Marty Snyderman: Animal Behavior
Marty Snyderman is an EMMY Award winning cinematographer, still photographer, author and speaker specializing in the marine environment. A proud recipient of the Diving Equipment Marketing Association’s (DEMA’s) 2008 Reaching Out Award, Marty serves as the Marine Life Editor for Dive Training magazine and Senior Editor for California Diving News.
In partnership with Rick Voight, Marty’s latest project is producing a subscription based, online magazine named Featured-Creatures that highlights marine wildlife. Filled with facts, photographs, and a video clip produced by Howard and Michele Hall, the monthly editions are created to educate and entertain school-aged children and the adults in their lives.
“I proudly refer to myself as an animal geek, and one of my main areas of interest as an underwater photographer is documenting animal behavior.”
“For many years I have viewed the oceans as being analogous to a big onion. A lot of us begin by seeing and learning about things on the skin, things that are so obvious they are hard to miss. Over the years as we learn more and more, we peel back the layers. Ultimately we discover that the more we know, the more there is to learn. Certainly, that has been my experience. In that way, my passion has been a great help in my personal education.”
“Lucky me! I have lived my professional dream. In acknowledgement of that, I’d like to give back by (1) helping those that have not spent as much time as I have exploring the world’s oceans and watchung animals lives their lives see marine animals through more experienced eyes, and (2) being a voice for animals, ecosystems and places that cannot speak for themselves, at least in the ways that humans communicate. I want to be a conduit that helps share the magic so that humanity gains a more complete understanding of and appreciation for what Mother Nature has given us.”
“I like to think this is what I have been doing for the last 40 plus years, and what I’ll continue to do for as long as I can fall off a boat and hit water.”
-Marty Snyderman
A juvenile golden trevally (Gnathanodon speciosus), a type of jack, swims in the “bow wake” of the pressure wave created by a gray reef shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos) in Yap
A pair of hermit crabs is in the midst of a 20-minute tug-of-war in the Indonesian region of Alor
A pair of mating poison ocellate octopus, Amphioctopus siamensis on a muck dive in the Indonesian region of Alor
A male yellowhead jawfish with a mouthful of the fertilized eggs from his mate. July in Cozumel where I'd photographed this behavior the year prior.
Four juvenile jacks known as golden trevally (Gnathanodon speciosus) accompanying a reticulated pufferfish (Arothron reticularis) that is hunting on a sandy bottom in Puerto Galera in the Philippines
A juvenile warty frogfish, Antennarius maculatus, “fishing” for its dinner in Dumaguete, Philippines
A slingjaw wrasse, Epibulus insidiator, extending its mouth to use it like a straw to “suck” in surprised prey.
A “yawning” gray reef shark, Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos. I captured this moment on a shark dive in Yap
A basking shark, Ceterhinus maximus, feeding on planktonic organisms in the chilly waters off the southwest coast of Scotland
A soldierfish isopod, Anilocra laticaudata, sits atop the head of a blackbar soldierfish, Myripristis jacobus, in the waters off Sunset House in Grand Cayman
A pink anemonefish, Amphiprion perideraion, tending its eggs at the base of a sea anemone in M’il Channel, Yap
During a relatively predictable phenomenon, a whale shark, Rhincodon typus, feeds on fish eggs during the summer in the water off Isla Mujeres, Mexico
An oceanic manta ray (Manta birostris) being cleaned by a swarm of Clarion angelfish (Holacanthus clarionensis) in the water off of San Benedicto Island, one of four islands that comprise the Revillagigedo archipelago (aka the Socorros)
In this shot of a pair of spawning Bartel’s dragonets (Neosynchiropus bartelsi) you can see a strand of eggs that have been ejected into the water column by the female. I captured this moment in Puerto Galera, Philippines on a sunset dive
An Atlantic spotted dolphin, Stenella frontalis, snags a meal during a night snorkel on the edge of the Gulf Stream
A pair of male humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, slam into each other while competing for dominance during their wintertime mating season in Hawaii.
A yellow-margin moray eel, Gymnothorax flavimarginatus, getting cleaned by a scarlet cleaner shrimp, Lysmata ambionensis, in Indonesia
A larval lobster riding atop the bell of a sea jelly that is drifting in the current as witnessed on an open ocean night dive off Kona, Hawaii
A yellowfin goatfish, Mulliodichthys vanicolensis, getting some dental hygiene from a Hawaiian cleaner wrasse, Labroides phthirophagus.
I captured this hatching California horn shark, Heterodontus francisci, while co-producing a film about sharks for the PBS series Nature.