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Colorful small marine creatures from the Lembeh Strait in Indonesia and Anilao in The Philippines, two locations in an area known as the Coral Triangle, which hosts a high diversity of marine life. The video features many species of fish, seahorses, crabs, shrimps, nudibranchs (sea slugs) and tunicates. Many of these creatures are exotic and rare. There is a subtitle track of all the scientific and common names of the marine life. It is also in the video description on YouTube.

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Sunrise on Doi Pha Hom Pok (ดอยผ้าห่มปก), Thailand's 2nd-highest mountain, followed by a pleasant descent down the National Park's nature trail.

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Climbing up and wild camping on Doi Langka Luang (ดอยลังกาหลวง), also known as Doi Mae Tho (ดอยแม่โถ) in north Thailand. This is the highest peak of the Khun Tan range, and lies near the junction of the Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Lampang provinces, at the southern tip of the Khun Chae national park. At 2031m above sea level, it is about the 8th highest mountain in Thailand.

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Climbing Doi Luang Chiang Dao (ดอยหลวงเชียงดาว), Thailand's 3rd highest mountain, with an overnight camp near the summit. My 1st attempt at a trekking vlog.

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Footage of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) from the Kingdom of Tonga in the south Pacific ocean. Humpback whales are a type of baleen whale. In the winter months this southern population of whales migrates north to Tonga, where they give birth to calves and mate. The early shots in the video are young male humpback whales. Later we see a mother and her young calf.

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Last year when I was diving at Anilao in the Philippines I got some nice footage of a couple of pairs of Nembrotha chamberlaini nudibranchs mating. The first pair was at Red Rock and the second at Twin Rocks. It was the first trip with my Panasonic GH4 camera.

Nudibranchs have barbed penises to hold them together during mating, and the footage at the end shows the effort and twisting movement required by that pair to withdraw.

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I was bored while sheltering from the rain at the Kuala Lumpur Butterfly Park and noticed ants eating some discarded gums on the ground. They're having a good old feast, and, with echoes of Augustus Gloop, some of them meet a decidedly sticky end.

If anyone knows what species these ants are, please tell me. I don't know much about ants.

I shot them with my Sony RX100 Mk1 and cheapo Opteka macro diopter and I don't think the result is too bad. Also, it's my first 60p upload on YouTube.

The music is "On the Cool Side" by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com

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It’s now possible for viewers to contribute subtitles (closed captions) to my videos. YouTube has been trialing this feature for a long time and I’m thrilled that it’s finally available to more channels like Bubble Vision.

To contribute subtitles, click the "gear" icon at the bottom right of a video, then "Subtitles/CC" then "Add subtitles or CC". Find out more on Google’s help page at https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6054623

I would love my marine life documentaries, Reef Life of the Andaman and Mucky Secrets - The Marine Creatures of the Lembeh Strait to have subtitles in more languages. Any additional languages would be most welcome. Even if you only contribute a translation of a small part of the narration or marine life names, it all helps.

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The lacy bryozoan, Triphyllozoon inornatum, was usually overlooked by divers until diver Graham Abbott noticed a tiny goby living amongst them at Ambon in Indonesia in 2013. He alerted Ned and Anna DeLoach, the underwater photographers and marine biologists, and they subsequently found the same species of goby in these bryozoans, along with other cryptic critters. That story can be read on the excellent Blenny Watcher Blog at http://blennywatcher.com/2013/05/27/a...

Since then, these bryozoans have been getting more attention, and on a trip to the Lembeh Strait in 2015 I was lucky enough to spot the same goby at the dive site Jahir. It shelters in the natural tunnels created by the bryozoan and blends in perfectly against the pale background. The goby is only about 1cm long. Ichthyologist Gerry Allen plans to study and describe this species shortly, and give it a scientific name. For the time being it has been placed in the Sueviota genus. Eye abnormalities are quite common amongst reef fishes. This particular fish had a defect to it's right eye, which was much smaller than the left one.

At Makawidey I spotted the small porcelain crab, Pachycheles garciaensis, sitting on top of a similar bryozoan. Again, it's mostly white colour helps it avoid detection.

Finally at Aer Bajo, we found a bryozoan hosting an undescribed species of snapping shrimp, Synalpheus sp.. Snapping shrimps, also known as pistol shrimps, have asymmetrical claws. The larger one can close with great speed, creating a small cavitation bubble. As the bubble collapses, a loud popping sound is emitted which stuns passing prey. Much of the crackling often heard on a reef is due to this family of shrimps.

Colonies of bryozoans are rooted to the substrate and vary greatly in form. They filter plankton with their tentacles and many, such as this one, secrete a calcerous skeleton. Because of these similarities, they are often mistaken for corals, but they actually belong to a completely different phylum. Each individual animal in a colony is rarely larger than a millimeter in size.

