Fish Behavior
This image of spawning Striated Frogfish is not new. We wrote about our 2009 Blue Heron Bridge adventure in Alert Diver Magazine in an article we called “Caught in the Act” (you can click here to read it online). We were lucky to get the photos and video – it was a combination of being in the right place at the right time and recognizing what was about to happen. I’m posting it here because I just created a Blennywatcher video channel … Read more
Lembeh Strait, Indonesia ~ Well the table is turned. I have seen prey in the grips of toothy lizardfishes before, but never this. What is going on here? From a distance I could see Ned watching what I thought was a lizardfish (quite a predator on the reef) trying to eat a razorfish. Then I realized the razorfish was firmly clamped onto the lizardfish – quite a reversal from the expected. Ned had a better angle and was able to … Read more
Lembeh Strait, Indonesia ~ October 2012 Here is one of my favorite examples of mimicry in fishes: a Striped Fangblenny (Meiacanthus grammistes) model and its mimic, a juvenile bream, Scolopsis bilineatus. Neither fish is that uncommon on the Indo-Pacific reefs where we dive but this was the first time I took the time to follow a little Bridled Monocle Bream to see if it would lead me to the blenny that it is known to mimic. The relationship of this bream … Read more
November 2012 ~ We have just returned from a cruise aboard the Dewi Nusantara around Batanta and Waigeo, two islands in the Raja Ampat region of eastern Indonesia. If I had to rank my top 10 favorite dives of all time, I would include a 2007 night dive off Batanta when we saw this frogfish, Lophiocharon sp., with her clutch of eggs. The only divers still in the water after a two-hour dive, we were on our way back to … Read more
On our recent trip to Bali, I added a new blenny species to my Blennywatcher life list and observed what we are sure was spawning. Excited by my initial sighting, I chased a little Smith’s Fangblenny, Meiacanthus smithi, down the reef, where to my surprise, it joined a milling group, whose attention seemed to be focused on a blenny peeking out of a hole. The blenny in the hole would emerge, gently lunge at one of the group and swim … Read more
Lembeh Strait, Indonesia ~ Juvenile Red Emperor Snappers, Lutjanus sebae, are not that uncommon here – we almost always find a few tiny juveniles nestled down in the spines of the Radiant Sea Urchins. They shelter there until they are ready to move to deep water to live out their lives as much larger and less colorful adults. In 2006, we were lucky enough to find a small group that had grown enough to start venturing out from the protection … Read more
Bali, Indonesia – March 2012 We have this image of a lovely juvenile sole thanks to our friend Mark Willis who found it on a muck slope while the rest of us were photographing nudibranchs and a cool blenny. He had shown it to Ned and several others in our group but by the time I got there, it was lost. Mark showed me the image on the back screen of his digital camera; my pantomimed “knife to my heart” … Read more
Graysbys are small Caribbean seabasses that are fairly solitary. We noticed that they are much more active during the same week that the corals spawn and it is a good time to see fighting fish action. Some times they lunged at each other, sometimes they just stared each other down, then one or the other would take off to join a waiting fish, presumably a female. We were fairly certain the battles were territorial wars connected to spawning activities, but … Read more
Bonaire, 2008 – The juvenile French Angelfish, Pomacanthus paru, had taken up residence in a piece of wreckage, turning the unsightly structure into a cleaning station – a location that fish know they can visit to have parasites removed. Shrimps and fishes that make their living picking parasites and injured tissue from other fish are known as cleaners. We knelt in the sand for about half an hour, watching bar jacks buzz in for a quick visit. The angelfish … Read more
Note: This post was republished on April 23, 2021 to include more information about our experience. The updated story is here: https://www.blennywatcher.com/2021/04/23/yellowhead-jawfish-hatching-eggs/ Bonaire, 2009 – A jawfish releasing its eggs – we finally got the shot – and it only took fifteen years! We fell in love with jawfish back in 1995 when we were working on the Reef Fish Behavior book. In fact, the first magazine article that Ned and I wrote together for Ocean Realm magazine was … Read more
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