Photo Gallery
Life in Victoria’s marine waters – unique, diverse amazing! See for yourself the beauty and wonder that lies below Victoria’s marine waters.
Professional wildlife photographers have helped build this gallery and we thank them for their help.
Feel free to use these images for educational and research purposes provided any information on the image is not removed. Individual photographers must be consulted if you wish to use the images to make a profit.
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Discovery Bay Marine National Park
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While nestled amongst kelp fronds, the Red Velvetfish is not easily seen by divers. They are more active at night, and if you are lucky enough to come across one hunting for crabs and octopus on the seafloor, its red colouration is brilliant in the torchlight. In sunlight by comparison, the fish is relatively dull as red light is rapidly absorbed in seawater. The red colouration assists camouflage on deeper reefs. Red Velvetfish have large floppy fins, scaleless bodies, and soft skin, although their spines are venomous. Growing to 46 centimetres, the Red Velvetfish is only found in southern Australian waters. |
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You can see Bull Kelp on the edge of the rocky platforms, surging with the mighty waves of the Southern Ocean. Growing up to 8 metres in length from their suction-cup base, the aptly named holdfast, their wide, heavy, leathery fronds lash the rock surface bare. Bull kelp can live for up to 8 years, although its life span is usually limited by storms, grazing marine animals or adverse warmer sea temperatures. Aboriginal groups used the dried Bull Kelp to transport water and food, hence the species name potatorum (to drink). |
Twelve Apostles Marine National Park
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Despite their fierce name, Weedy Seadragons are dainty, timid animals that hover slowly and gracefully over the kelp forests where they shelter. Growing up to 46 centimetres, the long leaf-shaped flaps of skin that project out at intervals along the top and bottom of the fish enable them to easily camouflage amongst seaweed. Seadragons are related to pipefishes and seahorses, and, like them, it is the male that holds the eggs. With Weedy Seadragons, the tiny pink eggs can be seen stuck to the tail where they are brooded for two months. They hatch as miniature versions of the adults, but grow to 7 centimetres in three weeks. Weedy Seadragons are only found in southern Australian waters. |
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The deepest growing of the large, brown seaweeds is Ecklonia, and dense forests blanket the reefs around the Twelve Apostles at depths between 5 and 25 metres.Beneath the fronds of Ecklonia, the surge of the waves and current is dampened,and the forest provides shelter for numerous fish species. Ecklonia welcomes the turbulent conditions however, as they ensure a rapid supply of nutrients. Ecklonia forests are home to a myriad of tiny species just as terrestrial forests are home to an abundance of insects. The dominant animals are tiny grazing bug-like creatures known as amphipods and over 50,000 can be found in a square metre. Of the 50 or so species that can be found on a single Ecklonia plant, most feed on a film of microscopic plants that grow on the frond surface. Amphipods are eaten by fishes such as wrasse. |
Point Addis
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Inquisitive and ever active, the Senator Wrasse is one of the most beautiful kelp forest residents of the park area. A carnivorous fish that hunts a wide range of small animals including snails, mphipods and crabs, the bright green males and reddish females can be seen busily slipping in and out of the kelp fronds. During the spring breeding season male Senator Wrasse become territorial and you will see them swimming above the kelp, fins erect. Females release millions of eggs above the forest, and if these are successfully fertilised by the male, juveniles will float in the ocean current for 2 -3 weeks.Few survive this experience. Over 10 species of wrasse are found in southern Australian coastal waters. |
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Beautiful, yet shy and elusive in habit, cowrie snails can be found on reefs in the park, feeding on sponges living on the underside of rocks. The snail can draw its skin-like mantle over its distinctive shell, the colour of the mantle assisting with camouflage. This is one of the smaller cowries of the 77 found in Australian waters, being only 25 millimetres in length. It lays its eggs in a depression in the rocks, and then protects them until they hatch by ‘sitting’ on them. |
Port Phillip Bay Heads
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Against the backdrop of the bright reds, oranges, yellows and whites of Port Phillip Head’s sponge ‘gardens’, the vivid sapphire body and iridescent blue spots of the pouting Blue Devilfish is stunning. A favourite with scuba divers,this inquisitive fish rarely ventures beyond its home ledge, crevice or small cave. It is believed that the male guards the eggs that are laid by the female well back in the crevice. Western Blue Devilfish grow to around 30 centimetres in length, and are found at depths between 10 and 45 metres. The population of Blue Devilfish at Port Phillip Heads is thought to be the largest in Victoria, and the fish is near the eastern extent of its range here. |
