The Case of the Oval Chromis

   On  Friday morning  Sandra and I drove south to the City of Refuge.  We stopped at the Bank of Hawaii on the way to get a role of quarters for the water machine.   The plan was to stop and replenish our supply of drinking water in Kainaliu on the flip flop. 

Canthigaster jacator    Kahalu'u    March 2011

   We whipped up the bypass through Hokulia, the development for the ultra rich that never was.  At least the good republicans put in a road that the rest of us can use in their absence.  God and John Boehner willing, they got a good tax write off out of it.  Soon enough we were down Old Napoopoo Road, across the desert road and into Honaunau, the City of Refuge.

    It was pretty early, about 9:40, but there were already plenty of people on the shore and a couple inflatables full of tourists out in the bay.  By 10:00 we had waded through the maddening throng and out to the Two Step entry.  As we were putting on our fins a lady asked if it (the water) was always like that.  I had to ask, "do you mean so rough or so calm?"  And then I told her that this was calm, water was just lapping over the second step.  Another guy asked me where he could get a hat like the ones Sandra and I wear.  I said that they were operating room caps and that drug companies used to give them away.  I should have told him that any uniform shop stocks scrub caps.  He was a baldy like yours truly and he really needed a cap.

City was a great place for fish, now its a great place to knit !

    Immediately we were in the water and there was no more chit chat.  The water was cold and very clear.  The coral was good as ever, but there were dramatically fewer fish than I expected.  Later, Sandra would tell me that it had been her impression that there were fewer fish when we came earlier in the season.  The first time we came, we swam with dolphins and the second time with James and Tara, who in their youthful independence are sort of like dolphins.  At any rate, in both instances I plead distraction.

    Sadly she was correct;  there were seriously fewer fish of every variety.  We saw only a few C. jacator (the cute little Hawaiian Spotted Toby), no ambon tobies, few surgeons and parrots.  There were a few good fish, though, including a brace  of Thompson's Butterflyfish along the north cusp.

Is you is or is you ain't gonna be an Oval Chromis?

    Near the corner in about 15 feet we saw a neat little fish living in a mixed school among some rubble.  He was a clean silvery gray with a deeply forked tail.  As you know by now, 15 feet is a little deep for me, but I dove him several times and took my best shots, two of  which you see here.  I knew enough to take a good look at this little fellow.   Although I suspected it was an Oval Chromis,  I wasn't at all sure. 

    Sandra went in before me and I took a swim out to the island.  I swam among the noodlers disgorged at great expense from their bimini-covered zodiacs.  The pickings out there were heart-breakingly slim.  Five Blue-Spine Unicornfish constituted a major find.  The rubber-nosed Geeks amused themselves with a turtle.  As if that would justify their expensive boat ride.

The Spectacled Parrotfish was not at City.  Damn!

   Struggling for a good sighting, I swam all the way out to the reef on the south cusp.  Over valleys 25 feet below where in the past I have seen Spectacled Parrotfish and a small school of Sleek Unicorns.  Today Kanaloa, god of the Hawaiian seas, said, "No soup for you."   

   I'm ashamed to say, but I even struggled getting out...luckily, someone lent me a hand.  On the lava above the Two Step entry were four ladies in sand chairs knitting.  They were gabbing away, having a hell of a time.  I personally prefer to do my knitting in the shade, but to each his own.  I had to admit they were seeing about as many fish as I had... without the possibility of drowning.

Worst photo ever of Oval Chromis, 49 Black Sand Beach

    Back at the ranch, I soaked the camera and then downloaded the SD card.  I was eager to see my pictures and compare them to the  Oval Chromis in Hoover's Ultimate Guide and Randall's Shore Fishes. (I hope all you fish watchers appreciate the quality of the field guides you have to work with.  Back in the day, I was stuck with Gar Goodson and his Many Splendored Fishes.  You should hunt down a copy and compare it to what you are using. We've come a long way.)

   As we have seen, the pictures you take in the field can be immensely useful in identification of all sorts of animals.  Your photo not infrequently reveals features that you just didn't appreciate as you looked at the animal in the wild. Try as I might, I could not make the fish presented here into an Oval Chromis.  Nor did it look like any other damselfish in the book.  And it had that little black dot behind the dorsal fin.  Those little spots can be extremely useful in nailing down a difficult ID.  If the spot didn't serve some useful purpose related to successful breeding, it probably wouldn't be there.  (If you're a right wing Christian creationist, you can ignore that last bit of Darwinian blaspheme.) 

