Gone fishin'

[MaxBottomtime]

I was hoping you’d send more photos but you didn’t take the bait on the blue fish/nudi comment! I thought there might be a “blue is the new black” photo spree

Not quite as much blue as there is orange, but we have a few examples.

Felimare californiensis

Felimare porterae

Pycnopodia helianthoides, Sunflower star

Pisaster giganteus, Knobby sea star

Chromis punctipinnis, Blacksmith

Halichoeres Semicinctus, Rock wrasse male

Lythrypnus dalli, Blue banded goby

Lythrypnus zebra, Zebra goby

Neoclinus uniotatus, Onespot Fringehead

Sebastes mystinus, Blue Rockfish

Myxicola infundibulum, Sabellid worm

Spirobranchus spinosus, Christmas Tree Worm

Distaplia occidentalis

Janolus barbarensis

Navanax inermis

Balaenoptera musculus, Blue whale

 

[Agamemnon]

Thanks RyanT and MaxBottomtime! That makes sense about the reason for the coloration and from the photos, I can also see that we have a few more examples of the orange/blue combination again. Interesting that almost identical orange/blue evolved in the Blue Banded Goby and juvenile Garibaldi fish and a similar pattern evolved separately, and without the mate-ID reason, in several nudibranchs. Perhaps the number of animals with the orange/blue combo is insignificant in comparison to the total number of species in California but it certainly seems like there are a lot of oranges, a lot of blues and decent number of guys with both colors! I haven’t seen the orange/blue combo stand out so much in other areas but it seems to in California, so maybe there is something that makes these animals more successful (e.g. less likely to be eaten and more likely to survive to reproductive age). Mimicry maybe?

Awesome photos again and thanks so much for sharing!! Thanks also for your thoughts on this question, which has stood out to me and I’ve been thinking about for a while!
Cheers!
Alex