Underwater Highlights of Egypt

The waters off the eastern shore of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula are a wonderful place for people who like exploring the underwater world.   The low rainfall in this area helps to ensure that the water is crystal clear most of the time, and the almost landlocked shape of the Red Sea means that there are many species here which are found nowhere else in the world.

Wherever you find anemones in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, there you'll probably also find anemonefish, which are immune to the stinging cells of their hosts and use them as a protective shield from their enemies.   This particular anemonefish is a local speciality called, appropriately enough, the Red Sea anemonefish or two band anemonefish.   As with most of these species, they're rather shy and it takes some doing to get a good photograph of them.

One of the most spectacular fish you might bump into is this Picasso triggerfish, with colors, shapes and patterns befitting the artist it was named after.   This individual was in only two meters of water near the Blue Hole dive site.   Under its belly you can see the spine that allows it to wedge itself into crevices in the reef to avoid enemies, and which gives it the name "triggerfish".   Like other triggerfish, they can rotate their eyes independently.

Another angelfish with a noble name, the royal angelfish, which is as widely distributed as the emperor angelfish.   The royal angelfish is often sold for aquariums, but with a difficult to provide diet of sponges it usually doesn't survive long.

These Red Sea bannerfish look similar in shape and coloration to the Moorish idol, but belong to a different family of fishes.

Here's another butterflyfish found only here and in the Gulf of Aden; it goes by various names, including the red back butterflyfish, Eritrean butterflyfish, Red Sea chevron butterflyfish and crown butterflyfish.

Butterflyfish are usually found in pairs, but here's a collection of 14 or 15 Red Sea raccoon butterflyfish all in the same spot, and arranged very nicely for a photograph.   Like most of the photographs on this page, you can click it to bring up a new window with the photograph in computer wallpaper format, to brighten up your day!

There are so many different types of butterflyfish in this area that I've created a separate Butterflyfish of the Red Sea page so you can see them all.

It's a sad fact of life that some fish are not so much beautiful as... interesting!   With a face like this, the giant pufferfish definitely falls into this category, and perhaps it's also the reason it's sometimes given the unflattering name "starry toadfish".

It might be ugly, but the giant puffer certainly earns the "giant" part of its name, since it can grow to a meter in length, though this one was more like half that size.   No matter what its size, its fins always seem too small for its body, so even when it's trying to make its escape it can only waddle away rather slowly, its dorsal and anal fins flapping desperately side to side with little effect.

This one decided that it just couldn't be bothered, and its size perhaps made it feel that it would be too big a mouthful for me to eat, anyway.   In fact most of the photos of this species show it sitting rather sluggishly on or near the bottom.

The blue spotted cornetfish is a much larger and more active predator than the garden eels.   Usually hanging vertically near the reef like some sort of plant life, the cornetfish extends its mouth wide and swallows any small fish or crustacean that unwittingly blunders too close.

An Arabian surgeonfish with its orange colored "scalpel".   Though vegetarian, they're aggressive and territorial, and it's thought that the razor sharp spines are used in combat and as a defense against predators.   Like many of the fish on this page, Arabian surgeonfish go by a variety of names, including Red Sea surgeonfish, Red Sea clown surgeonfish and Sohal surgeonfish.

A much more typical looking member of the family, the checkerboard wrasse, sometimes also called a four-spot wrasse because of the yellow dots on either side of its back - in some areas only one spot is really visible on either side, as you see here.   This is the typical wrasse shape and size which makes them fairly easy to tell apart from other fish.

Blue spots are not particularly typical of groupers, but this juvenile lyretail grouper has just as many as the peacock grouper.   It's said to taste very good and is sold in fish markets around the world.

There are always fish and other critters around that you might not want to meet, and jellyfish like this one would come pretty high up most people's lists.   However it doesn't have any trailing tentacles and on closer inspection you can see that it even has a house guest - a small fish that uses the jellyfish as shelter and perhaps a source of food, also.   It's remarkable to see how the fish has turned the same color and transparency as its host.