Frogfish are among my favorite sea creatures. Their bodies are fairly amorphous, their camouflage strongly resembling hard coral or sponges, they are very territorial and seldom move, and when they do move it’s generally by “walking” on their pectoral fins. All this makes them both difficult to spot, and then difficult to perceive as vertebrates. They hunt by ambush, waiting for something small enough to swallow (which could be very nearly as large as they are since their mouths can open to epic proportions). When their prey comes close, they quickly open their jaws, instantly sucking in the prey in the slipstream of water. Some frogfish even dangle and move a lure near their mouths to attract prey (these subspecies are sometimes referred to as “anglerfish”). To paraphrase Peter Pak’s remark on my posting of ornate ghost pipefish photos (
http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-...-5-images.html) even with my description he had difficulty finding the head and eyes. The key to comprehending the frogfish is to find its eye and mouth. I’ve made it easy for you with the fist one since it has its mouths open. The first is a clown frogfish, and it’s 15 centimeters long. Its mouth is at about 5:00 o’clock directly below what looks like a nose. The eye is to the left of the “nose”. The next one is a yellow giant frogfish which is about 40 cm long. Its mouth is closed and at about 3:00 o’clock, with the eye to the left of that. The next two are images of another giant frogfish, one from the side and one from head-on. The mouth is open, so you should have little difficulty with them. The last is a black clown frogfish, and this one is tough. Look for where the three light colored lines converge near 12:00 o’clock and you’ll have the eye. The mouth is left of that. I’ve also included an image of the camera kit I used for all my underwater photos on this trip.