• Cruise/dive reports
• Area information
• Creature features updated!
• Hints & tips

Web diving4images

Creature Features

New species of dragonet?

Yet more surprise critters show up, this time a dragonet that is in no books and again, Dr. Gerry Allen and others have no idea what it is either. I have now found this this animal on two different dive sites in the Flores, Alor region!

In betw

New Scorpion / Wasp fish species found...

Species diversity is always a big attraction to new dive locations. The Lembeh Straits has pulled in vast amounts of critter lovers who want to see species of marine life they have never seen before. Species like the hairy frogfish (Antennarius striatus), weedy scorpionfish (Rhinopias frondosa) and a whole array of other bizarre and well sought after rarities attract marine life enthusiasts, photographers, film makers and scientists alike.

Just about every critter lover has been away on their dive holiday and found animals they are unable to find in any of the resort or liveaboard identification books. Nudibranchs and their relatives are often seen that are certainly not in any of the books out there yet. There are many great destinations where we can find new species of nudibranchs.

In between assisting filming sequences for a BBC film maker whilst around the Komodo area recently I had a little extra time to go in search of new and exciting sites, of course with the chance to possible look for new marine life. To my big surprise I saw a fish on a night dive that simply wasn’t quite right. For over 10 years I’ve my head stuck in fish and marine life ID books and magazines. So when I noticed a fish that looked like a cross between a waspfish, scorpionfish, stonefish and stingfish I was glad to have my little camera with me.

I’ve already managed to sent some photo’s to the likes of Dr. Gerry Allen, Dr. Mark Erdmann and the Lembeh Straits critter maniac Bruce Moore of Black Sand Dive Retreat. I thought if Mark and Gerry hadn’t seen this then Bruce might have. Bruce and his many years of experience in Lembeh have brought him many surprise finds, however all these Indonesian specialists had never seen this fish at all, or even any documentation of anything like it. It’s behaviour, very much like the waspfish Richardsonichtys leauchogaster shown below is rather none existing and being at 32m I didn’t have a whole lot of time down there to see it this was actually going do anything or if there was another partner nearby. I have seen a few fish very similar to this fish like this...

This is may be somewhat similar species to a species that was photographed in Triton Bay earlier in 2007. however Gerry and Mark have seen more of the images from Triton Bay than me and are fairly sure this is something very different!

• Click here for full reports and latest Bali diving sightings...

Click on these links to go directly to a specific creature or scroll down:

• Bargibants pigmy sea horse
• Denises pigmy sea horse
• Weedy pigmy sea horse
• Longfin waspfish (Apistus carinatus)
• Tips to photograph pigmy sea horses
• Black sail-fin goby
• Leathery coral pipefish

Dangerous Animal Alert!

The little creature feature is one of those cute little creatures we all love so much. Sea horses, not the usual common sea horse but the ones that require dives to carry a magnifying glass. Some say these are one of the most dangerous creatures underwater, I think it could true.... For dive operators and guides who find these tiny creatures they can become a problem. They have been responsible for sending many a diver into deco' requiring extended safety stops while taking either photographs or video footage. I have never personally had any major problems, though I have heard stories of these little beauties causing out of air / very low air situations before, they have probably caused cases of DCS too. There are ways to avoid this and special precautions must be taking when approaching this dangerous marine animal.

Bargibants Pigmy Sea Horse

First we had the very cute Bargibants pigmy sea horse, this was first said to be found in deeper waters, generally said to be around 20-30m / 65-100' deep. This has now been proved to be wrong, all over Indonesia they can be seen in much shallower depths. The best places I have personally encountered for seeing pigmy sea horse is in Irian Jaya. Here I have seen pigmy sea horses in depths as shallow as 6m / 18' of water. Pigmy sea horses come in a huge variety of colours as shown in these images. 

The Bargibants sea horse is nearly always found on the Muricella sp. These sea fans can be found all over reefs in Indonesia, PNG, Philippines, Malaysia and Eastern Fields, still waiting to hear the first reported sighting in Thailand, sure they will be there somewhere!

