It may look like a tasty treat, but the brightest creatures are usually the most toxic.

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Crown of Thorns starfish. In isolation, they're quite attractive, but in large numbers, with its voracious appetite for hard corals, it can devastate a reef. There are volunteer organisation to help clear up outbreaks, but it appears these have not been terribly successfull: see link.

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This bump head parrot fish, with its small entourage, was completely unperturbed at having me finning alongside, and we swam together for several minutes

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These two lovers were inseperable.

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A prize to the first person to tell me what type of coral this is.

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This strange looking creature was about a metre long.

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Cuttlefish are amazing. They change colour and shape to suit their mood and background.

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Colourful nudibranch (the "ch" is pronounced "k"). Pulau Aur, like Tioman, is excellent for macro wildlife (i.e. the small stuff).

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Furry nudibranch. How can slugs be quite so attractive?

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This tiny shrimp was hiding between the phallic looking branches of the anemone.

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Another nudibranch - this was the smallest one I saw on this trip (that massive white blog is my index finger).

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Check out the amazing eyes.

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This starfish was about 45cm across.

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On a night dive, there are creatures hiding all around - it just takes a closer look.

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Difficult to spot for the camouflage, but don't touch the poisonous spines.

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The eyes have it for this little hermit crab.

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A swimming flatworm. Its quite fascinating flight is powered by oscillating its body. Check out this movie.

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This pretty little shrimp was hiding under the cover of an anemone.

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I think of all the underwater photos I've taken so far, this sleeping pufferfish has to be my favourite. He woke up in a daze after the flash went off and drifted off the coral to the sea bed, but he was only half awake.

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A blue-spotted ribbontail ray

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This hermit crab was about 6-8 inches across, and looks stoned with its eyes going all over the place.

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The abundancy of sealife is something to marvel at and treasure.

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Young nurse sharks sleeping under a reef. Sadly, the water was quite rough so there is lots of detritus obscuring the picture.

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This pufferfish - about 40cm in length - was very reclusive; I was lucky to get a picture as it backfinned into its hiding place.

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Another tony little shrimp nestling this time in the seaweed ("Why did the lobster blush? Because the sea weed." ).

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The head of this moray eel was about 20cm across, so I decided not to stroke it.

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