I shot this with a Panasonic GH4 in a Nauticam NA-GH4 housing. I used an Olympus M.Zuiko ED 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 EZ lens and 60mm f2.8 macro lens, along with a Nauticam CMC.

Thanks to dive guides Hiros and Frankie of YOS Dive Lembeh for finding these critters.

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Stiliger sp.. A new species of sea slug?

I was in the Lembeh Strait in Indonesia recently, shooting macro video of tiny skeleton shrimps on a green algae stalk, when my dive guide Mamang and I noticed a small sea slug next to them.

This is a sacoglossan, a herbivorous animal commonly known as a sap-sucking slug. It pierces the algae and sucks out the sap from the cells.

Those large, clear appendages on the back are called the cerata, or kerata, and the green ducts are branches of its digestive gland. If you look closely you can see material travelling up and down those green ducts.

It's possible this is a solar-powered slug. Some sacoglossans keep chloroplasts from the algae alive in their body, where they continue to photosynthesize the sun's energy into sugars, a phenomenon known as kleptoplasty.

On the head you can see two black primitive eye spots, and a long pair of sensory stalks known as rhinophores. It looks like it's lost part of one of them. You can even see branches of the digestive gland in the head.

At first I expected this would be a known species of sea slug, but I've been unable to find any match, and I'm now told that it's probably a new species in the Stiliger genus. There are a few other species of Stiliger that have been observed in the field but not described and named.

It wouldn't be possible for scientists to officially designate this as a new species without examining samples. The form of the radular teeth for example is important in differentiating between species, and DNA testing is becoming increasingly important.

This specimen was at the dive site Jahir at a depth of 10 metres. It was just a few millimetres long. I'd love to hear from you if you believe this is a known species.

I shot this footage at while diving with YOS Dive Lembeh - Eco Beach Resort (http://yosdivelembeh.com/). Thanks to my dive guide and critter spotter Mamang.

The video was shot by Nick Hope with a Panasonic GH4 in a Nauticam NA-GH4 housing. I used an Olympus M.Zuiko ED 60mm f2.8 macro lens and a Nauticam CMC.

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I'm delighted to announce that my 3rd DVD, Mucky Secrets - The Marine Creatures of the Lembeh Strait, is finally available at http://www.bubblevision.com/underwater-videos/Lembeh/Mucky-Secrets.htm I worked really hard to make this as good as it could be, and I'm very happy with the result. There are interactive menus and subtitle tracks of either my narration, or the names of the species and dive sites. Besides the prologue video and the main feature, I also found space to include my older 19-minute Lembeh video as a bonus feature.

This version nearly didn't happen, but I got a few requests, and there's a small ongoing market for DVDs, so I pulled my finger out and got it made.

Really pleased with the result, and I now feel like I have a little collection, rather than just a couple of DVDs.

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A pair of saddleback clownfish (Amphiprion polymnus), also known as saddleback anemonefish, tend to their eggs at the dive site Bethlehem, between Caban Island and Marcaban Island near Anilao, Batangas, the Philippines.

Clownfish eggs are laid in a roughly circular patch stuck securely to the reef next to or slightly under the host sea anemone. The female lays the eggs and the male fertilizes them afterwards.

The parents continuously aerate the eggs with their mouths and fins to keep them oxygenated and clean as they grow. Any unhealthy eggs are picked off by the parents. The smaller male clownfish tends to do more of the work while the larger female parent defends the nest and her mate.

The eggs hatch in 7 to 10 days. As they develop the eyes become relatively large compared to the body. These eggs are quite mature and the larval clownfish babies probably hatch from the nest that night.

In the film Finding Nemo, the characters were intended to be a slightly different species: ocellaris clownfish, Amphiprion ocellaris, otherwise known as clown anemonefish.

The sea anemone in this footage is a Haddon's carpet anemone, Stichodactyla haddoni.

I shot this with a Panasonic GH4 in a Nauticam NA-GH4 housing. I used an Olympus M.Zuiko ED 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 EZ lens.

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The fire urchin, Asthenosoma varium, is a dangerous sea urchin. It is characterized by a fiery coloration and by globular swellings beneath the tips of it's thousands of venomous spines. It can infict a very painful sting.

Various crustaceans form commensal relationships with the fire urchin to protect themselves from predators. Coleman shrimps, Periclimenes colemani, usual live in pairs on top of the fire urchin. The female is larger than the male. Zebra crabs, Zebrida adamsii, and urchin shrimps, Allopontonia brockii, are often found near the bottom of fire urchin. They feed on organic matter on the substrate as the sea urchin moves. This type of symbiotic relationship benefits the shrimps and crabs but not the host urchin.

