Christmas tree hydroid - Idroide piumato

Pennaria disticha, also known as the Christmas tree hydroid, is a species of athecate hydroid in the family Pennariidae. Colonies are common in the Mediterranean Sea growing on rocks close to the surface. This species has been used in research into prey capture. Colonies of Pennaria disticha consist of numerous much-branched stems up to 30 cm high. The branching system is alternate.

Bothus ocellatus

 Eyed Flounder (Bothus ocellatus) is a species of fish in the family Bothidae. The species is found on or near the sandy seabed in relatively shallow waters in the western Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, its range extending from Canada to southern Brazil ...

Astrospartus mediterraneus

The Basket Star (Astrospartus mediterraneus), (Risso,1826) is a echinoderm belongs to the phylum Echinodermata, to the Ophiuroidea class, Gorgonocephalidae family. The Basket Star is characterized by five tentacles, each branched several times, with which it clings to the branches of the soft corals and which are opened at night to feed on. The body has a diameter that can reach 8 centimeters, ...

Mauve Stinger - Pelagia noctiluca

Mauve stinger, Pelagia noctiluca, is a jellyfish in the family Pelagiidae and the only currently recognized species in the genus Pelagia. It is typically known in English as the mauve stinger, but other common names are purple-striped jelly (causing potential confusion with chrysaora colorata), purple stinger, purple people eater, purple jellyfish, luminous jellyfish  ...

Humpback Whales of Samaná

I went to the Samaná Peninsula, in Santo Domingo, to film the Humpback Whales in one of the world's breeding grounds for these whales. During this period, the Humpback Whales stay until the welps acquire, after the nursing period, their autonomy, but above all to protect them from the Orcas, their main predators. The province is on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in the northeastern part of ...

Special mission mediterranean Spiny lobster

It is late August and Summer is the period in which many marine organisms prepare for procreation. We have therefore decided to reach a deep Mediterranean coral reef, over 7 miles from the coast, knowing that, with a bit of luck, we will find lobsters. We chose a deep dive because at that depth it is more difficult for fishermen to lower their fishing nets and therefore to be more ...

Spotted Eagle ray

Spotted Eagle Ray, (Aetobatus narinari), is a cartilagionus fish of the eagle ray family Myliobatidae. As traditionally recognized, it is found globally in tropical regions, including the Atlantic, pacific and Indian Oceans. Spotted eagle rays are most commonly seen alone, but occasionally swim in groups. They are ovoviviparous, the female retaining the eggs then releasing the young ...

Gilt-head bream in shallow seabed

Gilt-head bream (Sparus aurata Linnaeus, 1758) is a bony sea and brackish water fish belonging to the Sparidae family. The name derives from the characteristic gold stripe that the fish shows between its eyes. Gilt-head bream is present throughout the Mediterranean basin and in the eastern Atlantic ...

Brown Mesh Sea Star

The Brown Mesh Sea Star, Nardoa galatheae, is a genus of sea stars in the family Ophidiasteridae. The Ophidiasteridae are a family of sea stars with about 30 genera. Occurring both in the Indo-Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, ophidiasterids are greatest in diversity in the Indo-Pacific. Many of the genera in this family exhibit brilliant colors and patterns ...

Scribbled Filefish

Scribbled Filefish, Aluterus scriptus, commonly known as Scrawled filefish, Broomtail filefish or Scribbled leatherjacket, is a marine fish belonging to the family Monacanthidae. This species has a circumtropical repartition, it can be found in the tropical waters from the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. ...

White Gorgonian

White Gorgonian, Eunicella verrucosa, or broad sea fan, pink sea fan, warty gorgonian, is a species of colonia Gorgonian "soft coral" in the family Gorgoniidae. It is native to the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean and the western Mediterranean Sea. Eunicella verrucosa has a densely branching, fan-like stem ...

Mediterranean coral reef

Savalia savaglia, commonly known as Gold coral, is a species colonial in the family Parazoanthidae.  This organism is commonly called "false black coral". It owes its name to its ability to produce a dark-colored horny skeleton, usually blackish. The colonies are generally settled on pre-existing gorgonians skeletons and can grow ...

