It's sitting on a reef near Coal Oil Pt. along with a few purple urchins and some seaweed called Plocamium. Plocamium supports juvenile sea hares who settle out of the water as planktonic larvae then metamorphose from veligers to sea slugs.

That's my dog with a piece of Bull Kelp stipe in her mouth, not a cigar. Today's not a great day so I won't say much of anything.

The Guardian reported of 50 wanna-be storm troopers/Nazi supporters stormed into a store in Bavaria today. They caused a little damage but they ran out when chased by a woman with a broom. On the way out they bleated new threats.

That's my dog with a piece of Bull Kelp stipe in her mouth, not a cigar. Today's not a great day so I won't say much of anything.

I always liked the eyes of this Ling Cod. It's sitting on a reef near Coal Oil Pt. along with a few purple urchins and some seaweed called Plocamium. Plocamium supports juvenile sea hares who settle out of the water as planktonic larvae then metamorphose from veligers to sea slugs.

Here's another view of the tube anemone Pachycerianthus fimbriatus, looking down the tube. Tube Anemones are preyed upon by nudibranchs, Dendronotus iris. The nudibranchs climb up the tube and take a bite out of the tentacles. Plus, Dendronotus iris lays its eggs on the tube as well.

This is a close up of a Fried-egg jellyfish (Phacellophora camtschatica) with 2 parasitic barnacles growing out of the bell. The parasites are almost translucent like the jellyfish as open ocean & deep water species have evolved to have a lower mass, reduced tissues, and a lower metabolism.

A pair of Sheep Crabs mating. The male is larger than the female in these crabs and they fight for territory when the season rolls around. The claws on some of them are bigger than my hand and I wonder about their eyesight since I'm many times larger but they don't seem to care.

Here's a 2nd photo of the shallow waters at Coal Oil Pt. with sea grass, feather boa kelp, and top smelt searching for zooplankton as waves roll over the shallow waters. Once watched a small group of zooplankton & smelt where they judged my presence as threatening to the smelt & safety for them.

Orcas No. 2 & 4. No. 4 is on the left. That's the design I decided to stick with but all cutting is done by hand.

Here's a page from my forthcoming coloring book and this is a Sunstar, aka Pycnopodia. Sunstars have become scarce on the West Coast after a sea star pandemic wiped out most sea stars and caused massive changes to the intertidal areas.

Shallow water photo off of Coal Oil Point with sand, surf grass, and feather boa kelp on the right. Surf grass is a flowering plant that returned to the sea and it's not seaweed, but it does make for great viewing above a field of sea grass and all the organisms making their way thru it.

Photo of an encrusting sponge with feather duster worms, stag horn bryozoans, and hydroids all around. Sort of how I feel this morning I guess. No fireworks near me last night but a tree fell nearby. That's always exciting...

Tube anemones in natural light shot at 13 M depth. These anemones are fast, press the button on the camera to focus and they're down the tubes before you're finished leaving you with some funny looking tubes but no tentacles.

Phone photo of a few items. The buttons are 1" and all but the pendant on the lower right are made from red abalone. That one is from a pink abalone shell that hasn't been polished. The red abalone has been cut as flat as I was comfortable with. Colors are washed out in this photo which is low res.

Another Sunstar with a small fish above it. Commercial Urchin Divers in California used to say they killed these off whenever they could, only thing is the Sunstar preys on purple urchins far more than the red urchins favored for Uni. California has let every fishery get to be overfished.

This rock crab has coralline algae & barnacles growing on it so perhaps it's reached its last molt. A clean surface in the ocean gets bacteria on it & that facilitates the settlement of lots of other species. Settlement & metamorphosis, a cascade of events that is regulated by environmental cues.

Three predatory cephalaspideans encounter each other and they aren't trying to swallow each other so it must be a mating party. Navanax inermis is their genus/species name and they're not nudibranchs but opisthobranchs. And they will often eat each other if they're in the mood.

A young spiny lobster emerges from its burrow to investigate the noise outside its den. When lobster are small like this one, under 6 yrs old, they're pretty curious. I liked to hang onto to their antenna for a moment so they learn that divers aren't friends. They learn quickly.

A Rock Scallop, Hinnites giganteus, on the upper left. These scallops attached themselves to the substrate. We used to pry them off the rock & they're a little tougher than bay scallops but not enough to really notice. My last two decades of diving I left them alone. Only halibut need worry.

Don't stay indoors today unless the weather is bad, get out of your hole! A Rockpool Blenny wishes you a Merry Christmas!

Here's a Spanish Shawl Nudibranch that's wrapped itself around some hydroids and it's consuming them. Happy Holidays!

Today's post is of some of the shallow water gas seeps at Coal Oil Point, near Santa Barbara CA. In the 1950s natural gas was used by dentists as an anesthetic. Sometimes the whole community of Isla Vista & UCSB seemed high on the stuff, and the oily smell permeated the whole area.

Science Magazine recently published an article on PFOACs and fish consumption: Risks of PFOACs substance exposure through marine fish consumption www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... The PFOAC levels from farmed fish aren't specifically addressed. Trophic levers are important, cod & herring high conc.

Today's post is of a Cabezon guarding his eggs. The egg mass is next to his jaw on the rocks in red. I bet he sees a big eye in the camera lens and if it gets any closer he's gonna nip it.

This morning's post is a Monterey Dorid Nudibranch after it laid egg collars on a reef near Coal Oil Pt. Just above the nudibranch is a sea urchin test that looks like the former occupant was eaten.