Shot in Anilao, The Philippines, with my Panasonic GH4.

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Just keep swimming!

On a dive at Balanoy, otherwise known as "Secret Garden", in Anilao, The Philippines, dive guide Obet spotted a school of young saddleback clownfish, Amphiprion polymnus, in the shallows, fighting against the current.

This is the first video I have published that was shot with my new Panasonic GH4 camera in Nauticam housing. I was using the Olympus 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 ED M.Zuiko EZ lens which has a macro mode for the close-up shots.

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Following on from the series, here is my "Mucky Secrets" documentary in full. It's a nature documentary about the marine life of the Lembeh Strait at the heart of the Coral Triangle off north Sulawesi in Indonesia. The Lembeh Strait is a popular scuba diving destination, famed for its excellent "muck diving". A huge diversity of weird and wonderful marine creatures can be found on the mucky seabed, including everything from tropical fish to benthic sharks to nudibranchs. Critters compete for survival with an armoury including camouflage, mimicry, toxicity, and dazzling coloration. "Mucky Secrets" is an excellent resource for scuba divers, aquarists, marine biology students and anybody interested in the underwater world. The documentary features underwater macro footage from many of Lembeh's famous dive sites including Critter Hunt, Police Pier, Tanjung Kusu-Kusu, Nudi Falls, Aer Perang, Jahir, Makawide, Nudi Retreat, Retak Larry, TK (Teluk Kembahu), Hairball and Aw Shucks. Marine life featured in the film: 0:00:00 Introduction 0:05:11 Corals 0:05:57 Tunicates - sea squirts - ascidians 0:06:37 Symbiosis - sea anemones - anemonefish (clownfish) CRUSTACEANS 0:07:29 Commensal shrimps (partner shrimps) 0:09:12 Emperor shrimp 0:11:07 Mantis shrimps 0:12:34 Squat lobsters 0:13:27 Hermit crabs 0:14:26 True crabs 0:15:55 Sea Urchins ELASMOBRANCHS 0:17:11 Blue spotted stingrays 0:18:15 Brownbanded bamboo shark EELS 0:18:59 Snake eels 0:20:27 Moray eels 0:21:34 Ribbon eels REEF FISHES 0:22:33 Cardinalfishes 0:24:43 Trumpetfish 0:25:58 Seahorses 0:27:06 Pygmy seahorse 0:28:30 Pipefishes 0:30:38 Ghost pipefishes 0:33:22 Shrimpfishes - razorfishes 0:33:58 Seamoths - short dragonfish 0:35:03 Oriental flying gurnard 0:35:58 Blennies 0:36:49 Gobies 0:37:46 Sea pen 0:38:17 Dragonets 0:40:49 Mandarinfish 0:42:08 Frogfishes 0:46:39 Juvenile fishes 0:47:12 Spotted parrotfish 0:48:20 Sweetlips 0:49:05 Yellowblotch razorfish 0:49:37 Filefishes 0:50:24 Boxfishes - cowfishes 0:50:57 Puffers (pufferfish) 0:52:21 Sharpnose puffers (tobies) 0:52:50 Porcupinefishes 0:53:45 Panther grouper 0:54:10 Whitemargin stargazer 0:54:54 Leopard flounder 0:55:25 Flatheads 0:56:36 Scorpionfishes 0:57:27 Ambon Scorpionfish 0:58:04 Rhinopias 0:59:50 Lionfishes 1:02:29 Demon stinger (spiny devilfish, bearded ghoul) 1:03:17 Fireworm 1:03:45 Waspfishes MOLLUSCS CEPHALOPODS 1:05:48 Cuttlefishes 1:08:38 Octopuses 1:11:34 Flame scallop GASTROPODS 1:12:03 Sea snails 1:14:37 Sea slugs - nudibranchs 1:21:49 Sea slugs feeding 1:23:57 Nudibranchs mating 1:26:11 Sap-sucking slug 1:26:59 Headshield slugs 1:27:49 Sea hares 1:30:21 Polyclad flatworm 1:31:18 End credits

