Juvenile yellow box fish???
- Thread starter Zippsy
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Sully3
Contributor
Its a sponge filefish. they don't get much bigger than that
designbysue
Contributor
That is so cute - and amazing that you found it!
OP
I was sort of impressed myself. 
The photo was taken by a great dive buddy and photographer, Lani Timbrell. I just stole it from her for ID purposes.
Actually, Tasi Tolu is a perfect dive site for finding little critters like this. The main part of the site is about half the size of a basketball court and it has only two pieces of coral bigger than a basketball. Despite that, on 8 dives there, I have seen a paddleflap scorpionfish (Rhinopias eschmeyeri), 2 different weedy scorpionfish (Rhinopias frondosa), a leaf scorpionfish (Taenianotus triacanthus), lots of adult and 3-5 cm baby common scorpion fishes, several thorny seahorses (white & yellow), Halimeda ghost pipefish, ornate ghost pipefish (including juveniles, bamboo shark, frogfish, dozens of Ambon shrimps of all sizes, as well as lots of shrimp gobies of different colors, anemone shrimp, porcelain crabs, banded coral shrimp, several species of nudibranchs, a school of razor fish, a Napolean snake eel, a flathead, cuttlefish, a reef octopus imitating a crab on a night dive and dugongs!
Just look closely and you are bound to find cool stuff. Admittedly, the dugongs don't hide well.
The photo was taken by a great dive buddy and photographer, Lani Timbrell. I just stole it from her for ID purposes.Actually, Tasi Tolu is a perfect dive site for finding little critters like this. The main part of the site is about half the size of a basketball court and it has only two pieces of coral bigger than a basketball. Despite that, on 8 dives there, I have seen a paddleflap scorpionfish (Rhinopias eschmeyeri), 2 different weedy scorpionfish (Rhinopias frondosa), a leaf scorpionfish (Taenianotus triacanthus), lots of adult and 3-5 cm baby common scorpion fishes, several thorny seahorses (white & yellow), Halimeda ghost pipefish, ornate ghost pipefish (including juveniles, bamboo shark, frogfish, dozens of Ambon shrimps of all sizes, as well as lots of shrimp gobies of different colors, anemone shrimp, porcelain crabs, banded coral shrimp, several species of nudibranchs, a school of razor fish, a Napolean snake eel, a flathead, cuttlefish, a reef octopus imitating a crab on a night dive and dugongs!
Just look closely and you are bound to find cool stuff. Admittedly, the dugongs don't hide well.
designbysue
Contributor
Sounds great - but a long way away. Wish it could be moved to Florida!
Master of understatement!
A friend of mine spent a full year searching for dugongs off the Northern and Easter Australian cost in 1979. Trust me, they hid pretty well over there. It took him six months to find the first one. This was a research project. He has an incredible presentation. I'll post if anyone is interested.
designbysue
Contributor
Wow - it's not like dugongs are as small as sponge filefish
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