The tomato jellyfish, a food source for the leatherback sea turtles around the Kei Islands. These jellyfish are normally found in deep cold water during the day, only rising to the surface at night, but we found a few areas where large groups of jellyfish started ascending a few hours before sunset! Though there were no leatherbacks around, these stingy critters still make fun photography subjects 🪼

A swim-by from a chonky pacific leatherback turtle. This individual looks like it’s unfortunately sustained an injury on its front fin, likely due to a propeller strike. 

This prehistoric species can reach up to 8 ft in length, weighing up to 2000 pounds! Leatherbacks are my favorite turtle, and it’s such a treat to finally get the chance to spend time in the water with these awesome creatures 😻

#leatherback #leatherbackturtle #leatherbackturtles #seaturtles #turtle #nauticam #uwphotography

A peacock mantis shrimp guarding her eggs. These females hold onto their eggs until they hatch, and she does not eat while she’s caring for her eggs. It takes on average 40 days for the eggs to hatch!

#peacockmantis #mantisshrimp #macrophotography #tulamben #bali #nauticam #nikon

Always one of my favorite cuties to encounter, the leaf slug! I love their lil faces and how many color variations there are 🥰🥹

#macrophotography #leafslug #leafsheep #seaslug #tulamben #balidiving #nauticam

Big dancing pancakes at night in the Maldives 🥞💃🏻

Fun fact: in some Northern Gannets who survived avian influenza, an interesting side effect is that one or both of their irises change color from blue to black! Thankfully, this color change does not seem to affect their vision. 
Swipe right for a closer look with a side-by-side comparison of a gannet with normal eye coloring next to one with black irises 👀

Not so fun fact: the avian flu was devastating to seabird species - in some breeding colonies, over 50% of the population is estimated to have died. The road to recovery will be long at an unprecedented scale, especially given that seabirds are already threatened by other pressures such as overfishing, climate change, and habitat loss.

#shetland #gannet #northerngannet #gannets #seabirds #avianflu #avianinfluenza #birdflu

A sea butterfly carrying eggs, found on a blackwater dive off of Tulamben, Bali

#macrophotography #macrophoto #blackwater #blackwaterdiving #tulamben #bali #blackwaterphotography

An adorable little clown frogfish in Tulamben, Bali. The striking colors they can display always makes these cuties a pleasure to photograph!

#frogfish #clownfrogfish #wartyfrogfish #frogfishphotography #tulamben #bali #baliindonesia #divingphoto #divingphotography #myocean

A brief early morning pass by from a hawksbill sea turtle. Though this individual wasn’t too playful, turtles are always awesome and I can’t help shooting them anyways! 🥰

Such a treat to get to photograph what may be my favorite frogfish color variation! Though commonly identified as a juvenile painted frogfish, there seems to be some emerging evidence that these fellas could actually be juvenile clown frogfish instead 🧐

Regardless, how can you resist those beautiful spots? I also love their bright pink lures! 🥰

Shot in Tulamben, Bali

#frogfish #juvenilefrogfish #frogfishphotography #anglerfish #fishphotography #tulamben #bali #scubaphoto #divingphoto #divingphotography #nauticam

Things are looking up 👆

A whale shark coming up to feed at night at Baa Atoll in the Maldives. Whale sharks feed for nearly 8 hours a day, gulping down and filtering through 10,000 gallons of ocean water! Even a juvenile 6-meter whale shark has to eat 46lbs/21kg of plankton per day. And I thought I had a big appetite! 😱

#maldives #whaleshark #whalesharks #sharks #sharkphotography #sharklover #snorkeling

Sunrise shadows in the New Mexico desert 🏜️ 

This formation is so stunning I drove out here for sunrise 3 days in a row! An amazing remnant of a former volcano.

#newmexico #dronephotography #droneoftheday #desertphotography #landscapephotography

What’s even weirder looking than a paddlefish? A paddlefish with no paddle! 😱

With an appendage so prominent, it’s not unexpected to see paddlefish with missing, shortened, or damaged paddles, likely from injuries sustained while juveniles. I wish I got a better shot of the paddlefish in photo #3 before it swam away - its paddle looks like a candy cane! 

In my last paddlefish post, I mentioned that paddlefish’s paddles are covered with sensitive electroreceptors to help them find food. Well, interestingly enough, their heads are also covered with electroreceptors, which means that these paddlefish with damaged or missing paddles can find food as well! It’s unknown exactly how much their senses are dulled or affected, but they seem to be surviving fine at least 🙏 

#paddlefish #americanpaddlefish #weirdanimals #uniqueanimals #freshwaterfish #yourshotphotographer

Another psychedelic sea slug, Stiliger ornatus! 

My research on these fellas has revealed some things I didn’t know: while they may resemble and are often mistaken for slugs in the Costasiella genus, such as the popular "Shaun the sheep" slug, these are scientifically classified as part of the Stiliger genus. What's more, despite their appearance, both Stiligers and Costasiellas are not closely related to nudibranchs; instead, they belong to a separate category of "sap-sucking sea slugs”!

A stunning Doto greenamyeri, colloquially known as the "Donut nudibranch." This just happened to be the first find on my first dive in Tulamben, so we certainly got off to a good start!