If you hear hoofbeats, its an immature Thompson's Surgeon

    So with sex among fish foremost in our secular humanistic minds,  we repaired to the Kailua Kona branch of the Hawaiian Public Library.  We rounded up the reference librarian who set me up with other Indo-Pacific fish books.  The reason for this part of the exercise: its gotta be something.  And if its not in Randall's book, maybe its a waif from Tahiti.  And maybe its never been seen in Hawaii before.  Score one for the Snorkelkids.

    Another way to look at the situation, though, is that rare things turn up rarely.  (If you hear hoofbeats, its probably a horse, not a zebra.)  And its probably in Randall's book and (talk about a kick in the hubris) I'm too dull-witted to recognize it.

    I looked at scads of damselfish and none would answer, so I went home and sent out an email for help to the Great Oz himself...John Hoover.

    I must note at this time that a few years ago it became apparent that if I wanted help identifying fish, I needed to take acceptable pictures.  So I sent John the pictures you see here, along with the pathetic picture of a fish taken weeks ago at 49 Black Sand Beach at the Mauna Lani, that I also thought might be an Oval Chromis.  And here, through the miracle of the internet (God Bless you, Al Gore) is what he wrote back:

Your 2nd "oval chromis" is not a damselfish. Should I tell you what it is, or do you want to figure it out? :) 

Your 1st "oval chromis" is most likely an oval chromis. Can't think of what else it might be.

John

Adult Thompson's Surgeonfish

   With the goading of my mentor, I opened my mind to other possibilities.   Bouncing  ideas off my co-conspirator, I noted that the tail on the "not a damselfish" was actually lunar, not forked.  So I looked at surgeonfish and found the little black spot just behind the dorsal fin on Thompson's Surgeon.   As far as I knew, Thompson's Sugeon was a fish that eats plankton out in the water column.  Were talking 100 yards off shore and 50 feet deep.  I've only seen it twice, both times off Honokohau, peacefully munching plankton in the channel leading into the boat basin north of Kailua.  They were deep in wide open water.  Also in my defense, the snout of a mature Thompson's Surgeon is rounded and blunt.  The snout on this juvenile is more acute; i.e., the front end of this fish  looks like a chromis.  Lucky for me, I had the Ultimate Guide open and this is what the Great Oz had to say, "Juveniles occur in beds of finger coral (Porites compressa). "  

Thompson's Butterflyfish,  City of Refuge,   December   2011

    Now I wonder if I've been overlooking this immature all these years.  Thompson was an illustrator at the Bishop Museum and managed to get four different unobtrusive fish named for him.  These fish that were overlooked by ichthyologists prior to 1920, primarily because they are indistinct.      I'm sure we overlooked Thompson's Butterflyfish for twenty years, now we see it regularly.   By the flamboyant standards of other butterflyfish, it almost disappears.  So if I see another juvenile Thompson's Surgeon browsing on the bottom, I won't be surprised, just a bit chagrined.

With that unsettling thought, I leave you with the slightly abridged words of John Lennon.

Gotta be good lookin' cause they're so hard to see.                                                                                                                                                                  jeff

A couple credits
The photographs of the adult Thompson's Surgeonfish and the Spectacled Parrotfish are not mine.  My beloved's son says that the beauty of the internet is that no one really cares if you steal their work.  Or words to that effect.

Being in a ship is like being in prison with a chance of being drowned.  Dr. Samuel Johnson

Random Tidbits

Milletseed Butterflyfish,  Kailua Pier,  January 2012,  11 feet

  It was bound to happen sooner or later.  Winter weather has arrived in Kona.  The ocean is not so rough as to totally preclude swimming, but there is enough bubbles and sand in the water to make picture taking less than ideal.  If I had seen something really outstanding in the last couple of days, I would have snapped a poor quality  photo...at least we would have pictorial evidence.   I took an invigorating swim this morning on Paul Allen's Reef.  The fish pretty average and the water bumpy and murky, but its always great to go swimming in January!   
   Sandra and I did go swimming a day after I saw the immature  Milletseed Butterfly at the pier.  He was still there and we did have the camera, so here is proof.   The fish was a little deep for me, small and moderately uncooperative; everytime I dove for a picture he dodged away.  At least we got some documentation of this now rare species. 

