Snorkel Things 🤿

Ocean Features & Field Notes

By Marijke Puts

The stuff that didn’t fit into client commissions—because shockingly, not everyone has room for a thousand words on shrimp ecology.

Feature stories and underwater adventures that bring the ocean to life.

Commission a piece
Ocean Features

The Polka-Dotted Hero of the Reef: How Coral Crabs Defend Their Homes

Humans messed up the reef. Now a coral-eating starfish is taking over. Is all lost? Not if the Trapezioidea can help it, it’s not. Sometimes good things really do come in small packages.
Marijke Puts
Trapezia rufopunctata coral guard crab
Trapezia rufopunctata coral guard crab
Ocean Features

The Polka-Dotted Hero of the Reef: How Coral Crabs Defend Their Homes

Humans messed up the reef. Now a coral-eating starfish is taking over. Is all lost? Not if the Trapezioidea can help it, it’s not. Sometimes good things really do come in small packages.
Marijke Puts
Tubastraea or sun coral, close-up
Ocean Features

The Sun Coral and the Oil Platform: How Tubastraea Conquered the World

On a coral that doesn’t need light to thrive, and how it conquered the seas half a world away from its place of origin—but not without a little help from Big Industry.
Marijke Puts
Sea walnut ctenophore or warty comb jelly
Ocean Features

The Little Blob That Could: The Sea Walnut & The Black Sea

In the 1980s, the Black Sea was overrun by non-native comb jellyfish in a storming that put even the most successful invasive species until that point to shame.
Marijke Puts