The amazing diversity in form and colour of these animals, their interactions, nuptial displays and adaptation to very specific habitats make captivating study. Some of the displays that you are likely to encounter are described below. The common estuarine fiddler crab derives its name from the males' courtship behaviour. One of the males' claws is enormously enlarged and brightly coloured and it is this one that he uses to 'beckon' to passing females at low tide, as he stands guard at his tunnel entrance. Lured by this nuptial display, females join their mates below.
Seahorses are especially quaint.
Remarkably, it's the male that performs the task of bearing young. Once the eggs have been fertilized, the female deposits them in his special brood pouch, where they are develop and hatch. Symbiosis is a unique, mutually beneficial relationship between two or more species which live together. Nowhere is this association more evident than between anemonefish and sea anemone's. The unique chemical composition of the fish's body mucus enables it to take refuge from predators inside a giant sea anemone by providing protection from the potentially lethal stings of the anemone's tentacles.