SeaWeed - Micro Mysteries

I don't really understand why this word holds such negative connotations for us as kids - I guess at that stage, 'icky, slimy green stuff' is easier to understand about seaweed than all the variety of impressive uses in food (directly in soups, salads and sushi, or extracts in things like ice cream, dressings and jellies), medicines (for everything from cancer to impotence), and cosmetics (lotions, shampoos, toothpaste and lipstick).  Of course, there are over 60 species of red, brown, and green seaweeds, which actually aren't 'weeds' at all, nor plants for that matter.  Seaweed is actually ALGAE!

Anyway, I have come to appreciate another aspect of one particular species of seaweed over the course of my growing love affair with the ocean...  Floating Sargassum Seaweed mats comprise a complex mini-ecosystem of their own - an entire miniature world within a square meter!  An encounter with this stuff in the wild open ocean, on the fringes of the reefs, can be a real eye-opener.  I can spend ages searching each inch of any given floating mass for all kinds of interesting critters - juvenile fish, shrimp, crabs, clams, flatworms, hydroids, seahorses, etc!  See if you can find some in these photos:

The sargassum frogfish, of course, being the ultimate find... Although I have never encountered one myself, I am including a few pictures here so you can see how well-camouflaged they are to their homes in the Sargassum seaweed!