At Wakatobi, encounters with glowing, other-worldly creatures like cuttlefish happen every day With eight arms growing out of their heads, and three hearts pumping blue blood through their pliable, gelatinous bodies, cuttlefish may seem like creatures from another planet, but they actually thrive in abundant numbers on the colorful reefs of Wakatobi. They could be […]

Wakatobi’s iconic Jetty Bar is a favorite place to gather and enjoy a libation while watching the sun sink towards the horizon. But there’s another reason why some guests show up there in the late afternoon. It turns out that the end of the jetty is also the perfect starting point for a different type […]

Wakatobi’s underwater landscape may seem like a placid environment, but in reality, it’s a fish-eat-fish world where most everything that swims is both a hunter and the hunted. Mixed in with all these ruthless carnivores and omnivores are a lesser number of creatures that don’t prey on their neighbors, and instead sate their appetites with […]

The coral reefs of Wakatobi are often lauded as some of the most pristine and bio-diverse in the world. Such praise is certainly justified, and we work diligently to ensure our reefs continue to receive the protections needed to ensure their continued health. But there’s more to our underwater attractions than corals, and even areas […]

Taking a closer look at one of Wakatobi’s less celebrated anemone dwellers: the porcelain crab. You don’t have to swim far to find sea anemones on the reefs around Wakatobi Resort. Just yards from the resort jetty, a colorful carpet of these stationary predators adorn the slopes of the House Reef, and similar colonies are […]

A look at the different ways Wakatobi’s marine life perceives the underwater world Touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing. Most all living creatures use some combination of these five senses to discover the world around them. But when water is added to the sensory equation, things change. Marine animals often sense the world in ways that […]

Though sometimes overlooked by divers, sea sponges can be fascinating Did you know that the reefs of Wakatobi are home to some of the oldest and most resilient creatures in the animal kingdom? Creatures that have survived more than a dozen planet-wide mass extinctions and outlasted the dinosaurs. You will find them everywhere from the […]

Discovering a wealth of rare and elusive marine species at Wakatobi There are thousands of unique creatures to be discovered on the reefs of Wakatobi, including some rare specimens that even veteran marine-life scientists are excited to find. This was the case for Dr. Richard Smith, who once spent years traveling and diving across wide […]

Discovering the menagerie of small creatures living on sea fans At Wakatobi dive sites such as Fan 38, the profusion of colorful soft corals may inspire you to back up and take in the big picture. But after doing so, you might want to move in among the luxuriant groves of sea fans and whips […]

What’s that fish? Are you sure? Fish spotting and identification is a favorite underwater activity for many divers and snorkelers visiting Wakatobi Resort. And thanks to our protected reefs, which teem with several thousand species of fish and even more varieties of invertebrates, there’s no shortage of subject material. Some animals are iconic and easy […]