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Ver co’s Nudibranch is just one of the 400 species of nudibranchs found in Australian waters. The name of the group means bare gills, and Verco’s Nudibranch displays these as feathery plumes on its back. The animal’s striking colouration signals its distasteful characteristics to fish; acidic defence glands in the skin making it unpalatable or even poisonous. Verco’s Nudibranch preys almost exclusively upon a bushy, green colony of animals known as the bryozoan Bugula dentata. If you look closely near this bryozoan, you can sometimes find the nudibranch’s orange eggs in their girdle of jelly. Verco’s Nudibranch was named after the prominent South Australian marine naturalist and surgeon, Dr Joseph Verco. They reach 13 centimetres in length and live at depths between 2 and 36 metres.fish their numbers were reduced. |
Wilsons Promontory
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A plucky and social fish, Butterfly Perch form large, alluring schools over deepwater reefs and ledges at the Prom. They are opportunistic feeders that take advantage of eddies that swirl the microscopic animal life, the zooplankton, into concentrations. The areas of reef where this occurs are usually covered with colourful sponges and gorgonian corals, and, with the combination of pink fish, it makes a visual spectacle when diving. At night, Butterfly Perch retreat into rock crevices to sleep. In shallower water, schools of Butterfly Perch are replaced by schools of Barber Perch that are of similar appearance. |
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Growing to nearly a metre in height in some areas, the crazed branches of the fan-shaped gorgonian corals are a distinctive feature of the deeper walls, caves and underhangs of the Prom. Orange, red or yellow in colour, gorgonians are a colony of thousands of tentacle-fringed polyps. These retract when not trying to sieve the water for microscopic animals. Gorgonian corals grow on an angle to the prevailing surge and currents, allowing them to feed almost continuously.Beyond this their ecology is largely unknown. As the photo shows you might see animals known as basket stars with their many arms intertwined with the gorgonian’s branches. At night, and on overcast days, basket stars use the branches of the gorgonian like scaffolding, stretching their long multi-branched arms into the current to also catch the microscopic animals. |
Corner Inlet
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Growing to 26 centimetres in length, the Spotted Pipefish is a master of disguise amongst seagrass, its slender body, green colouration and slow movement combining to provide cover to the animal whether it is predator or prey. Spotted Pipefish are ambush predators, patiently waiting for tiny shrimp and other microscopic animals to move a little too close before they lunge at them. The species exhibits role reversal of the sexes. It is the female Spotted Pipefish who courts the male, her colours intensifying during the breeding season when she is competing for mates. The selected male gets to carr y the eggs in an enclosed brood pouch on the underside of the tail.The species is only found in southern Australian waters. |
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If a squid could be called cute, it would be the shy, tiny, Southern Dumpling Squid. Rotund, big eyed, and brightly coloured, they are night feeders, burying themselves in the sand during the day. As juveniles, Southern Dumpling Squid catch bacteria that they nurture inside special body cavities for the rest of their lives. As the squid grows, the bacteria produce light in return for the squid providing food (sugar). It is a mutually beneficial relationship. At night the squid is able to finely tune the bacterial light that it emits from its underbelly so as to match the starlight or moonlight that shimmers through the water above.This form of camouflage is called counter illumination and enables the squid to avoid predators like flathead when moving over the seagrass. |
Ninety Mile Beach
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Although the Common Stargazer is one of the largest fish found near reefs on the underwater sandy plains, you would be lucky to see one. It is not that they are uncommon; they are just masters at making themselves obscure. Lying almost buried, motionless, with only its eyes and mouth peering out of the sand, this bottom-dwelling fish resembles a pugnacious bulldog. Although swimmers have nothing to fear, flathead and other fishes are not so lucky. With their skilful ambush tactics, Common Stargazers can rapidly lunge upward, and their cavernous mouths can consume unsuspecting fish and crustaceans in one gulp. |
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Although only 6 centimetres in length, heart urchins are considered large animals of the sandy plains. Furrowing their way through the sand, heart urchins have a thick covering of short, slick-backed, hair-like spines that ease the movement of sand grains around the body, thereby reducing drag.They are scavengers, ingesting particles of sand and fine organic matter that is processed through the gut. |
Point Hicks