They apparently feed upon the zooplankton trapped by the polyps of the sea fan. There actually size probably as large as 25mm in length. Their life span is as yet unknown though I have seen them on the same sea fan for over 10 months. This was witnessed with one individual on a particular dive site that was seen on the same fan for about 10 months, during the month or so it started to grow algae on it's body, became shaky and then it was gone ahhhhh!

As seen in the image alive they are often seen in numbers, they can be in numbers up to 30 or more on oen single sea fan. They are found at depths ranging from as shallow as 6m / 18' to depths beyond recreational diving depths.

Denise's Pigmy Sea Horse

A new species of pigmy sea horse has very recently been named, here it is most commonly known as the plucked chicken pigmy sea horse. It was named Hippocampus denise by a team of experts from the McGill University in Montreal Canada. The sea horse has been named after the underwater photographer Denise Tackett who has spent many years diving in the Indonesian waters.

H. denise is generally found on the subergorgia mollis sea fan they have been seen on different occasions on what I believe to be the echinogorgia (meneela) sp. as shown in the image by Adam Powell. These are also seen in a variety of colours though the red colouration is a very rare sighting. Like the H. bargibanti it probably feeds on the zooplankton that the sea fan feeds upon.

Recently we have been seeing a variation of this species very regularly with more bumps as shown in the photo below taken on Satonda Island. These are being seen on a few different echinogorgia sp. Many ID books have these down as being the H. bargibanti though they surely must be the H. denise as they have longer snouts which is a feature which is used to identify sea horses.

The H. denise is generally smaller in size to the H. bargibanti and are around 15mm and the depth range is also similar though I have made notes and these seem to more commonly seen in depths at around 10-20m / 30-60'. The life is as yet unknown though I have seen this species on a sea fan over a period of around 7 months. I had seen it develop, at first there were two individuals, the larger of the two was first to go, then slowly the other became slower to react. Then one dive I noticed it started to have algae on it's body, it also looked rather dishevelled, the next trip I went to see it, it had gone ahhh.... 

Unidentified Pigmy Sea Horse

Now becoming the new creature sought by divers, photographers and videographers all over Indonesia and PNG, I call it the weedy pigmy sea horse.

I first new of this species from a video that had filmed in the Banda Sea around 2000. While I worked with Wakatobi Dive Resort, they were also seen. Later dive guides at Wakatobi resort started to see them regularly.
They have been seen in PNG and more recently it has been seen by in Manado by the guides from Froggies and other dive operators. Now it is being photographed by their happy guests. It is going through the naming process, to be named after one of the guides from Froggies Hippocampus pontohi.

In March 2003 I had the pleasure of finding more of these in the Raja Ampat, West Papua, a photographer and a videographer had the joy of capturing these little gems on film. More sightings in October 2004 in the West Papua along with more pigmy sea horses than I have ever seen, most days we found a few different pigmy's. The Raja Ampat Ampat has been the best place for finding and photographing, these little beauties.  

These are even smaller than the H. denise and are much more cryptic than the other more known pigmy sea horses as they are a lot more active and move from place to place where as the other tend to live for long periods of time.

For more information about sea horses and there identifications Click here.

Tips on photographing pigmy sea horses

During my time guiding and watching underwater photographers and videographers I have noticed that there are ways in which to get the best images. Tiny sea horse like these are not too happy when bright lights are shone directly upon them. Like you and me, we are not too happy when bright lights in our faces too! Many photographers use spotting lights, these are very often way too bright, making the sea horse turn it's head into the sea fan or away from the lens. The last you want is the backside of the sea horse or to have the sea horse cling to the side of the fan. Their are two ways of making sure you get that ever so sought after classic image of the pigmy sea horse.

