There are still more Maldives pictures on the next page.

Everybody loves nudibranch photos.  Even though it looks like I pasted these two together in Photoshop, it's an unretouched picture.  Here are a few more shots of Maldivian nudibranchs:

The 1998 El Nino caused water temperatures in the Maldives to exceed 90F, and "bleached" most of the shallow water corals.  Fortunately, the corals are rapidly recovering.  The shallow reef reminds me a bit of the forest during the spring after a fire: lots of dead hulks, but a surprising number of beautiful areas of new growth.  Below are some pictures of the recovering corals:

In addition to the hard corals that form the reef, there are many soft corals in the Maldives which thrive in the currents driven by the flux of tides through the channels that connect the lagoons of the atolls with the open ocean.  A few are pictured below:

	One of the stranger creatures found in tropical waters is the crinoid, or feather star.  These animals look like feathery plants, but occasionally you see them get up and move, sometimes quite rapidly.

See still more Maldives pictures or return to the Rossum Home Page.