Comb jelly

Comb jelly, Bolinopsis vitrea, is a species of comb jelly in the family Bolinopsidae, It is found in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea,it  was first described by the American biologist Louis Agassiz in 1860. In Florida waters, Bolinopsis vitrea is the most common ctenophore Ctenophora comprise a phylum of marine invertebrates, ...

Salp

During a decompression stop, after having carried out a scuba diving, the surface sea current carried with it numerous transparent marine organisms. They were various Ctenophores that I managed to identify. What you are seeing in the video is a salp. ...

Ascidia mentula

Ascidia mentula is a species of solitary tunicate. It is found in the north east Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea. It occurs round the coasts of Britain but is seldom seen on the east coast of England or Scotland. Ascidia mentula has a tough leathery envelope or tunic composed partly of cellulose. ...

Yellow Gorgonian Eunicella cavolinii

Yellow Gorgonian, Eunicella cavolinii, commonly known as the yellow sea whip, is a species of colonial soft coral in the family Gorgoniidae. It is native to parts of the eastern Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and Ionian Sea where it is a common species. Eunicella cavolinii is a much-branched soft coral growing to a height of about 50 cm. ...

Dorid nudibranch Felimare picta

Felimare picta is a species of colourful sea slug or dorid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusk i the family Chromodorididae. Atlantic Ocean species of Hypselodoris were all transferred to Felimare following a DNA phylogeny. Several species were formerly considered to be subspecies of Felimare picta but several have now been elevated to species rank ...

Pelagia noctiluca

The beauty of the underwater world is that the distribution of life and various species is distributed 360° along the entire water column, even if not exactly uniformly. Marine biologists divide marine life into three macro-categories based on where they live and how they move, or rather into three marine biological categories: Plankton, Nekton and Benthos ...

Blue Crab invasion

Blue Crab, Callinectes sapidus, or Atlantic blue crab, is a species of crab native to the waters of the western Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico and introduced internationally. Callinectes sapidus is of considerable culinary and economic importance in the United States, particularly in Louisiana, the Carolinas, the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware and New Jersey ...

Big mediterranean Barrel jellyfish

Big mediterranean Barrel jellyfish, Rhizostoma pulmo, commonly known as the barrel jellyfish, the dustbin-lid jellyfish or the frilly-mouthed jellyfish, is a scyphomedusa  in the family Rizostomatidae. It is found in the northeast Atlantic, and in the Mediterranean sea, Black Sea and Sea of Azov. It is also known from the southern Atlantic off ....

Picarel fish Spicara smaris

Spicara smaris, (Zerro in Italy) one of the picarels, is a species of ray-finned fish native to the eastern Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. It grows to a maximum length of about 20 cm; females are usually smaller than males. Spicara smaris was removed from the family Centracanthidae and placed ...

Cuckoo Wrasse male

Cuckoo wrasse (Labrus mixtus), belongs to the class Osteichthyes, subclass Actinopterygii, order Perciformes, suborder Percoidei, family Labridae. The cuckoo wrasse is a protogynous hermaphrodite, and females can change sex into males, a process which takes around seven months. In this short and interesting video ...

Spotted Eagle Ray

Spotted Eagle Ray, (Aetobatus narinari), is a cartilagionus fish of the eagle ray family, Myliobatidae. As traditionally recognized, it is found globally in tropical regions, including the Atlantic, pacific and Indian Oceans. Spotted eagle rays are most commonly seen alone, but occasionally swim in groups. They are ovoviviparous ...

Female Cuckoo Wrasse

Female Cuckoo Wrasse, (Labrus mixtus), belongs to the class Osteichthyes, subclass Actinopterygii, order Perciformes, suborder Percoidei, family Labridae. The cuckoo wrasse is a species of wrasse  native to the eastern Atlantic Ocean from Norway to Senegal, including the Azores and Madeira. It is also found in the Mediterranean Sea ...

