Tim Grollimund: 31 books

There is good news and bad news about our coral reefs. The bad news is: reefs around the world are in trouble. A host of factors contribute to the decline of reef ecosystems. The good news is: there is a wholehearted effort to combat reef degradation at the local level. The Coral Restoration Foundation,...

There literally is no other place like this on earth. It is the only operating undersea research laboratory in the world. As a dive site, it’s sensational since the animals that live underneath and around the habitat are used to divers. It’s pretty easy to get close to the resident goliath groupers,...

I always try to photograph angelfish. My image inventory probably has more angelfish photos than any other group. They are the most colorful and beautiful animals on the reef, in my opinion. Some are very shy, like Rock Beauties. Others have varying degrees of aloofness, depending on the conditions...

One of the most popular charismatic mega fauna in our waters is the spotted eagle ray. Kim Bassos-Hull, from Mote Marine Laboratory, has been studying spotted eagle rays (SERs) since 2009. Her work has centered primarily along the coast from St. Petersburg to Sanibel Island. She is collecting data...

There’s one thing I can guarantee I’ll see on every dive. They seem to be in every nook and cranny on the reef. Some sort of butterflyfish will be wherever I’m going. They remind me of those tiny self-propelled vacuum cleaners in television commercials that run around the house on their own,...

"How aggressive are damselfish, pound for pound? As it turns out, divers invading their space is not the only thing damselfish exhibit aggression over. I don’t blame them for defending their territory when I’m trying to get a shot. That’s common, and can be comical. The species in our waters...

"Orange cup coral is an invasive species. While lionfish get all the attention, are subjected to extraction derbies and are appropriately placed on a platter, orange cup coral silently keeps on growing. Fortunately it is much more selective than lionfish. So far it has specialized on artificial reefs,...

"An interesting aspect of the snook population is documented in the telemetry study from the FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. They acoustically tagged 30 snook in the 9-square mile Banana River No-Take Reserve near Kennedy Space Center. This is one of the oldest no-take reserves in the country....

One topic that caught my eye was a study about the changes in the population of yellow stingrays in various parts of the Caribbean.  Why should we care about yellow stingrays? In this study, published in the scientific journal Environmental Biology of Fishes, Reef Environmental Education Foundation...

At Atlantis Dumaguete, I saw a whole host of things I’d never had the opportunity to photograph before. The mandarin fish mating dance, a pregnant mantis shrimp, a blue ribbon eel and sea snakes are the most memorable to me. Lots of pipefish, sea horses and nudibranchs live in the seagrass, which...

I have always had a fascination for Goliath groupers. When I first met them, they were called jewfish. Itʼs common knowledge that Goliath groupers were nearly wiped out by overfishing up through the 1980s. They were protected beginning in 1990, and remain so today. Nowadays I see some talk from the...

Filefish have a protruding mouth with some very sharp teeth, similar to a triggerfish. They have narrow, compressed bodies with rough spiny scales and a front dorsal fin that can be raised or lowered. When the fin is raised, it resembles a file, which some reference sources say is the inspiration...

"While I was researching goatfish for the last column, I realized there is another group I have not paid enough attention to in my reef travels. Wrasses. This is a large and diverse family. Wrasses seem to be everywhere. They are quick and colorful. Perhaps some of the most vibrant colors on our reefs...

There are a few places in the outer edges of the Florida Keys reef tract that are a whole different world. Deep French, Deep Elbow and Deep Molasses are quite different than the shallower namesakes. The contours begin around 50 feet, and usually bottom out in the 80 to 90 foot range. Nitrox is the...