Small Cuttlefish...

Last weekend was pretty much a run-of-the-mill dive trip. Same old place on the East coast of Malaysia that I visit every other weekend.

But the night dive held something special in store. I came accross a small cuttlefish that looked a bit weird, with a tail in front! It took a few seconds before I realised it was chomping away on a rabbitfish almost as large as itself.

I followed it for 20 minutes as it proceeded to meticulously chew on the fish...

... before eventually spitting out the headless body.

Pretty cool for an otherwise ordinary weekend

Cool....nice shots....wish I was there with my Phenom..

Yes, definitely one of those cases where I wish I had video instead of a still camera

It just goes to show. If you dive often enough, you will see amazing things.

"Last weekend was pretty much a run-of-the-mill dive trip. Same old place on the East coast of Malaysia that I visit every other weekend." <_< Its really easy to hate some people One man's run-of-the-mill is another man's paradise! Very cool shot on the cuddle fish...the ejected, half eaten fish is cool too.

Really nice Matt - great sequence - great shots. Would've loved to have seen that as well!

Bryce

Excellent capture, Matt. I assume the cuttlefish didn't swim away too fast dragging its own body weight with it

In fact, it was pretty slow. Checked me out for a while, probably to see whether I'd want a bite too

After that, it just ignored me altogether, which was good and bad. I could take shots, but never with a clean background!

They're really nice shots. The behaviour is really clear and the animal is distinct from the background. I see the background as showing the camoflauge aspect of the feeding behaviour. Also the cuttle seems engaged with you in the second shot ... nice.

I agree with Gary though, its hard to feel sympathy for you diving malaysia again

Nice shots Matt.

I got some really good HiDef footage of some cuttlefish in the P.I's. I observed that certain ones have protuberances on their bodies like the one in your photos, but they had the ability to rapidly control them to either make their body smooth, or to raise them to give more of a 3 dimensional surface so as to blend in as a camoflage tactic.

I have really good close up footage showing them doing this. I also have some really good footage of a small cuttlefish, about 2 inches long that used my Phenom light sto spy on a tiny fish and sent out its grabbing arm at lightning speed, and I caught it all on tape. Now all I need to do is go find some flamboyant cuttlefish....

I start my Final Cut Pro training the end of this week....once I get my footage in and done, I'll compress it, serve it up somewher eand pist a link here.

Anyway, great shots, I think cuttlefish are really fascinating animals....

Nice shots Matt.

Thanks guys

Now all I need to do is go find some flamboyant cuttlefish....

You mean one like this

Yep, exactly like that!

Got that one in Puerto Galera a couple of years back diving at dusk, on the seagrass area in Sabang Bay. The bugger was hunting and courting frantically.

I think he eventually got lucky

hey,cool series....

and i hate you for the flambouyant one too...

Funny when I was divbing with Atlantis and a group of fellow rebreather types our 1st dive was in the eel grass where you mentioned.

I didn't take my videocam down as I hadn't even got it wet yet in the pool......we ended up seeing half a dozen razorfish and some otehr small cool critters.

Everyone in our group compliained that the dive in the eel grass sucked.....because they didn't see any big fish/stuff apparently...i was all gushing about the razorfish and how it was amazxing what weird stuff hides out in the eel grass, and they all thought I was whacked out.

I went their again 2 months later and I was all: Can we do a dive in the eel grass?!

But alas, in spite of my best attempts, I still haven't run into any flambouyant cuttlefish......

I might dive with La Laguna if they can arrange day trips to Anilao area for macro or maybe I can find a resort on the Island just off the tip of Anilao....what is that, Tingloy Island?

dave, i would suggest doing 4 or 5 days in anilao, go sun-thurs and you will have the place to yourself!!

or, Matt at Atlantis can probably arrange a day trip to anilao for you. i know he will shuttle people over there..

I didn't hear about Anilao till after I left Atlantis. In hindsight, I wonder why they don't do the day trips to that island off Anilao alternately called Tingloy or Maricaban Island as opposed to Verde Island. They never said anything about Anilao.....but rumor has it I must dive Basura/Bahura....

If Anilao has Coleman shrimp, what more else does one really need?! lol

I wonder if there is a dive resort on Tingloy/Maricaban Island, or if not, if La Laguna has day trips to Anilao.....

I've actually seen Coleman Shrimps in that very same sea grass a few years back while documenting one of my friends' OW course... That place is great for critters at dusk and at night. Aside from the flamboyant and the Coleman shrimps, I saw mimic octopus, 2 types of seahorse, clown frogfish, and the list goes on. I used to do it as a shore dive from Atlantis every evening...

atlantis now has a jaeger machine... no more night dives for me..

Then you should have one of these......