#nudi #nudibranch #nudibranchs #nudipics #ilovenudis #donutnudi #tulamben #bali #macrophotography #muckdiving

An adorable little Green Algae Shrimp, about the size of a grain of rice! These fellas are related to the equally tiny Hairy Shrimp, though they are not nearly as hairy.

Shot in Tulamben, Bali

#macro #macrophotography #muckdiving #muckdive #divingphoto #scubaphotography #tulamben #balidiving

A tiny lil Rosewater’s Egg Cowrie on the branch of a sea fan. I love how colorful the shells of these little sea snails are!

Shot in Tulamben, Bali

#muckdiving #macrophotography #uwmacro #eggcowrie #tulamben #tulambenmacro #bali #balidiving #yourshotphotographer

Into the light 🕯️

I was insanely jetlagged and couldn’t sleep this night, so I grabbed my snorkel gear and jumped in the ocean in the middle of the night with the 6 mantas circling under our boat. I had to skip 2 dives the next day because I was so exhausted, but swimming with these beauties was totally worth the lack of sleep 🥹

#manta #mantas #maldives #mantaray #mantarays #myocean #discoverocean #nauticam #yourshotphotographer

A blotched fantail ray showing off its roundness ⚪️

Though these rays aren’t uncommon, I still love their beautiful spotted patterns!

#maldives #maldivesdiving #visitmaldives #divingphoto #divingphotography #stingray #stingrayphotography

Say AAAAAAAAAAA 

These are American paddlefish, one of the most prehistoric living fish in the world - fossil records of paddlefish species date back 125 million years to the Early Cretaceous period! The American Paddlefish is the last remaining species of paddlefish after the Chinese paddlefish went extinct in 2010.

Why the big nose? The paddle, or rostrum, of the paddlefish is covered with incredibly sensitive electro-receptors. This allows them to detect the weak electrical signals emitted by their main food source, plankton! Though paddlefish have very poor eyesight, their paddles act like an antenna, leading them to food.

I’ve got lots more photos and fun facts on these awesome weirdos coming soon; stay tuned… 😉

Reefscapes in the Maldives 🐠🪸

The coral reef systems in the Maldives are the 7th largest in the world and the 5th most diverse ecosystem of the world’s reef areas! How many fish can you count? 🤔

BIG GULP!! A whale shark feeding at the surface at night in the Maldives 🍽️

Whale sharks eat mostly planktonic organisms like krill, jellyfish, and crab larvae, and they can feed either by swimming with their mouths open or by remaining still and actively sucking water into their mouths. This shark is doing the latter!

Swimming with this beauty was definitely the highlight of my prize trip to the Maldives for winning Ocean Art 2022. Huge thank you to @uwphotographyguide and @bluewaterdivetravel for hosting this amazing competition and to @carpediemmaldives for sponsoring the incredible liveaboard trip!

#whaleshark #whalesharks #maldives #nauticam #shark #sharks #sharkphotography #underwaterphotography #yourshotphotographer

Spa day! A giant moray getting cleaned by a group of bluestreak cleaner wrasses in the Maldives.

These cleaner fish have a symbiotic relationship with other fish - they stay safe from predators and, in return, provide a cleansing service by removing parasites and dead skin from other fish, even within their mouths!

#maldives #cleanerfish #cleanerwrasse #moray #giantmoray #morayeel #eels #cleaningstation #paditv

Nights that make you feel like you’re on another planet ✨🛸

…Though I will say, it brought me back to Earth pretty quickly when I got back to my car and then managed to lock myself out at night in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, sooo that sure was an adventure to fix 😅🤦🏻‍♀️

#milkyway #milkyway_nightscapes #milkywaychasers #milkywaygalaxy #nightscape #nightscapes

Mushroom hoodoos for dinner, anyone? 😎🍄

In these kinds of hoodoos, the base erodes more quickly than the capstones, giving a mushroom-like look! 

I decided to try a bit of a moodier editing style on this one than I usually do with sunset shots. One of the things I love about capturing landscapes is how many different ways the same scene can look, depending on lighting and color!

Baby shark doo doo 🦈🎶

Lemon shark pups are the cutest babies and I’ll never get enough of their lil faces!! 😭😭

#lemonsharks #lemonshark #sharkpup #mangrove #mangroves #sharkphotography #babyshark #bahamas #eleuthera

Let’s get lumpy 🪨

Getting to come across so many unique rock formations while wandering around around the wilderness areas of New Mexico is always such a treat 🥰

A few more sea doggo snaps from the Farne Islands, which are home to about 5000 grey seals! These seals are a protected species, and the colonies here have been monitored since 1952. Because they don’t have many natural predators in this area, this population is doing quite well 🦭

One more of the cutest big derpy babies, all cuddled up in a wreck 🥰

#goliathgrouper #goliathgroupers #floridadiving #jupiterdiving #scubaphoto #scubaphotography #divingphoto

Sometimes you just gotta wing it 🪽

A winged hoodoo is a type of formation where a relatively flat overhang sits atop a main spire or base. There are many winged sandstone formations around this area, but this is certainly one of the most impressive! These formations can be very fragile, so please take care while exploring wilderness recreation areas. 🥾

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About Me

Hi I'm Kat Zhou, and I'm a professional trip planner and underwater, landscape, and wildlife photographer.  Check meowt! 🐱

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