HD Macro in Lembeh

Love the disco clam! He's super cool.

Wow Kaj, I bet this is an unintended consequence of this post but when it come's to advertising... these videos are a goldmine.

This week's clip is of a juvenile Fingered Dragonet. The clip starts off showing an adult Fingered Dragonet, which is about 15-20cm long. Fairly drab in color, it's a interesting fish none the less, with it's banner-like adapted dorsel fin and it's adapted 'finger' pectoral fins that it pulls itself along with.

The juvenile is a very different colour, white with orange lines and is very beautiful. It is also very small, in this phase only about 15mm long. They are hard to spot but well worth the time to film...

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This week's clip is of a Winged Pipefish, one of the most beautiful unsung heros of the pipefish world. Amazing colours and an amazing shape, with 'wings' along it's body and delicate protrusions above it's eyes and under it's mouth.

It's about 15cms long, and you can see it eating a tiny crustacean at the end of the clip. It reminds me, around the head, of a Leafy Seadragon...

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This week's clip is of an Ambon Scorpionfish. The Ambons are very shaggy with multiple protrusions all over their bodies. This one is about 15cm long. They are so shaggy that they are very difficult to film. In Lembeh the Ambon's tend to hang out on sandy sites, camouflaged to look like algae, waiting to Ambush their prey.

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This week's clip is of an Ambon Scorpionfish. The Ambons are very shaggy with multiple protrusions all over their bodies. This one is about 15cm long. They are so shaggy that they are very difficult to film. In Lembeh the Ambon's tend to hang out on sandy sites, camouflaged to look like algae, waiting to Ambush their prey.

 

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Am looking out of the window on a wet and cold November afternoon back in the UK.......so nice to be reminded of warm waters and weird critters. Keep them coming Kai.

Take care,

Jo

Am looking out of the window on a wet and cold November afternoon back in the UK......

Hi Jo,

Well, it did rain here all day two days ago!! Admittedly it wasn't that cold.. Good to see you at the NEC the other week. I've only just recovered from jet-lag and the curries!!

Stay warm,

Kaj

Been a good busy week A few clips to show...

The first clip is of a Blue Ring having a little bit of lunch. A crab came by while I was filming a Blue Ring, and the rest is history After the attack I've managed to get some closeups of the very weakly moving head parts of the crab, then the definitely not moving head parts of the crab. It did not take long for the crab to be paralyzed.

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The second clip is of the smallest thing I've yet attempted to film.. a Hairy Shrimp. I had heard of them, but this is the first one I've seen. I had no idea how small they were until a couple of days ago. They are like a very small piece of lint or fluff. How the guide found it I do not know. It cannot have been more than about 2 or 3mm big.

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...and the final clip is of something I'm hoping someone can tell me what it is. It's actually the 2nd one I've seen since being here, but my guides haven't seen one before. Please let me know if you have any ideas. It was swimming about in 8m of water, it's body perhaps 1cm long, it's tail maybe twice that.

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Pure speculation but the 'Snot House' definitely looks like some kind of juvenile something or other!

The guys over in the Critter Identification Forum are normally great at getting to the bottom of unknowns, or at least speculating more in depth than me!

Cheers, Simon

Thank Simon,

Leslie did manage to identify it as an unusual swimming pelagic tunicate

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=38766

Cheers,

Kaj

The last two months have been amazing for Blue Rings. This week I was lucky enough to find these two Blue Rings mating!!

The male is holding on to the female, and you can see that slowly he starts to envelope more and more of the female. Towards the end of their mating she becomes quiet agitated and moves her tentacles around until the male suddenly jets off.

In what can only be describe as perhaps universal post-coital behaviour, the male, after departing, sits on a rock and goes to sleep, while the female slowly wanders off, dignity hopefully intact...

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Always a favourite to photograph, these are great critters to watch.

These crustaceans are interesting, not only because of the way they feed, by waving adapted mouth parts in the current to gather thier food, but because they are not actually crabs at all. They are instead related to Squat Lobsters, but have evolved to resemble true crabs.

They get their name as they are very delicate and often shed limbs to escape predators. Their large claws are used for territorial fights.

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This was the first time I had seen one of these nudis (Melibe papillosa) since I started working here, nine months ago. I'm not sure how I missed them before, as they are huge. This one is about 40cm long. Perhaps they live deeper most of the year and then come to more shallow depths when they lay their egg ribbons.

When I found it, it was laying eggs and remaining fairly stationary. After it has finished, it then started to feed.

It is a filter feeder and has a mesmorising method of gathering the sand/muck it lives on. It extends and flattens it's head, then uses cilia in it's mouth opening to sweep up the substrate.

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I thought that I had finally found the very rare Lembeh Hairy Octopus. It wasn't, sadly, but a very interesting octopus none the less, and one we hadn't seen before.

It is interesting for a few reasons. Firstly, when it walks, it has the most bizarre action, bunching it's legs under it's body, stretching itself out and then walking and almost falling over at the same time. While it's doing this, it is a fairly uniform dark colour, quite smooth, with a distinctive white marking running down it's body and eyes.

When it stopped the second strange thing about this octopus showed itself. It grew hairs!! Which is why I though it was a Hairy Octopus. It rapidly camouflaged itself against the object it was on, which had masses of algae growing on it and perfectly copied the hair-like algae. He is, perhaps, a Shaggy Octopus, rather than a Hairy...

A wonderful octopus to watch, changing from smooth to hairy...

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Merry Christmas to all from Lembeh

Thanks for sharing as usual. Always love looking at your videos. I really liked the end of the nudi video - seeing the cilia moving was a nice catch.

Looking forward to more videos in the new year.

Hope you have a great Christmas and you get to spend it diving - DiverPam

Thanks Pam...yes a good days diving on Christmas day...wonderpus, red eyed Blue Ring plus many other critters...

This week's clip is of another weird nudi, a Moon-faced Nudi. I saw these two on last nights Boxing Day night dive. When we first saw them them were rolled together in a ball, but my lights must have disturbed their 'passion' and one of them took off with the other still attached.

They are great nudis, with a great shape and can travel at quite a pace. after they had separated they then went off to fivd some soft sand and buried themselves. It took about 3 minutes to disappear under the sand, I compressed it to 20secs....

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Have a good New Year!!!!

Hi Kaj,

Looks like you're finding new things to film all the time.....keep them coming, they always remind me of why I go to work.....to pay for the holidays!!!

Hope you've had a great Christmas and I wish you and the gang at KBR a Happy New Year for Saturday.

Jo

Hi Jo,

New stuff all the time

We had a lovely Christmas and are looking forward to fireworks off the floating jetty tomorrow night.....

Hope you are well and staying warm...

Have a great New Year,

Kaj

Happy New Year to all!!

This week's clip was taken on New Year's Day at Aw Shucks. I had been trying for a long time to get some decent shots of Hairy Squat Lobsters. The trouble is they always like to remain out of sight at the bottom of the crevices on the sides of giant barrel sponges. All you can usually see is the tips of their claws.

Luckily, on this dive, I finally found one that seems to be out and about, running around on a fairly smooth-sided barrel sponge. They are a beautiful little squat lobsters, with pink bodies, purple spots and lots of white hairs everywhere. Definitely one of the most vibrant critters on reefs.

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Kaj

You are the Lembeh man now with all these cool videos.

Maybe I should sell- rent my house and live over there.

Great little videos mate.

Thanks for sharing Liquidguru! That octopus is very interesting indeed!