Fire Urchin with Coleman Shrimp

A Coleman Shrimp has found a home amid the spines of a fire urchin.

Coleman shrimp are surprisingly well camoflaged among the spines of fire urchins. Coleman shrimp live only on certain species of fire urchins, commonly in pairs, but this one's partner was not around at the moment. Usually I try to touch nothing underwater, but while making this photo I brushed my hand against a fire urchin and got a spine in my thumb. It was extremely painful for a couple of hours, then subsided to an ache that lasted a couple of days. The fire urchins were about the size of softballs, and the shrimp was a couple of inches long. This was at a dive site called Betlehem, a remarkable site off Marikaban Island.