Send in your photos! I have less than a week’s worth in the photo folder.
Reader Joe Dickinson (a one-time Drosophila guy whose “scientific monicker” is W. J. Dickinson) sent us some lovely tropical fish from his expeditions to French Polynesia. After seeing him, I asked what equipment he used, and whether he did scuba-diving or snorkeling, as I thought readers would want to know that. Joe’s answer:
Equipment: basically an underwater version of a small point-and-shoot, the Canon PowerShot D20. All natural light. Just snorkeling (my ears don’t tolerate anything deeper). Incidentally, researching species identities, I came across “FishBase“, reminding me (as a former Drosophila researcher) of FlyBase.
All IDs and captions below are Joe’s:
Picasso triggerfish (Rhinecanthus aculeatus). “Picasso” triggerfish just seems so right.
Orange-lined triggerfish (Balistapus undulatus).
Double-saddle butterflyfish (Chaetodon ulietensis).
Pinstripe butterflyfish (Chaetodon lunulatus).
Blue green chromes (Chromis viridis).
Checkerboard wrasse (Halichoeres hortulanus).
Bird wrasse (Gomphosus varius) with a cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus).
The cleaner wrasse has a Batesian mimic (Aspidontus taeniatus) that resembles the cleaner in both coloration and the “dance” that the wrasse does to advertise its cleaning services. It is thought thereby to avoid predation since larger fish spare the wrasse in exchange for cleaning.
[JAC: I thought I’d posted on the “false cleanerfish” before (also called the saber-toothed blenny or comb-toothed blenny), as it’s a remarkable example of mimicry of both appearance and behavior. It doesn’t kill the fish that it fools, but does take a chomp out of its body. Here are two photos showing its resemblance to the real cleaner wrasse, and then a video of its nefarious behavior:
Real bluestreak cleaner wrasse (photo from Animal World):
The mimetic saber-toothed blenny (from Wikipedia). Remarkable resemblance, no?
Here’s a video of a yellow tang being groomed by a real cleanerfish and then nommed by the mimic. Note the blenny’s mimetic “dance” as well.]
Back to Joe’s photos and notes; this one is a Network pipefish (Corythoichthys flavofasciatus). The pipefish, as one might guess from the head shape, is in the same subfamily (Syngnathidea) as seahorses.
Pufferfish (species not identified).
Moray eel (species not identified, something in Gymnothorax?). Morays are often perceived as pretty nasty, but this cute little guy was perhaps 8-10 inches long and about the diameter of my thumb.
Beautiful fish and excellent photos! But much of the coral looks dead. Is everything ok there?
I am rather inexperienced in such things, but coral polyps generally stay hidden in the day. Dead coral would quickly be covered by algae.
That’s pretty much what coral looks like in the water, during the daytime. New polyps grow on top of the calcified remains of dead polyps, which is probably the dead coral you’re seeing. Most of what a reef is made of is dead coral.
Yeah, I was actually going to mention that the corals looked healthy, which is an encouraging sight.
There does appear to be a fair amount of dead coral, but I don’t have any base line for comparison.
Last picture — “Oh hai!”
When the eel has a grin
That gets under your skin,
That’s a moray …
😀
Ohhhh ….
I drive a red-hot 6-inch (no – 9-inch) nail into my ear in appreciation. Where’s my lump hammer?
Gorgeous fishies! I love salt water fish. There were lots to be seen right outside my door when I was on Big Island in Hawaii and I could watch them all day happily if I wanted.
The eel is my favourite because eels always look either like they’ve just entered the room & shouted “ta-da!” or they just cracked a joke and are waiting for your response to it. 🙂
‘Sorry I told those bad fish jokes. I feel gill-ty!’ [Waits expectantly].
Lurker wins. For his Moray-ish lurking.
Amazing pictures. I expect you had some kind of special housing for the camera, yes?
No housing. The camera (Canon Power Shot D20)is waterproof on its own. Several other makers have similar models.
Woa. i think I know the next gadget I am buying if we ever take our vacation in Hawaii.
I’ve got a several year old Fuji compact camera – actually the wife’s day-to-day walking camera – which I got as a deal with a waterproof (40m) housing which added about 60% to the base price. It’s a cost, but not an extortionate one. But you need to accept that the next version of the camera will require s completely different housing. No interchangeability at all.
The false cleaner fish situation is better characterized as aggressive mimicry (please “Wiki”) than Batesian mimicry.
Amazing fish fotos!
I want that caerulean blue for my bathroom.
The coral formations that look like a cerebral cortex are actually called brain coral, at least colloquially in the Florida Keys anyway. I used to think that was so cool when I was a kid.
Still is called ‘brain coral’, at least as far as the Indian Ocean.
Beware, many countries have laws banning the export of specimens these days. Spending 3 hours being screamed at in Swahili by a room full of customs officers and possibly missing your flight is not a nice way to spend the afternoon. And yes, your baggage does get searched on entry to the airport.
My aunt, once a professional scuba diver, told me triggerfish can get pretty nasty if you approach their clutch, and one better should avoid anything that looks like a shell crater in the sand.
Perhaps Jerry should add a trigger warning at the top of the post.
Beautiful photos! I’ve snorkeled a bit in nearby Vanuatu and New Caledonia, which are also gorgeous. I didn’t have an underwater camera though unfortunately. 🙁
Awesome fishies, and a great assortment! Trigger fish are one of my favorite species- curious, tenacious and extremely agile swimmers. The Bird Wrasse is also very splendid. Snorkeling in tropical waters is so much fun; I can’t wait to do it again some day.
the one labeled pufferfish looks like the boxfish Ostracion meleagris.
I’m just back from snorkelling in the Red Sea at Sharm el Sheikh, where there are some excellent protected coral reefs. I tried to get photos using a cheap plastic cover on a compact Ricoh camera. The camera survived, but the photos are not worth submitting. On the way back from a snorkelling boat trip I got some interesting footage of playful dolphins. I’ll try to post this on YouTube, if I can work out how to do it.
Wild dolphins showing off!
Oh, so right. Called the same in the Western Indian Ocean too.