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My Best Animal Encounters of 2018!

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Everyone knows how I love animals! Here are my favorite photos of animals from 2018.

El Boiler is known for awesome Manta Ray encounters!
Texas Hill Country.

The deer were everywhere and loved the golf course in Spicewood, Texas! We are definitely a family that loves seeing animals.
Beautiful Mother and Fawn by Alexandra Minton Photography
A Red Reef Hermit Crab is so tiny, one can barely see it, let alone photograph it!
Nimble Spray Crab
This incredible Frogfish blends right into the sponges around her. She was 3 or 4 inches long, an amazing creature in Cozumel, Mexico.
You can see the Frogfish’s “legs” or pectoral fins in this photo! They can’t really swim, they just kind of waddle along!
Sometimes you’ll find a friendly Balloonfish, and they are so cute a diver stops and enjoys the encounter. I always have a camera!
Banded Coral Shrimp are an inch to 4 inches…just about the only way to find them is to look for the white antennae. They are nocturnal and are found under ledges and near sponges, like this one.
Finding this longhorn cowfish was amazing! Such a gorgeous and cool fish.
Look at that color!
The Orange Marginella, a tiny gastropod, is amazingly beautiful. See the body of the animal spread onto the shell? This little guy is the size of a fingertip!
How I love the Caribbean Octopus! See the siphon on the right? When faced with predators they can suck up water and use it as jet propulsion! Octopus are mollusks, and very intelligent. This one changes colors constantly!
The Magnificent Sea Urchin! How beautiful they are! I love looking at urchins, all species of them. I am partial to the beauty of this one, though.
The size of a football, this Horse Conch shocked me! I couldn’t believe it was so large!
Tube Dwelling Anemones are so beautiful!
A gorgeous teenage Gray Angel. I still get excited every time I see one. Or anything underwater, just about!
A Coral Banded Shrimp!
Beautiful Longsnout Seahorse! These have become more and more rare…please don’t be one of those people who buy their dried up bodies in stores. It is horrible to take these animals out of their environment.
Awesome baby lobster, I was thrilled to find this little one!
A Roostertail Conch
Gorgonians are beautiful and look like fans…they are animals, so please don’t touch or buy them! Our corals are precious, especially now.
Hawksbill Sea Turtle
My Rescue Golden, Lucy. She’s pretty funny!
Luke and Lucy
This gorgeous swan attacked our rowboat! I assume we were too close to the chicks!
Swans
A Netted Olive is a mollusk, so incredibly small! Look at those little eye stalks!
Orangeball Corallimorphs are nocturnal. They are tiny, and so pretty!
It was awesome to see this scorpionfish’s pectoral fins! Aren’t they beautiful?
An adorable little Tobaccofish!
Sharptail eel going after its dinner: a crab.
I met this Green Sea Turtle at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island in Georgia. They perform a very important duty, keeping our endangered sea turtles healthy.
Loggerhead Sea Turtle
This sick sea turtle is so emaciated from ingesting too much plastic. Watch your plastic usage please! Every sea turtle that washed up this year was checked, and they ALL had plastic in their bellies.
I LOVE pelicans!
I have seen Hammerheads in the wild, but not close enough! One of these days I will get close enough to take a really detailed photo.
Cottonmouth Jacks schooling in the Revillagigedos Archipelago.
Again, in the Revillagigedos, these Silver Tip Sharks are amazing to photograph! They pile up on the rocks to sleep!
A Tuna fly-by, pretty rare these days because they are so overfished.
I love Manta Rays. They are so graceful, and so intelligent. The mantas of the Revillagigedos are friendly, and love bubbles!
Yep, that is me with the dolphin pod. I’m headed up, so they are coming with me.
Me and my Manta!
Here I am on a citizen science expedition, taking photo Identification shots of Manta Rays at the Revillagigedos.
Finally I saw a Whale Shark on scuba! I see them every summer on snorkel, but I love seeing them under the water line.

whale sharks, travels with tam, adventures, snorkel with whale sharks
These gentle giants have some teeth, but they are filter feeders.
Looking into a dolphin’s eye is mesmerizing because you know you are looking into the eye of a creature with every bit as much intelligence as you. Probably more.
A little horse love in Eastern Europe.
I love Clarion Angels, they are almost neon! The only location I’ve ever seen
them is the Revillagigedos.
This is an Egyptian Goose! They aren’t native to New Braunfels, Texas, but they showed up one year and stayed!

Thanks for checking out my favorite animal encounters in 2018! I wonder what I will see in 2019? It will be fun to find out!

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