A Spotted turbot, Pleuronichthys ritteri, easily blends in with the sand and algae of a nearby reef waiting for it's favorite food items to approach.
The Speckled Sand Dab, Citharicthys stigmaeus, lives a little further away from the reef that the Turbot, but not so far that they won't meet. Try to photograph a Sand Dab and they will shyly slip a few inches away, but if you sit still they turn around and approach very closely. You may stir up something they'll eat, and any small shinny object you may have is worth tasting too!
Sea Pens are related to corals and anemones but living in the sand makes for a very different apparent morphology.

Stylatula elongata displays its feeding apparatus above the surface of the sand while the anchor portion, the peduncle, is buried well below the surface. Sea Pens, like a lot of other Cnidarians, emit light when disturbed in a process known as bioluminescence.
Lizard Fish are cosmopolitan and have well-documented hunting strategies. The species found off Southern California, Synodus lucioceps, prefers to hunt over sandy bottoms and waits for its prey to come close before making a rapid lunge and strike.
Buried in the sand during the day is the Thornback Ray, Platyrhinoids triseriata, coming out at night to feed on invertebrates on the sandy bottom. The Thornback Ray is named after the rows of spines, or denticles, which occur on the posterior dorsal surface of this ray and protect it from predators to a small extent. I have witnessed small sharks such as Soupfin Sharks feeding on the rays in the shallows when they mass together for mating and the sharks often tear off one of the lobes of the Rays and leave the rest, moving on to attack another Ray. The attack is accomplished by two sharks feeding on one Ray at a time.
An Angel Shark, Squatina californica, a shark which dwells on the bottom waiting for prey such as small fish to come with reach. This shark has a large mouth with plenty of teeth for capturing prey.

A diver can approach this species and observe it or even brush the sand off of it's dorsal surface without the shark doing more than glaring back, but it's best to keep one's hands away from the shark's mouth.
A young California Halibut, Paralichthys californicus, behaves much the same way as an Angel Shark, it sits and waits for prey to come close enough for a rapid strike. But otherwise the Halibut is very shy and doesn't allow divers to approach (in most cases). It can be possible to get very close to a Halibut if the diver is moving very slowly and, also, if the Halibut has fed recently and moving may be more than difficult - it could result in injuries to the stomach lining by a swallowed fish with sharp spines.
The Sea Pansy, Renilla koellikeri, a relative of jellyfish and corals in it's natural position on the sandy bottom. The base of the Sea pansy is a fleshy heart-shaped base with an appendage, or peduncle, which is inserted into th sand a few inches down to anchor the animal to the sea floor. Sea Pansies have bioluminescent abilities and the genes for their luminescence have been very useful as biochemical indicators of gene activity or recombinant DNA markers.
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