Last week I posted something small, so this week it is time for something big (I try to alternate.)
This is a Nassau Grouper getting a make-over from some Peterson Cleaner Shrimp at a cleaning station. If you look carefully you can see the shrimp in its mouth.
A cleaning station is a place where fish (and other creatures) can come and get a cleaning from resident shrimps and other cleaning fishes. The cleaning consists of removing dead skin and flesh, as well as any parasites that may be on the fish getting cleaned.
A reef will have cleaning stations all over, you only need to look where fish are hovering, usually at a slight angle, with their mouths and/or gill open. This is usually the signal that they want a cleaning rather than hunting for dinner!
On this particular shot I was able to loiter for about 5 minutes, taking lots of shots as the shrimp clambered all over the grouper to clean it. Cleaning stations are a great place to get good shots because the fish are usually very relaxed and don’t move, so if you are patient you will be usually rewarded with great shots.
The oddity here is that I could not see the Corkscrew Anemone where Peterson Cleaner Shrimp usually hide in, but maybe it was tucked away somewhere out of sight.
Peterson Cleaner Shrimp will also clean diver’s hands if you let them which I have done before and which will be the subject of a future post.
This little guy is a Flamingo Tongue. The coloring on it is not the shell but a protective mantle that is deployed when they are awake, the shell itself is white. They feed on coral which is where they are usually seen.
Taking pictures of these guys can be challenging since they are usually seen on soft corals which sway with the surge/current so they are usually moving back and forth. I have lots of out of focus pictures of them, and relatively few in-focus pictures.
The mantle is really quite beautiful and I probably serves as a warning to potential predators, but that is just my own theory.
I have another picture of one here.
In the Coco Islands we did half our night dives on the shallow side pf Manuelita, a very small island very close to the main island. On one side of the island was a drop down to about 100 feet and on the other, more protected side, the drop was to around 30 feet with a gentle slope down to 100 feet. This small island is a nesting ground for birds which while it is quite beautiful to look at, it does get a little fragrant after a rain.
The night dives were very interesting because the white tip sharks were hunting. They moved around in packs and would follow the black jacks who were also hunting. If you saw a black jack swim by, you were going to see a pack of white tips following on after it. These packs would contain anything from a few sharks to a several dozen, and they would move around the rocky bottom very quickly. Most of the time you could just hang there and you would see sharks, but I preferred to stay on the bottom and wait for them to stream around me. Sometimes they would all jump on some poor unsuspecting fish and a feeding frenzy would ensue, something I once saw from 4 feet away.
This shark was not too big, about 4 feet long, but swam right into my camera to a point where it needed to backtrack to swim on (you can see its left pectoral fin backing up). I was half expecting it to take a bite at the camera which would have made a great picture but would have been unnerving for sure.
The sea is full of interesting relationships, some symbiotic, some parasitic, some for convenience, and some we have yet to understand.
This one is interesting, the little red fish are probably using the sea urchin’s spines for protection, but another possible explanation is that they were playing in the eddie currents caused by the water washing over the spines. Indeed there was a lot of current (and surge) on this dive, off Dirty Rock in the Cocos Island, and eddie currents would have formed around the spines of this sea urchin. I am not sure the sea urchin was deriving anything from this (apart from a cleaning of its spines), but the fish seemed to be enjoying it. Most of the sea urchins there had the same thing going on, and there were a lot of them there! The scale is a little deceiving, the spines are actually about 8-12 inches across, definitely a hazard for the unweary diver.
This dive in Dirty Rock was one of the more challenging dives we went on, there was a current and lot of surge. While this was a minor problem at 80 feet, you still had to use your (gloved) hands to maneuver along the bottom, the surge was a pretty major problem for the safety stop at 20 feet and you were bobbed around like a cork in a storm. It was a blast!
This fish is interesting, but what is more interesting is the isopod clinging to it just below its eye. It looks like a parasite but in fact it is just hitching a ride, for life.
As juvenile isopod are free floating but as they mature they will ‘catch’ a fish, hook themselves into place and spend the rest of their lives there, feeding of whatever comes their way. Sometimes fish will have on on each side of their heads. Isopods also mate and spawn while on the fish but I am not sure about that.
While there is nothing parasitic about this relationship, there is nothing symbiotic either, the isopod is catching a free ride for life.
The interesting thing is that I had not seen them at all before diving this one site in Turks & Caicos and then saw quite a few. I caught another fish with one which you can see here.
What I find interesting about this shot is that is is using one of its fins to prop itself.
On a night dive, we came across this very nice conch who was making its way across the bottom looking for food. The two eyes are on independent stalks and it has a trunk, which is clearly visible in the center of the picture, to probe for food with.
This guy was happily moving along the bottom not paying any attention to us or the camera flashes so all I needed to do was to put the camera down in front of it and take pictures as it moved closer. This is the only time I have seen one actively feeding, usually they are curled up in their shells.
Conchs are actually very tasty (they don’t taste like chicken) and are farmed for their flesh. There is also a lot of illegal harvesting which has made them an endangered species.
This is a cute green Moray Eel, shot on Alcyone in the Cocos Island. This show is unusual because it is out in the open when it should be hidden in a crack somewhere. In fact on that dive site there were lots of eels who were either free swimming or just lying across the bottom like that. These eels are generally curious about divers but keep a respectful distance from them. At one point I had found a great ledge from which to observe passing hammerheads but it was already occupied by two eels, needless to say I let them keep the ledge.
The reason they have their mouth always open is that they are inhaling water to breath (extracting oxygen via gills) and expelling that water through vents just behind their head. Having their mouth always open is a little intimidating at first until you realize what is going on. Their teeth look like glass and are extremely sharp, not only will they puncture skin very easily but they cause all sorts of infections.
This little guy is a neck crab, part of the decorator crab family. These guy cover themselves with debris, algae and smaller creatures to camouflage themselves.
They are usually about 1-2 inches and this particular one was close to 2 inches which made it relatively easy to photograph. It is usually fairly hard to find them because they are small and well hidden but they can be spotted when they are clambering on soft corals. They are hard to get good pictures of because the soft coral is usually swaying in the current and the crabs themselves are pretty small, I had to take more than a few pictures to get this one (which was taken on a night dive).
This sponge feeds by filtration, pulling in water through its outer walls, filtering out the nutrients and expelling the water through its inner walls. It is not a single organism but a collection of organisms working in cooperation.
Because it filters water, there is usually a lot of debris on its outer walls which you can wave off with your hands. This is more fun at night because this debris usually contains a lot of bio-luminescent organisms which light up as you wave them off. Of course you need to turn off your dive light to see them, but it is worth it as it looks like a swarm of stars.
The outer wall of this sponge also serves as a habit for all kinds of small fishes, brittle stars and yellow line arrow crabs. The inside of the sponge also serves as a refuge for fishes and crabs.
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