Spotted garden eel

Photo: Rafi Amar · CC BY-NC

Colonies of several hundred spotted garden eels inhabit the sandy plateau at 12 m, each individual living in a permanent mucus-lined burrow into which it retreats tail-first at the first sign of a diver approaching too quickly. The colony as a whole sways in unison facing the current, picking zooplankton from the passing water — a behaviour that gives the impression of a field of waving grass. Patient divers who settle to the sand 5 metres away and wait can watch individuals emerge to full extension.