Transformers in the Sea

Yesterday we took out “Pygmy” (our white Fiber Speedboat) for a Seatrial after completely cleaning the Hull and maintaining the 85 Yamaha Engine. So i packed 3 Guides (Johan, Joni and Stenly) on the boat and we cruised with high speed to a survey dive to Magic Crack – a place we haven’t dived for a while. We decended down to the Rubble Area and Zick-Zack screened the dive site. Besides several cool Nudibranchs, a orange Frogfish, a Mushroom Coral Pipefish, Xenia Coral Shrimps, a Mantis Shrimp with eggs and various other stuff we also found this weird looking thing: My First thought was, that it is an underwater Scorpion – because the front part of it just looks like a scorpion. My second thought was: Hey no, it is a Transformer! Anyway: i had never seen this particular shrimp before and it took me some time in our marine life library to figure out, that this is a Microprosthema scabricaudatum (if i would have named it, i would have put something with scorpions and transformers, but somebody else was faster). It is a member of the Boxer Shrimp family and it was about 2-3 cm long. And no: it did not transform into a robot – but we will go back to see if it does maybe next time 😉