08/26/2026
Wildlife Photographer of the Year 62 sneak peek is out for this years Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Always love looking at everyone’s amazing work. This year 100 images were selected out of the some 65,000 images submitted… the remaining images will be announced on October 13th.
Congrats to all involved, Always an honor to be included. Also particularly happy a photo of a sea hare will hang on the walls of the London Natural History Museum for a year
This eelgrass commuter was found after I bailed on my diving plans when I got stuck in Montereys friday commute and dove a site closer.
Sea hares are fantastic creatures. Their common name coming from their resemblance to terrestrial hares (bunnies)…- something to do with their doughy physique and rounded rhinophores at the front look like ears.
For being such simple creatures, these hermaphroditic herbivores are quite fascinating. The simple foods they eat give them toxins that keep predators away and in a pinch they can ink just the same as an octopus would (which tastes extremely bad by the way). Their nervous system is comprised of only 20,000 neurons. But the axons are large. Large and simple systems turn out to be excellent for someone studying memory. Eric Kandel’s Nobel work on short/long-term memory came with assistance from sea hares. Mating takes place in “conga line” like formations where as many as two dozen can be seen in a circle or line… male in the front, female in the back… pumping out huge chains of eggs. these very interesting groups or chains (think conga lines) in mating. The front of their body is a male, the back of it a female and produce huge amounts of long egg chains. This particular species can only reach 10 inches or so but the California black sea hare can reach nearly 40 inches and weigh over 30 lbs.
Aside from being fascinating and important to science they are incredibly important in eelgrass ecosystems.
