Last week I got back from the most brilliant diving trip of my life, to Manado, Sulawesi, Indonesia. It is part of the coral triangle of biodiversity, and you could tell. I'm actually going to go ahead and say yep - better than Sipadan!
We went to recce a marine biology trip there - how sweet would that be?
We arrived, checked-in to our lovely resort and straight in the water for a night dive. I've never dove (dived? diven?) sea grass beds before and it was amazing! Pleurobranchs mating, Banded Sea Krait (very venomous, but small jawed snake) rubbing up on Rich's leg, Snake eel, a baby cuttlefish.....the list goes on. I'm not going to write you out my log book - but it was amazing!
For the first two days, we stayed around the mainland,and the last two we went to Bunaken National Marine Park which again was outstanding. We dived black sands, artifical reefs, coral gardens, massive walls, it was such a diversity of dive sites. Because of that, and it's location in the coral triangle, I saw almost everything that was on my dive list in 5 days, and I thought it would take me at least 20 years.
As a bunch of Biology.....let's use the word fanatics instead of geeks, we were all very excited about the things that we were going to see, and spoke a lot to the dive masters about where best to go and see things. Almost everything we ordered was delivered. The rare and much sought after Pygmy Seahorse? There you go. Frog fish? Over here! Orang-Utan crab? et voila! Mandarin fish? Oh look one there. Ornate Ghost Pipefish? Literally the first thing we saw when we descended. Anything we talked about just before the dive, we saw , including Eagle rays! It was insane. The only thing we didn't see that we ordered was the mimic octopus, and that is because we were distracted by the flamboyant cuttlefish!
The trip was even more special as it was my first outing with my (brand new - thanks Dad!) camera and underwater housing. It completely changed the perspective of the dive for me. Zoomed into the macro stuff, and almost completely forgot about fish except for a few notable examples. I've showed my pictures to a few family and friends, and most divers have gotten excited about what there was, but many don't really know what they are looking at, so I thought I'd pick a few to explain about them.
The Flamboyant Cuttlefish (Metasepia pfefferi) is named for it's ripples of extravagant colour such as pink, yellow and black when it is alarmed. It is a hunter, able to camouflage itself to stalk prey during the day, like fish and crustaceans. It grows to about 8cm, and we saw two. The one above, and one that could not have been more than 2.5cm long which broke my heart it was so cute. N.B. saying "awwwww" underwater lets water in your regulator.
It's arm tips often display red to ward off would-be predators. It was previously though that this was a bluff, but recent research has shown it to be highly toxic. Only the third cephalopod to be classed as such, and the only cuttlefish. The unique toxin is though to be as potent as that of the blue-ringed octopus (which is fatal by the way).
It moves by "ambling" along the sea floor, the only cuttlefish to do so. We spent ages with this guy just watching him amble along, he had quite a stride, no contender for the Ministry of Silly Walks here.
We were also unbelievable lucky to see it hunt. It ambled along to a dip in the sand, stopped, and suddenly these two white tentacles shot out and back again before we could finish the thought "What the....!".
The Orang Utan Crab (Achaeus japonicus) is a decorater crab that lives in bubble coral, anemones, and soft coral. It's whole body and legs are covered in reddish hair (hence the name) that collects particles and debris to help camouflage it self. Any plankton or suspended particles that are caught on the front two legs are lunch.
It's quite hard to spot, but we managed to see 4 or 5 of these guys in the week! Was stoked everytime I saw one, and I'll never get bored of this guy!
The Frog Fish is a type of angler fish, with it's first dorsal spine modified into a "fishing lure". It has a spine and "bait" at the end which resembles a worm, crustacean or small fish (see below).
If the prey is lured in close enough, the frog fish literally gulps it down. It greatly expands it's mouth cavity and creates a relatively strong suction and engulfs it's prey!
They are able to change their colour to match their background with such precision, that when each of the group was brought to see the Giant Frog Fish above, which had propped itself between a sponge with it's pectoral fins, there would be a look of "What? I don't see anything", a gesture of "look closer!" and then a jump back and lots of bubbles as each person noticed.
Frog fish don't swim, they walk with their pectoral fins (quite cutely I might add) or use jet propulsion (yep, that's right) from a small opening behind and below their pectoral fins. We saw the white one walk right underneath a starfish that was standing on its legs spawning, take a look around, and walk on out the other side, only, to our enormous delight, start to flick it's lure, and gulp at unseen prey! There were a few wide eyes after that dive!
I got hooked on Nudibranch fever whilst on this trip. It's an ailment common to many divers, and for me it's because of the satisfaction of finding them, hidden in plain sight amongst the reef.
Nudibranch means "Naked Lung" in Latin, and those fluffy things on the middle of Nembrotha Cristata above are its exposed gills. It is a mollusc - i.e. related to snails, but has lost it's shell and is often termed sea slugs, which annoys me no end, because although they are, people tend to think all sea slugs are nudibranchs but there are some which do not have exposed gills. Sorry, just being pedontic.
This here is Pteraeolidia ianthina, and he's special. He has zooxanthellae (the same algae with which coral reefs and giant clams use) to photosynthesize light and provide energy to the nudibranch! Most nudibranchs are carnivourous and have a very varied diet.
As Nudibranchs evolved and lost their shells, and therefore their protection, they developed other means of deterring predators. They became distasteful or even poisonous, and advertise this with their bright colours. Some Nudi's eat hydroids (a stinging animal related to coral) and are able to keep the stinging cells and incorporate them into their bodies!
I've got to stop writing now, because I'm getting nostalgic for the magical world under the sea, because darling it's better, down where it's wetter - take it from me!
To be continued....
EcoSma
"Be the fish you want to see in the world"
