Funafuti as been colonized by monopolistic organization of staghorn coral. We don’t really understand it but this staghorn coral is thriving in monoculture over acres and acres of Funafuti seafloor.

Happily it comes in several colors.

This fish don’t seem to mind what flavor of coral they live in.

We were happy to see longnose filefishes are thriving here, pruning polyps like judicious arborists.

They have no preference for vanilla over blueberry.

But there were teeth below the blueberry staghorn.

We saw very few toothy characters in Funafuti. There was one groggy white tip shark asleep on the sand that paid us no mind, and a 1 foot long baby blacktip in the shallows that even S was not afraid of, but she kept her eye out for their gray or tiger cousins.

     

The top level predators on this reef were humans. Very nervous large groupers were second

and these businesslike jacks came third.

 

The littler guys showed some experience with fishermen but were populous enough to allow the persistent breathholder some pics.