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Part 20, the final part of my documentary, "Mucky Secrets", about the fascinating marine creatures of the Lembeh Strait in Indonesia. The sap-sucking slug (Sacoglossa, sacoglossan) Elysia sp. is not a nudibranch. It does not have gills as such but breathes through two leafy flaps called parapodia that run most of the length of its body. The rhinophores on its head have a semi-tubular form. It feeds by sucking the fluid from green algae, and the chloroplasts it contains give the body a bright green colour which fades if the slug goes short of food. Behind the rhinophores it has tiny photo-receptors for eyes. The white spots are raised glands that can secrete a repellent white substance. Headshield slugs (family Aglajidae, superfamily Philinoidea, clade Cephalaspidea) lack tentacles and most retain a small thin internal shell. They also have parapodia, which are wrapped up and around the body. Many excrete mucous to help them burrow into the substrate, and the headshield prevents sand entering the mantle cavity. The Gardiner's headshield slug (Philinopsis gardineri) feeds on polychaete worms. And the pleasant headshield slug (Chelidonura amoena) feeds exclusively on acoel flatworms that infest hard corals and sponges. Small, dark eyespots on the front of its head give it very primitive vision. Like the striated frogfish, the ragged sea hare (Bursatella leachii) is camouflaged with long papillae that help it disappear on a seabed strewn with algae. Sea hares (family Aplysiidae, superfamily Aplysioidea, clade Aplysiomorpha) get their name from the overall body shape and the long pair of rhinophores on the head, which are tubular, and give it an acute sense of smell. It also has a second pair of tentacles at the sides of the mouth and it gobbles up the thin layer of cyanobacteria that coats the seabed. Below the rhinophores it has a pair of tiny eyes. If it is disturbed it can release a noxious mixture of white opaline and purple ink. Recent research has shown that this sticks to the antennae of predators such as lobsters and dulls their senses. The bright blue eyespots covering the body are more vivid here than in populations in other parts of the world. Ragged sea hares and the similar but smaller long-tailed sea hare (Stylocheilus longicauda) sometimes form huge swarming aggregations comprising hundreds or even thousands of individuals of varying size. They tumble over each other, devouring cyanobacteria and defecating as they stampede across the sea floor. In an aggregation they are an easy target for predators. Pufferfishes and predatory sea slugs have been seen to pick them off one by one. They breed quickly and have even been sold into the aquarium trade as "sea bunnies" for eating unwanted algae and providing food for other tank inhabitants with their larvae. It is said that inhabitants of some of the Cook Islands and Austral Islands collect and eat swarms of these sea hares, discarding the toxic internal organs. It is a mystery why sea hares aggregate like this. They have been observed to all mate, spawn and die at the same time. Although they resemble sea slugs, polyclad flatworms (Polycladida) are quite different. The ruffled periphery of the glorious flatworm, Pseudobiceros gloriosus, forms a pair of pseudotentacles reminiscent of nudibranchs' rhinophores. Occasionally flatworms leave the seabed to swim and when they do, they are a spectacular sight.

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Part 19 of my documentary, "Mucky Secrets", about the fascinating marine creatures of the Lembeh Strait in Indonesia. In this video we study how sea slugs (including nudibranchs) feed and mate. All known nudibranchs are carnivores. The biggest family of nudibranchs, the chromodoridids, feed exclusively on sponges. Most sea slugs have a ribbon-like tongue covered in microscopic teeth called a radula to help them consume their prey. The form of the radula varies greatly and is important as a basis for taxonomic classification. We see a pleurobranch, Pleurobranchus forskalii, a different type of sea slug, feeding on an ascidian, or "sea squirt", a type of tunicate. Nembrotha nudibranchs also feed on ascidians. We see a Nembrotha lineolata feeding on a blue club tunicate. The ascidian feeds by filtering plankton from the water with its delicate, blue, sieve-like interior enclosed in a clear outer sac, its tunic. The sea slug everts its proboscis, its oral tube, out of its mouth and, with ruthless efficiency, sucks this fleshy interior right through the tunic. The radula teeth enable the slug to deal with the tougher parts of the sea squirt's intestines. Most sea slugs are quite specific in their choice of food, and so they are often drawn towards the same place. This increases the chances of encountering others of the same species and finding a mate. As they have no vision, nudibranchs locate each other initially through smell then touch. During copulation, they line up their genitals which are on the right side of their body. All sea slugs are hermaphrodites and contain both male and female reproductive systems. During mating, each nudibranch receives sperm from the other. We see a pair of Nembrotha purpureolineata nudibranchs mating. The penis, which is off to the side, is covered in tiny, sharp barbs which lock it into the vagina, which is at the centre of the stalk. The male organs often mature before the female ones. Small nudibranchs with an immature female reproductive system can store the sperm they receive until they start producing fertile eggs. We also encounter a mating pair of Hypselodoris bullocki nudibranchs. Their genitals are also covered in tiny spines that anchor them together during copulation. After fertilisation, a mucus-bound ribbon of eggs is laid in a spiral, often on or near the species' food source. Most egg masses are toxic to predators and are abandoned by the parent. Hypselodorid nudibranchs often follow each other around, top to tail. The reason for this 'trailing', or "tailgating" behaviour is a mystery. It's thought to be a prelude to mating, but in some cases the trailing slug might simply be getting an easy ride in the search for food.