True Colors Thursday... Beige

True Colors Thursday is a meme hosted by Blue and today's color is beige!

Polyps! On the left is a branch of a soft coral (I am actually not sure which one!) and on the right is the pencil coral which is a hard coral. Both of these vary in color but in this picture they both happen to be beige. On the soft coral you see a bare spot with a few slits. That is an area where the polyps are retracted at the moment. When they are all retracted this coral looks like a bumpy stick and when they are out feeding it looks sort of furry. Each one is a separate individual that is part of the colony as a whole.


Note: As always you can click to supersize and see the detail better.

This anemone is beige with little Squat Anemone Shrimp living inside who are a little more colorful! Anemones are like huge versions of an individual coral polyp. The same kind of anemone made an appearance two weeks ago with a violet colored shrimp living in it. Tons of critters make their home in anemones!










Anemones can be solitary like the last one or colonial like this carpet anemone that was found carpeting the shallow part of the wall in Navassa!











This is a slipper lobster! Have you ever seen anything more pre-historic looking? They are usually seen scuttling about the reef at night, this one was in Curacao on one of our night 'fun' (i.e. not working) dives.

Teddy is standing in for Moose who felt that beige was just not his color. The walls in my office and the floor tiles in my house in general are beige and of course any pup lying on them would be a candidate for a beige post, but only Teddy could look so adorable in beige! It is easy to get this pic of Teddy since this spot next to my desk is where he sits while I am working!

This meme is hosted by Blue, and next week's color is Scarlet.... much more dramatic than beige!