One of my favorite lines from the PADI open water diver textbook states: "If it's very pretty, very ugly, or doesn't swim away from you...don't touch it." Sound advice. The green lionfish (Dendrochirus barberi) has pretty fins, ugly poison spines, and no need to swim away.

Amazingly enough, all that color and pattern breaks up the outline of the fish, so it actually serves as camoflauge!

Leaf scorpionfish (Taenianotus triacanthus)

Macro photo of a beautiful Leaf scorpionfish (Taenianotus triacanthus). Usually, T. triacanthus is well covered in algae and other growths for camoflauge, but they do molt every now and then and regrow cover--this one is so clean I think it must have done so recently.

Leaf scorpionfish (Taenianotus triacanthus)

Leaf scorpionfish (Taenianotus triacanthus)

At first I thought I had a Devil scorpionfish here, but once I got to see the photo on my computer screen, I started ticking off ID points: Snub nose? Check. Peach-colored eye? Check. No prounounced hump? Check. This is my first ever photo of the rather rare Shortsnout scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis brevifrons)!

Shortsnout scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis brevifrons)

One more look at S. brevifrons...

In trying to ID this scorpion, this went all the way up to John Randall and John Earle of the Bishops Museum, and to this day no one is quite sure what we have here. There's a possibility it's the first recorded occurance of Sebastipistes strongia in Hawaii...however, a sample would/will need to be sent in to confirm, and I'm not sure if I can ever locate this little one again. Even if it's never confirmed, I'm thrilled to have found something new in our waters!