The MOST Mysterious Creatures

John Hoover and I have a book in progress on Mystery Sea Creatures. We will be sending many of John's wonderful photos,from that work, your way.


MOST Mysterious Creature #1:
My best clue to finding this sea creature is that it has gone fishing. I hope the kids have fun searching for this amazing undersea creature. I can also say that this creature is so incredible, it has a body that is kind of like a plastic bag in that it can swallow prey larger than itself.
Aloha, Ron
Congratulations to the Australian students at Riverland who have already identified this one!!!

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Most Mysterious Creature #2:

You need to be very careful when reaching your hand into crevices. A spine from
this sea creature can be a danger.
From the Deep Blue Sea, Ron
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All images in this post are copyrighted to John Hoover at http://www.hawaiisfishes.com Many thanks to John.

Mammal Mystery

Can you see the tracks? Some are dogs that came to inspect the tracks and others are made by our most abundant sea mammal. This mammal swam along the shore, walked up onto the sandy beach on all fours and scraped to make a small scent mound of sand. Its tracks show five toes. That is the best clue I can give except to also say this sea mammal is often mistaken, all along our coast, for yet another sea mammal.

I think you will be both surprised and happy to know this mammal lives in the sea. It is a mammal I know well and one that eats salmon, ling cod, crabs, star fish, sculpins, and many freshwater animals since it also swims up rivers and streams. I do believe it even swims now or at one time in the Whitewater River!

I Spy Creatures!

I talked with Tammy Yee, the illustrator of Swimming With Humuhumu, about your blog and how fun it would be to have illustrations you can explore. This one, shows a young snorkeler diving down to a coral reef.

My question is this:

How many "Sea Animals" can you find in this
illustration??? Look carefully, some
animals may not be as obvious as creatures on the land.
Aloha, Ron

Let's create a list of creatures you find. Ron tells me there are more than 12! (Click on the thumbnail of the illustration to get a larger picture.) Mrs. Newton

You have found 9 different types of sea creatures so far? Can you find the other three?
1. Red Sea Stars - Spotted Linckia
2. Blue Sea Stars - Green Linckia
3. Blue Fin Trevally - Papios
4. Reef Triggerfish - Humuhumu
5. Threadfin Butterfly Fish
6. Red Pencil Urchin
7. Milletseed Butterfly Fish
8. Snorkeler - Human
9. Coral
10. ?
11. ?
12. ?

Spiral Poetry

This new sea creature is one you might guess fairly quickly. But look at this and wonder what part of the animal this belongs to. Hold it up to the sun to see how beautifully it spirals.

The sea creature this belongs to has a sharp radula. I know some of the animals it eats, but I don't know much about the food chains leading to its mouth. Maybe you can teach me once you learn who this is...

And I wonder if you could write a poem about this sea creature.