National Geographic: Jewels of the Caribbean Sea Page #4

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Many bear propeller scars

and many die of their wounds.

When manatees are not feeding,

they are often sleeping.

Despite the camera,

this one is just dropping off.

There he's fast asleep,

oblivious to the tide of change

sweeping away his world.

The manatee's fate,

and that of dozens of other species,

depends largely on strangers

who pass this way briefly

and travel in splendid isolation.

Few of these travelers are aware of

their fatal impact on the wonders

all about them, great and small.

The reef at night.

Many fish sleep. This redtail

parrotfish slumbers with eyes open,

lying on her side on the coral.

As a prelude to mating,

a spiny lobster male gently caresses

the carapace of a female.

Lobster larvae, when they are born,

look like spun glass.

The spiny lobster female helps

her tiny larvae into the world.

She agitates her tail to help

move them out into the current.

By the thousands the tiny larvae

drift past their mother's eye,

never to be seen by her again.

Larvae, eggs, plankton, and tiny fish

all drift out from the reef,

a dazzling assortment of creatures

cast with seeming carelessness

onto the sea wind.

This is a venomous sea wasp. Its

stinging tentacles find larval fish,

which are quickly anesthetized

and consumed.

Reef squid lie in wait for

passing fish and crustaceans.

And out of the darkness

a giant manta ray joins the feast.

The manta loops to stay in the area

most dense with plankton.

It's maneuver as graceful as

it is efficient.

The arms on either side of her face

are cephalic lobes

that channel plankton into

a foot-wide mouth.

Her wings span six feet and

she weights several hundred pounds.

All night the eerie feast of

plankton will go on.

Out on the prairie a pearlfish

stands on its head,

mimicking the surrounding

turtle grass.

Camouflage makes it almost invisible.

This unappealing animal

is a sea cucumber.

It consumes sediments,

which are filtered internally for

digestible bits of organic matter.

It is also home for the pearlfish.

when in danger, the pearlfish

Locates the rear end of the sea

cucumber with its nose.

Then it inserts its sharply

tapered tail and slips back into

the cucumber's anus to reach

a safe hiding place in the intestine.

The pearlfish obviously benefits.

But what's in it for the sea cucumber,

if anything, is not known.

Comes a sultry Caribbean dawn,

and the placid sea gives no hint

Of the night's events.

A baby loggerhead turtle emerges from

the sand to greet its first day.

It begins a life that could last more

than 60 years,

or just a few minutes.

Turtles produce abundant young,

but only a few will survive

to carry on their species.

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