Sandra Adorned with her Sea Urchin Bracelet

    You may recall the bracelet that I retrieved from a Collector Urchin.  Well, we took that back to the scene of the crime with intent of replacing it on a likely urchin and getting a staged picture.  Prior to plucking, the bracelet on the urchin made a charming tableau.  I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but the urchins wanted no part of our bling.  I thought that the urchin would immediately attach itself to a proferred item, but after the third refusal, I had to conclude that the urchin has to be in the right mood to collect.  A brief swim around the pier will reveal that when they are appropriately receptive, Collector Urchins will accumulate any unlikely tidbit of flotsam and jetsam as well as bits of shell and stone.  One can only imagine an NSF grant proposal to study sea urchin collecting.  Just think of the potential applications to the retrieval of space garbage!  I refused to admit unconditional defeat and present you here with the eschewed bracelet worn proudly underwater by the redoubtable SKG. (who even on her worst day is twice as good looking as a sea urchin!) 

Harry peers out of Hogwarts on Paul Allen's Reef

    Two days ago, when the water was still clear, I found the Potter's Angelfish on Paul Allen's Reef.  And I took a couple pictures that are pretty good for  a furtive Hawaiian angelfish.  You may recall that I saw this guy about a month ago.  I find it rewarding to come back to the same spot and find a resident fish.  One chunk of coral looks much the same as the next, though, and there had been several intervening swims at PAR with no sightings.  I was happy to find him on this day and although the pictures might be better, I say not too bad for an elusive Potter's.  At the top of this ramble I mentioned swimming the PAR this morning.  Although I took great care to identify the very spot, I did not find Harry (or any of his Hogwarts buddies)  where I left him on Tuesday.  And it was not like I didn't try.  Either his range is greater than that one chunk of half dead coral, or he just wasn't in the mood for visitors.  Possibly he was inside working on a spell to disarm spear fishermen.  (Wikipedia suggests Expelliarmus!)  Let's hope he gets really good at this one.

Expelliarmus!

jeff

The White Buffalo

A Latterday White Buffalo courtesy of Wikipedia

   The white buffalo remains a fixture of my childhood imagination, ruled as it was by the early days of television.  In this instance, I am recalling the aboriginal myths perpetrated  by that genre of amusement that my father referred to as Horse Operas.  The Apache Truth Test, in which Tonto had the prevaricating white man hold a shallow cup of water while he administered the third degree is a classic example.  When the water spills from the cup balanced by the shaking hand, he must return the stolen horse and slink shamefaced from that particular patch of prairie. 
    In the case of the white buffalo, the folks on the back lot were calling on an authentic Native American belief.  White buffaloes, just like black sheep and four leaf clovers, do occur rarely in nature.  And many Native American tribes regarded these genetic variants as religious harbingers of great import.  My recollection is that Hollywood portrayed them as a sign of racial harmony between the white man and his red brothers.  As an interesting aside, a white buffalo hide is on exhibit at Bent's Fort (Colorado) museum upon which is inscribed a treaty between the U.S. and the Cheyenne Nation.  Unfortunately for the Cheyenne, the white buffalo hide was not enough to thwart manifest destiny.  So it goes.

This Collector Sea Urchin is Going Fishing.

   In no way do I wish to portray my Polyneisian hosts as lacking in their own batch of tales and superstitions.  Its just that I'm more familiar with my own.  Hence, when I see a fish so rare that it touches my heart, I think good thoughts and recall the white buffalo.  Such was the case two days ago when I saw a Milletseed Butterflyfish at the Kailua pier.
   Before I go further in my story, I have to throw in a mea culpa. Friday was a beautiful day on the south side of the pier, with sunny skies and warm clear water.  And I forgot the camera.  So the pictures included here are from other days in Kona.  Sandra and I had a nice easy swim out to the palace and then split up on the way back;  I chose a more seaward route that lead to the newer portion of pier where the cruise tenders land.  While I was plucking a colorful beaded bracelet from a collector urchin, Sandra found a Spotfin Squirrelfish in the clear water of the shallows.  This fish is commonly seen skulking around the edges of the coral in 20 feet, never in two feet of Kona crystal, so it was a very special look for the redoubtable SKG.

Spotfin Sqirrelfish,  Honokohau,  December 2011,  25 feet.

