Recently described species found among mangroves in the Florida Keys.  Extracts and stores undigested chloroplasts from green algae in its tissues for photosynthesis.

Aloha and thank you for visiting the personal website of Keoki and Yuko Stender.  We love scuba diving, fish watching, underwater photography, plants & flowers, and sharing our discoveries of God's creation with you.  Our goal as marine educators/photographers is to promote appreciation, conservation, and respect for the created earth and its inhabitants.  We must all take an active role in preserving the earth's resources for tomorrow.

Access each group with the icons below the banner above.  Groups are further divided by family, phylum, or logical unit.  Each unit page lists species by geographic region starting with Hawaii as default.  Each region's most common species are shown first along with similar ones for comparison.  Individual species pages may be accessed by clicking the image below its scientific name (yellow italic).

Common names 

Common names are important but of limited usefulness as they can be created, modified, and changed by anyone.  It is not unusual for a common name to be used for entirely different species in different parts of the world or for a single species to have a multitude of common names.  In order to reduce confusion it is necessary to refer to each species by its scientific name.  This name is generally accepted worldwide by scientists speaking any language.  Effort has been made to choose a US English common name (bold white) prevalent in Hawaii or the host country along with a local name if appropriate.  In the case where no such common name exists, I have taken the liberty of creating one based on descriptive characteristics or a translation of the scientific name.

Updates are made regularly as our collection continues to grow.  You may contribute images & species of interest to expand our library.  If deemed relevant, your photos will be cropped to 300 pixels wide (high if vertical) to best illustrate the subject.  Your name will be watermarked at the bottom.  These images will not be sold or released to a third party, however please remember that everything on this site is public domain, on display free-of-charge, and copying without permission is an assumed risk.  These photos are too small to yield an acceptable print and I discard your original submissions once the web image is complete.

The purpose of this website is education.  We do not sell fish, shells, plants, or specimens of any kind.

Reef Critters Hawaii iPhone app

Reef Critters Hawaii HD for iPad

Reef Fish of Hawaii HD for iPad

For sale at the iTunes Store

Partner Site