Marine life behavior
Lembeh Strait, Indonesia (2007) – I was at the end of a 2-hour dive, off-gassing in about 10 feet of water and struggling to stay in place in the sudden, brisk current. I saw several juvenile Red Emperor Snappers, Lutjanus sebae bolt for a gathering of Radiant Sea Urchins, Astropyga radiata, which is not unusual since the snappers, when they are much smaller, are often found living within the spines of theses urchins. Then I noticed the urchins were spawning! … Read more
Lembeh Strait, Indonesia – I am a sucker for Striped Catfish, Plotosus lineatus. Their schooling and feeding behavior is mesmerizing and I follow these fish so often that I am teased about my magnum opus, Catfish, the Movie (to which of course I turn a deaf ear.) Juvenile Striped Catfish form dense balls that are often seen “rolling” over the substrate. The fish at the leading edge of the aggregation feed, as those above roll down over them. They can … Read more
Sulawesi, Indonesia – Ned was working on a slide presentation, so I buddied up with our friend Jessica Hatsfelt for the afternoon dive. The boat moored in the center of a small sandy bay that had very little in the way of critter habitat – only an occasional small patch of sea grass. Hanny, our Eco Divers guide, led us over the sand and along a slope, pausing for a pipefish and nudibranch or two until we ended … Read more
St. Vincent – Oh boy! Another species for our life lists. We recognized the pulsing creature as a jellyfish, but would not have known it was the jellyfish, had we not been alerted to its existence by Bud Gillan, a teaching colleague of Ned’s from years back. Bud, now teaching AP and Honors Biology in South Florida, had been tracking this species for nearly a decade. He showed us a photo of the then undescribed jellyfish when we met up … Read more
NOTE: We have republished the story, with additional images in a July 2020 post on this blog. In the field, I scout for rare or unusual animals for Ned to photograph for our magazine articles. I use a video camera to record their behavior for later analysis and over the years have ended up with hours and hours of footage. For two weeks in the summer of 2005, we dived with a pair of Coconut Octopuses, Amphioctopus marginatus. This cephalopod … Read more
Cataloging long neglected video is a good way to fend off cabin fever. I relive dives and get some work done at the same time. I’m up to November 2008, Papua New Guinea – a rare day, with everything that for us, made the perfect dive: a shallow, mucky bay, with outflow from a river; warm water; no current – and – permission from the dive operator to stay down as long as we wanted! Unfortunately, the site had been ravaged … Read more
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