A Rare Find and my, “15 Minutes”

“Reticulate Moray Eel”

I was scrolling through some of my old Kodak slide film photo images and came across this guy.

It must have been taken near the time of the Millennial? We were diving a lot back then.

I remember the dives were over as soon as I shot my roll of 36 or got cold. Once we rinsed our gear, we drove to “Paradise Photo” in town to drop off the film. The next day, once the roll was processed I took it back to the dive shop and hovered over the light table with a big magnifying loop to see if I “got anything”.

“What’s this?” It was quite a flurry of activity and excitement. No one had seen this particular creature this far South before.  Note his big “horns”.  Further investigation and inquiries were made by the then Harbour Village Dive shop manager, Marion Wilson. Consultations ensued with area dive shops.

The above image is one of a series…..the best one being sent off by Ms. Wilson to the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution (USNM) it now rests in their “type specimen repository”.

Nice memory.