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Docile, curious, slow and gregarious in nature, Banded Morwongs are prominent inhabitants of the park area and can be easily approached by divers. A large fish growing to over 75 centimetres, they are the old timers of the park’s boulder fields and reefs. Many of the larger fish could have been present in the area for over 30 years. Banded Morwongs are very faithful to their home turf, and populations that you can see probably took decades to establish. With their big eyes and small fleshy lips, watch out for them head down and tail up sucking and sifting small animals off the boulders. The cool waters of Australia and New Zealand have the greatest diversity of morwongs in the world. |
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Look between the boulders and amongst the crevices and you will quickly discover the mysterious feather stars or crinoids, part of an ancient animal group related to sea-stars and sea-urchins. A shy animal during the day, all that you will see of them are their many long, branched feeding arms stretched out into the current attempting to trap tiny animals. This food is passed down the arms in a string of mucus to the soft-bodied animal concealed beneath. With a U-shaped stomach and an anus close to their mouth, feather stars have become adept at the careful art of waste excretion. Two hundred million years ago feather stars were prolific in the ocean, but with the evolution of predatory fish their numbers were reduced. |
Cape Howe
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Large, inquisitive and charismatic, Eastern Blue Groper is a local identity of the rocky ledges and gutters of the Cape Howe Marine National Park area. When scuba diving it is not uncommon to see and hear these fish crunching on Black Sea-urchins with their plump, tough lips. Colour distinguishes male fish from female fish - males being blue and females brown. Reaching up to a metre in length, Eastern Blue Gropers inhabit reefs to a depth of 40 metres. They are found from Wilsons Promontory to Hervey Bay in Queensland. |
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The large Black Sea-urchin is a common animal amongst the rocks in this area. Their imposing long spines, a formidable shield of protection, ‘glow’ an iridescent blue green. When the sun’s rays stream onto the seafloor these animals tend to hide away in crevices and gutters. But under the relative protection of darkness Black Sea-urchins will graze freely on exposed reef, and animals can be seen to depths of 35 metres. Large populations of these urchins can be found in this region. They are effective at ‘mowing’ seaweeds near their shelters, creating an open environment of pink coralline-encrusted rocks. |
Bunurong
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Harmless, docile, and gregarious in nature, it is not uncommon to see groups of this seafloor-dwelling shark nestled together under rocky ledges in Bunurong. At night, Port Jackson Sharks venture out in search of food, their file-like teeth and vice-like jaws enabling them to crush sand-dwelling animals, marine snails, crabs and urchins. Often these sharks will regroup in the same crevice as daylight approaches. Each October the females lay between 10 and 16 dark, corkscrew-shaped egg-cases that they wedge into the ledges with their mouths. You might be lucky enough to find one of these hatched egg-cases on the beach. |
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With its large, elongated conical shell and pretty colouration, the Pheasant Trochid is one of Australia’s most beautiful marine snails. Growing to a length of 4 centimetres, it can be found grazing in the dense algal growths at Bunurong, and is at its most conspicuous on brown seaweeds. Like all small snails, Pheasant Trochids use their tiny, file-like ‘tongue’ to rasp tiny algal plants from the surface of the reef and from seaweed fronds. Pheasant Trochids are found throughout southern Australian waters. |
Western Port Bay
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If you dive into the sheltered channels of the Churchill Island Marine National Park you will soon glide across a silty seafloor covered by thousands of lamp shells or brachiopods, living examples of an extremely ancient group of animals that have been part of the ocean world for over 600 million years. When turned upside down, brachiopods resemble ancient Roman oil lamps, and some people consider that it was the animal itself that provided the inspiration to the craftsmen. With their hinged shells partly agape, lamp shells draw water into their body, straining it for suspended microscopic food swept in on the tidal currents. More than 30,000 fossil species of lamp shells are known, although there are only some 350 species worldwide today. The Australian fauna is among the most diverse, with 39 different species. |
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Sea hares periodically appear in great numbers on the seagrass beds of Western Port, where they mate and lay tangled threads of yellow egg ribbons that resemble noodles amongst the seagrass fronds. They have an exceptional talent for reproduction, a single animal being a male at its front end, and a female at its rear. This enables sea hares to form group mating chains that result in the production of millions of eggs. Sea hares are herbivorous, eating seaweeds and seagrasses. Some species can take on the colour of the species that they are eating. The name sea hare is imaginatively drawn from the resemblance of the animal’s eye spots to the large ears of the hare. The whole life cycle of a sea hare occurs within one year. |