Laurent Ballesta (France) goes looking for horseshoe crabs in the protected waters of Pangatalan Island, the Philippines.
Laurent used a tiny stick to move mud away from besides a resting tri-spine horseshoe crab. Finding an angle for his lens to see past its legs, he revealed the hidden world beneath the horseshoe crab’s carapace.
Little is known about the interactions between horseshoe crabs and other species. But here we can see lined shrimps underneath the horseshoe crab’s carapace. These shrimp sometimes act as cleaners for fish, removing parasites. The horseshoe crab’s carapace is also playing host to minute, hair-like polyps of hydroids, which feed on plankton or particles in the water.
France
Laurent has authored 13 photography books on underwater wildlife. As co-founder of Andromède Océanologie, he’s been leading major expeditions for 10 years. He illustrates the underwater world as both a naturalist and an artist, whether that be capturing the first images of a coelacanth taken by a diver at a depth of 120 metres, documenting 700 sharks off Fakarava hunting at night or photographing the deepest and longest dive in Antarctica.
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