It might be the last chance for a few days so I dropped into the shallows at Ricketts today for an hour. I was only picking around the edges of the reef and the deepest it got was about 30cm. I went nearer the southern end, where the car park nearly ends. The reef there is a bit muddier on the top. This time of year, it grades through beds of sargassum and sea grass. There’s quite a bit of intermitten bare rock, some small patches of octocoral (pictured below, feeding) and Caulerpa. This diversity makes it a bit different to elsewhere in the park. The best thing, which was new to me altogether, was a Fat-handed Shrimp at Ricketts Point.
Fat-handed Shrimp doesn’t appear to be seen often here. It was quite a charming little critter. They are in the snapping shrimp family, able to create cavitation with their claws to stun prey. This one appears to have eggs. There were some sea slugs around too including a pink nudibranch and a bubble-shelled Oxynoe sapsucker. Though not in the numbers elsewhere, owing to the absence of large amounts of Caulerpa.
A Bearded Crab was also a nice find and it sat around for a while so I could photograph its white claws. I’ve no idea where the face is! A tiny sea urchin was something I’ve only started to see recently. I wonder if some of the sea urchin culling has created an opportunity for these. It wouldn’t surprise me. When you remove the larger, older animals, it’s possible. Even at this age, they actively find shells to cover themselves with for protection.
