Helen Reef is home to wondrous—and maybe strange—animals. You have to see them to bereef  them.

(We know, we know. That pun didn’t work atoll.)

Napoleon wrasse (aka the humphead wrasse) has a gigantic bump on its forehead. It’s also just gigantic, period. It can grow to be over six feet long! Some Napoleons live more than 30 years. Reefs are loaded with their favorite foods—mollusks, starfish, and crustaceans.

Nope, that’s not the wrasse’s twin brother. It’s a different species. Bumphead parrotfish have a parrot-like “beak.” (Humphead wrasse have big, roundish lips instead.) Other parrotfish have bumpy heads too. But bumpheads are huge, growing longer than four feet and weighing up to 100 pounds. They have the important job of eating algae and dead coral. They clean up the reef! Afterward, they excrete (poop out) beautiful beach sand. Now that’s recycling!

Hawksbill sea turtles. These pointy-nosed, critically endangered creatures can weigh as much as 150 pounds each and grow nearly three feet long. God made their shells with colorful patterns. People often sell the shells in markets. The turtles are beautiful and useful to keep a reef’s food chain in balance. They pluck sponges from inside reefs with their sharp bills. They also feast on jellyfish and anemones.

No offense to sea cucumbers, but they’re really brainless, wormlike bottom-crawlers. They eat off the seafloor. Do they look like cucumbers? Only if cucumbers could walk on tentacle-like tube feet! To defend themselves, sea cucumbers shoot out their toxic organs at predators. The organs grow back. Sea cucumbers can be teeny, less than one inch long. The biggest can grow larger than six feet.

Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. — Psalm 104:25