Spotting lights - if you them make sure it is either fairly dim, you can dim it down by diffusing the light with plastic bags over the front of the light or you can add a red coloured filter, this also helps when photographing crustaceans. Also having a good guide is very important, these creatures are not the easiest to find with out knowing what to look for you may be looking for way too long, they are not found in every sea fan. I have noticed that if the sea fan has lots of other inhabitants such as amphipods, skeleton shrimps (caprellids), or any other parasites then more often than not there will be no pigmy sea horses in there, also if the fan had lots of algae or debris over it, I personally don't bother to look too hard. The very best way to photograph these is with a patient dive guide who can light the sea horse from the back making it turn to face the camera.

Take care when photographing them, I have seen pigmy sea horses living in the same sea fan for around a year, I have also seen how they can quickly disappear when photographers or divers have overly harassed them. This may be coincidence, though I think not, after speaking with other operators it does seem that they have left other sea fans after undue stress has been put upon them. The best way to get the best images is to ask your dive guide to help you, they should be able to find the best positioned sea horse for you to photograph. Often many are just going to be too difficult to get too, a little patience always brings with it huge rewards. Very recently myself along with a few other operators have been noticing that fans are starting to die, probably due to too much touching by careless photographers.
PLEASE TAKE CARE WHEN PHOTOGRAPHING ANY MARINE LIFE!

Longfin waspfish

I have now seen this unusual fish in two different parts of Bali, both times in similar environments. Shallow black sand sites with virtually no coral growth. A very bizarre fish with many unique features, it has long thin finger like projections coming down from the underside of it's pectoral fins, then it has barbles just like a goatfish but the most unique feature is those long fins.... though what are they for. My theory, unless someone can correct me is a feeding mechanism.

During one dive I noticed this fish quickly moving these long fins back and forth in what seemed to be like a very controlled manner, to me it looked like it was trying to disturb small animals under the sand and feed on them. These may go unnoticed as just another goatfish laying on the sand, most times when I have first spotted this fish it lays with the fins buried in the sand, only when it seemed disturbed by my presence did it slowly rise up to show it's full length fins and colourfully marked dorsal and anal fins.

Black Sail-fin Goby (Magnificent Goby)

A very rare goby known only to me originally from the book Sea Fishes of Japan. It had been on my lookout list since I first set eyes on it. The story to actually finding this fish is fairly bizarre too. We used to dive a site to see some white tip reef sharks, it was also good for large pelagic fish, though logistically we could not dive it on the right tides so it was sometimes an awkward dive site. Not being really enthused about seeing some reef sharks and pelagic fish I started to search the sandy areas if the site. I had seen some great gobies and started to search some more. I then came across this most amazing of gobies. I started to rave on about this little beauty and the guests were then briefed to opt for macro lenses. 

Like most partner gobies, this is fairly shy. Its habitat is known only to me from two areas of Indonesia, the one shown here was photographed on Medang island just off the coast of northern Sumbawa. I have also seen it in Irian Jaya. From what I have seen the fish seems to prefer current as both sights it was seen facing into the current on open sand patches between reefs. It is partnered by the very colourful Randalls shrimp goby alpheus randalli.

I am very keen to hear about more sightings of this beautiful fish, if there are any keen divers, photographers, scientific experts about there interested in seeing this fish here in Indonesia please do not hesitate to contact me.

Soft Coral Pipefish

Big thanks to Scott Michael for helping with an identification on this little pipefish!

While in Irian Jaya March 2003 I came upon a small and very unusual pipefish. At the time I was looking into the leathery coral sinularia sp. Initially noticing a group of tiny weedy filefish, then all of a sudden I noticed two of these pipefish. Calling over the photographer who done very well as these were very shy and kept hiding within the branches of the coral.

If anyone has any more information regarding other sightings of this pipefish I would be very interested to hear from you. Do not hesitate to contact me with any information or other images you have of this rare and strange little pipefish.

Interested? Click here to link to contact me for more information.

---

| About | What we offer | Reports & Info | Schedule | Galleries | Resources | Contact |

---

© Diving 4 Images 2002-2007, All Rights Reserved