Cigar jellyfish Olindias phosphorica

Olindias phosphorica, or Cigar jellyfish, is a species of hydrozoan from the central and eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. The Mediterranean sea is a predominantly warm body of water, thus Olindias phosphorica is a warm-water Jellyfish. Global warming has facilitated the proliferation of the species throughout the Mediterranean sea ...

European conger

Common conger is a bony sea fish belonging to the Congridae family. Here we see it in its lair at a depth of about 52 metres, on a muddy seabed at the base of a beautiful vertical wall, even a few meters high, of rock and coral. As we see, the wall is colonized by many Mediterranean organisms such as sponges, corals and gorgonians, ...

Bluefish

Bluefish is the "predator" in fact it feeds exclusively on other fish and cephalopods. Its favorite preys are mullets even if in this video we see it hunting in a few meters of depth, trying to capture salemas present in numerous specimens in a herd. As always, the encounter is lightning-fast and lasts only a few seconds, in fact the Serras do not let themselves. ...

Purple Jellyfish

Given today's many views on an article from a while ago: Purple Luminous Jellyfish - Pelagia noctiluca, we're publishing today's meeting with the infamous Purple Jellyfish. On other occasions we were able to get closer to the jellyfish and film it much closer. As you can see today it wasn't really the case since our jellyfish had completely outward ...

Aplysia depilans - Sea hare

We publish another encounter with the Sea hare, Aplysia depilans, this time which took place on a depth of about 42/45 meters. We are on a not very high rock wall about 4/5 miles from the coast where, due to the now increasingly present mucillage, animals and marine organisms seem to ...

Nimble spray crab - Percnon gibbesi

Percnon gibbesi is a species of crab. It is one of at least two species commonly called "Sally Lightfoot" (the other being the semi-terrestrial Grapsus grapsus from the Pacific coast of the Americas), and is also referred to as the nimble spray crab or urchin crab. It has been described as "the most invasive decapod species to enter the Mediterranean".. ...

Mauve stinger

In this video made in summer we filmed Mauve stinger or Purle jellyfish, Pelagia noctiluca luminous jellyfish. We stopped to film three specimens we met during the same swim, snorkelling in the waves, trying hard to avoid contact with these jellyfish. In fact, the Pelagia noctiluca - Luminous jellyfish - is the most dangerous jellyfish in the Mediterranean Sea, ...

Pencil urchin - Stylocidaris affinis

Pencil urchin is certainly one of the most curious and most characteristic species of Mediterranean urchins. Its common name derives from the shape of its thorns which resemble a classic pencil or "Lapis" as we say in Tuscany. However, these thorns are quite fragile as they are funny and when you meet them it is always better to be careful not to touch them to prevent them from coming off ...

Red Lionfish

Red Lionfish (Pterois volitans) is a fish venomous who live coral reef  in the family Scorpaenidae, order Scorpaeniformes. Pterois volitansis natively found in the Indo-Pacific region, but has become an invasive problem in the Carribbean Sea, as well as along the East Coast of the United States. ...

Spotted sea hare

Spotted sea hare, Aplysia dactylomela, is a species of large sea slug, a marine opisthobranch gastropod in the Aplysiidae family, the sea hares. As traditionally defined, this species of sea hare was cosmopolitan, being found in almost all tropical and warm temperate seas, including the Mediterranean Sea ...

Peacock worm

The video was made at a depth between 52 and 55 meters. The Mediterranean coral reefs are submerged oases rich in biodiversity: inside them fish, crustaceans, juveniles, sponges of various species, gorgonians of Paramuricea clavata and many marine microorganisms find refuge ...

Dorado or Mahi-mahi

Dorado or mahi-mahi, or common dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus) is a surface-dwelling ray-finned fish found in off-shore temperate, tropical and subtropical waters worldwide. Also widely called dorado (not to be confused with Salminus brasiliensis, a fresh water fish) and dolphin, it is one of two members of the family Coryphaenidae, ...