Lingcod

This male was standing guard, protecting its eggs (which the male lingcods do until they hatch). In the fourth photo of this album, the lingcod's mass of white eggs are seen, wedged between the boulder that the fish is sitting on and the adjacent rock. As quickly as I took the picture of the eggs, the lingcod left its upper perch and placed itself in the crack, situating itself between me and the eggs.

This male lingcod was encountered while scuba diving at the Aquarium dive site of Monterey Bay, California on February 22, 2014. The fish is resting on a bed of Red Algae (Rhodymenia pacifica intermingled with nearby Rhodymenia californica). Also seen are brown/orange colored Solitary Cup Coral (Paracyathus stearnsi) encrusting the rock.

A technical note: the somewhat grainy photography is due to it being taken in ambient light at roughly a depth of 50ft in cloudy water with quite a bit of motion. Even with a camera ISO setting of 1000, the shutter speed was only 1/60 which presented a challenge while being moved back and forth by the water. The pictures were taken in RAW format and color-corrected afterwards.