Swimming Critters of the Caribbean
 
 
 
Sepia sp. 
Reef Squid
Squids 

Squids usually swim in schools and can change color almost instantaneously to camouflage with the background. If really scared, it may squirt a black dye cloud into the water while jetting backward out of the cloud. Reef squid are common in shallower waters and if you approach the school slowly and stop, they will stay and look at you too.

 
 
Aeotbatus narinari 
Spotted Eagle Ray
Cartilaginous Fishes 

Stingrays are really flat with their gill slits underneath their body. They have a poisonous spine on the upper surface of their tail. Colors range from gray, brownish, and olive, all with white undersides. 

Eagle Rays are brown to olive colored with white spots or rings. They have venemous spines near the base of their tail. They can get as big as 7 feet wide. 

Fintail Stingrays are smaller and have a thick, shorter tail with a poisonous spine. Their backs  have greenish or brownish lines.

 
 
Stenella longirostris 
 Long-snouted Spinner Dolphin
Dolphins

Dolphins are small, streamlined whales. Dolphins are popularly noted for grace, intelligence, playfulness, and friendliness to man. The majority of dolphins feed primarily on fish, and most of them are gregarious, appearing in groups of a few to several hundred. A
number of species are attracted by moving ships, often accompanying them or leaping alongside and sometimes riding the wave created by the moving bow.

Text source: A Field Guide to Coral Reefs, by Kaplan, 1982, Houghton Mifflin Boston and Encyclopaedia Brittanica
Photo source: Karibik, by Humann, Stoll, & Ritter, 1989, Sturtz Verlag Wurzburg
 
coral ~ fishes ~ swimming critters ~ floor critters