Under a centimeter of transparent shrimp living on a single strand of wire coral, colored like the strand and lined up along it. It is one of the animals that macro photographers hunt whole dives for and that nobody else has ever seen.
A coral whip is a strange address: a bare vertical line in open water with no cover at all. What it offers is a food supply - the polyps trap particles from the current - and the fact that almost nothing else lives there, so competition is nil. The price is total exposure, paid for with transparency and with a body aligned to the one straight line available.
Several animals here take the same job: this shrimp, the whip coral goby, and a squat lobster or two, each on its own strand.
A whip that looks bare almost never is. Run a torch slowly along one and check the shadow side - anything that changes the outline of the strand is an animal.
- tiny transparent shrimp, under a centimeter, on a single coral whip
- body color taken from the host - red, yellow or brown
- aligned along the whip rather than across it
- length up to 1 cm