    You may recall that only a couple weeks ago, I found a single young Citron Butterfly in the water adjacent to the pier.  This day there was a young Milletseed Butterfly.  The Milletseed Butterflyfish used to be common in Kona.  Fifteen years ago, at Kahalu'u it was easily the most common butterfly.  Then something happened.  The numbers rapidly declined and now the fish that abundantly graces the brochures for snorkeling tours is rarely seen. A single individual can sometimes be observed in the heavily touristed Kahalu'u Bay.  I've seen that solitary fellow just a couple times this season.  But for as long as I can remember, at least eight years, I have not seen a Milletseed anywhere else. Not City, not Ho'okena or the pier.  These are strong fish producing venues.  Other fish, notably the Fantailed Filefish have declined severely, but I don't think anything has been dramatic as the Milletseed catstrophe.
    So it was with particular joy that I spotted this little guy, about half the size of a full grown adult.  There was only one, so I regard him as a waif, but somewhere there is a breeding colony that perhaps our reef can be repopulated.      

The Last of the Mohicans,  Kahaluu,  March 2012

   As a post script, I must point out that one can take these First Nations (throwin' a little Canadian at you, eh?) superstitions only so far.  as I was presenting my sweeetie with her Neptunian trinket, she informed me that all the water at the pier had been turned off.  No shower for you, Kimosabe.  On our way back from the hotel, where we did what we could to repair for the trip home, we encountered a city employee who told us that while we were out watching white buffaloes, someone deficient in goodwill gave the toilet sensor in the ladies loo a karate chop, resulting in a torrent of water from said plumbing, and requiring the temporary discontinuation of showers, etc. 
     I guess one can get carried away with these aboriginal myths.

jeff
 

The Blessings at Paul Allen's Reef

New Construction on the Kalapaana Lava Flow.

     From the fish-finding perspective, things have been pretty quiet lately.  We entertained a visitor (Sandra's son) last week.  He went swimming with us a couple times, but we also did some of the things that you only do with guests.  Like driving to the volcano and then back to Kailua over the Saddle Road.  It was interesting to see the homes built on the recent lava flow at Kalapaana.  There were over a dozen new dwellings in Madame Pele's neighborhood, ranging from shanties to large, luxurious homes.  We have been told that some people received insurance payments predicated on rebuilding.  Never the less, when you see a stick built house resting on a recent lava flow, you have to figure that the occupant is an extreme optomist.  Given a choice, I think I'd rather be neighbors with Mr. Rogers.  All of which has little to do with marine biology.

Momma Humpback and Auntie in False Labor

  We were able to segue a hike to the petroglyphs into a swim at 49 Black Sand Beach.  It was a beautiful day at the Mauna Lani.  Sandra and I saw a pale gray chromis swimming in the cloudy water with some young Hawaiian Sergeants. Its exciting to see something that's not easily identified...we'll let you know if we puzzle it out.  The poor visibility made for an inferior picture, not suitable for publication.  So it goes.  (It always seems to be cloudy at either of the snorkeling sites at the Mauna Lani.)
    The day after Douglas departed,  there were whales to watch.  Therefore, two days ago I spent the day on our lava rock beach watching a pair of whales, presumably an expectant mother and a female attendant known in the  whale-birthing business as Auntie.  They surfaced repeatedly right out front.  The whales were attended by an alternating flotilla of boats and other water craft.  The award for Closest Encounter goes to a board paddler who was about ten feet away from a surfacing humpback.  Many of the surfacings were associated with a great deal of respiratory effort.  I could almost hear the Lamaze instructor coaching the whale to take several small breaths.  Alas, despite all my good thoughts, no baby whale was forthcoming on this Friday the 13th.

Can't a Guy get a little Privacy?

    Saturday between football games, I took myself to Paul Allen's Reef.  The water was calm and clear, but it was usual suspects until the very end.  Just before calling it a day, I swam in the shallows right in front of the King Kamehameha Hotel.  To my delight, I encountered a crab burying itself in the sand.   I scooped it out and discovered that it was a box crab the size and shape of a sea going jewelry case.  A second scooping and I was able to get three quick pictures before my crustacean friend could delve back into his sandy hideaway. 

I recommend a dry white wine with the sushi.

    Today, for the first time in a week, I got to go swimming alone with my sweetie.  We went in front of the King Kam and soon found ourselves on Paul Allen's Reef.  Immediately, Sandra saw an eel behaving strangely.  It turned out to be a Whitemouth Moray with a dead fish in its mouth.  We were able to follow this large eel back and forth.  At one point it regurgitated its fish, but soon had it back on the way down the gullet.  This was the first time I can recall seeing an eel actually eating a fish  (I thought they were supposed to eat crustaceans) and it made for a couple interesting photographs.

Day Octopus,  Paul Allen's Reef,   January 2012

    Abandoning the eel to its supper, we swam out a bit further.  Near the entrance to the estate boat channel I spotted an octopus.  This Day Octopus perched on a coral head about ten feet below the surface.  He generously tolerated our approach.  (I think he liked our song.)  While we watched he turned from yellow to brown with some texture changes thrown in for our delight.  The photos that I am including here are the best I have taken of Day Octopus and i hope you enjoy them.
My good friend Ron Jaecks was planning a trip to Hawaii in a week, but his plans may have been sidetracked by a herniated lumbar disc.  Hopefully, the Holy Ghost will  come to Ron's aid.  With luck, he will look after each of us.
jeff

One last look .

The Great Coraline Algae Die-Off

Coraline algae  Hydrolithon and Sporolithon, Kahalu'u 2012

   About ten days ago the coraline algae died.  The rocks along the beach here in Kailua, previously pink and brown, turned chalky white virtually overnight.  I assumed the obvious...that the flat waters of the Creepy Calm had left the algae high and dry and it had died as a consequence.  Just to make sure that there wasn't a toxic spill or some other factor, I wrote to one of my scientific correspondents, Marta deMaintenon of the Marine Biology department at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.  She reminded me that she was a mollusc girl and referred me to an algal specialist, Karla McDermid.    Now I've got the official skinny on the dead crustose coraline algae and, with thanks to Dr. McDermid,  I'm going to pass it on to you.
    Crustose colraline algae are single celled plants that lay down calcium carbonate that coat rocks and shells, and also help bind together hard coral reefs.  The algal cells have chlrophyll, carotenoids and phocobilin pigments that produce the red and purple colors.  In the absence of water the cells die.  They fall victim to both  thermal damage and water loss.  The dead cells, along with the residual calcium carbonate, appear white. 

Other algae species are also affected.  Kona Makai 2012

    I was more familiar with the bleaching of hard corals.  Hard coral is the structure produced by small animals closely related to sea anemones and jellyfish, ie cnidarians.  The coral polyps incorporate algae cells, called zoanthellae, which give the coral its color.  In addition to providing some tone to the reef, these algal cells also produce sugars and oxygen which nourish the polyp.  They also assist in the secretion of calcium carbonate.  When polyps are stressed they expel the zooanthellae, hence losing their color (bleaching).   In the process, they lose all the good things those algae cells provided.  If the coral polyp does not soon re-incorporate the symbiotic algae cells, it dies and the the reef, the product of ages, collapses.  There has been lots of research on coral bleaching.  Heat, UV light and pollution of various kinds have been implicated as causative factors.  Whatever the cause, its a worldwide problem of substantial concern.

Deep in the Kona Makai blowhole the algae is still pink.

   Lucky for us and our rocks, not all the coraline algae cells on the Kona coast may be dead.  Some may have been shielded from the heat and dessication and lie dormant.  When the Creepy Calm departs (just this week we have seen some increased surf) those algae may grow again.  Additionally new algal cells will recolonize our rocks when conditions permit and soon those skeletal white patches will bloom with color.
  
So think pink and stay as wet as you can,
jeff
   
     

Baby Citron premiers in The Circus at the Pier

A pair of Ulae in Kailua Crystal.

    There really isn't a circus at the Kailua pier...it just seems like it.  On January 2nd I took myself for a swim on the Kailua side of the pier.  The water has continued to be calm, so I figured why not?  We still need a Finescale Triggerfish for the trip and for my money this swim is the best chance for that pelagic vagrant.
  Their was the usual mob of kids and their parents screaming in the shallows.   On this day the rug rats were joined by a group of eight or more novice divers kneeling in the waist-deep water with their tanks and wet suits, looking like a bunch of extras from a 70's James Bond movie.  Just so we knew this was a serious swimming venue, there was also a mob of distance swimmers churning out and back along the swim buoys.  And last, but not least, their was a few untrained board paddlers attempting to keep their balance while paddling aimlessly back and forth.  It really was a circus.

A Yellow Tang so lovely it could break your heart.

    The amazing thing is, the moment you get face down in the water you are in a world of your own...at least until one of the above runs into you.  The water this day, courtesy of the Creepy Calm, was crystal clear.  A pair of large Ulae (Hawaiian Lizardfish) greeted me in the sandy shallows.  There were a smaller number of fish than usual as I swam out to the Palace.  So few, in fact, that the crystal water seduced me into photographing some of the usual suspects.
   On the way back, I found a cowry shell.  About three weeks ago, one of the tourists at the sunset ceremony (we all get together at the seawall and the drinkers drink while the rest of us bemoan that the overcast horizon) made the observation that cowry shells lying on the sand are empty.  By this definition, I had found a deserted cowry shell, about an inch and a half and in pristine condition.  I dove the six feet, admired my prize and stashed it in my pocket.

Can you see the wings and  halo on this Paddling Angel?

This guy, on the other hand, is hazard to navigation!

   I got a couple pictures of Yellow Tang   This is a beautiful fish that is under appreciated, by me anyway, because it is so common.  I was working on an intermediate Yellowtail Coris, diving down and holding onto a large piece of rubble, when a shadow passed across the scene.  Letting go and bobbing to the surface, I was confronted by a paddle surfboard about 8 inches form my head.  My ire was checked as I realized that the menace was piloted by a nubile, blonde twenty something poised on her knees.  In deference to my antagonists charms, I said, "Thank you for not running into me."  Who would have guessed I could be so polite?
   She replied softly, "I can't make this thing go where I want and I was hoping I wouldn't hit you."  As we agreed that not hitting me in the head with a surfboard was a noble goal, I smiled and said, "Have a nice day!" or words to that effect and we went our separate ways.  However, I took the precaution of checking out all the other untrained board paddlers that had swarmed into the shallows.     
   Before getting out, I swam over to the area where the tenders tie up to embark the sea-going rats for their quick hop back to the Queen Mary.  Just the week before, I had scored a pair of Italian sunglasses in eight feet adjacent to this quay.   My new specs aren't quite clear enough to use for driving, but they look really snazzy and one certainly can't argue with the price.

   It should be of interest to you readers who snorkel the waters surrounding the pier,  that the Port of Kailua, when it replaced the modest swim buoys with  new, larger and sparkling white buoys suitable for ocean navigation,  did not extend the floating swim buoy-line to the shore.   In my twisted mind,  this opens the area along the quay to the swimmer's discretion.  On days when the cruise ships are not in Kailua  (and there is no tender activity) I am opting to patrol this area before calling it a day.

Baby Citron stars in the circus!  Kailua Pier, January 2012.

    With that in mind, I made my second foray along the pier.  Near the end of the tender area there as a large rock about fifteen feet off shore and six feet deep.  And around that rock swam a small Citron Butterflyfish.  The Citron (not to be confused with the Milletseed, that lacks the white and black stripe ventral fin)  is not the most unusual butterfly.  I have seen Klein's (also called Blacklip) only once in Kona and its been a few years since I've seen Bluestripe.  But I've seen Citron in Hawaii only tow other times.  (There was a pair that lived in the little entrance bay at Honokohau for a year, and I'm only counting them as a single sighting.)  As butterflyfish frequently stay in one spot, this fish is definitely worth mentioning.  I hope you have a chance to look for it! 
    After taking a few pictures of the baby Citron, I swam ashore and headed for the shower.  While I was changing, I smelled an unpleasant odour.  Could one of the Kona irregulars have defecated in the changing room?  No!  It was my very swimsuit!  Accidente!  As you may have guessed, the cowry had not vacated the shell, which now possessed  the delightful fragrance of day old seafood.  I removed my prize, and washed out my suit.  Having done all that, it was an easy decision to take the shell to the pier for a quick photo op before returning it to the gentle clutches of Kanaloa (the Polynesian God of the Sea.)  Just last year we found a perfect Textile Cone at Kawaihae, the harbor in North Kohala, that remained malodorous through many bleach treatments, eventually to be discarded.  So  pitching the cowry was a no brainer.

Reticulated Cowry, Kailua Pier

   At this point I must humor my editor and talk about the Canon D10 that produces such delightful underwater pictures.  Although I tend to use it like a one trick pony, it has lots of options.  The underwater mode adds a certain amount of red to the images and compensates amazingly well for the red that is removed by the water.  When not shooting through water, it is necessary to change the setting unless you want the your pictures to look extra red.  After taking a few red-enhanced shots, I was smart enough to examine my handiwork and take a few more shots on the beach mode (the icon: beaming sun over beach umbrella) gave the cowry a toss and headed for home where honey and I watched the Ducks pound Wisconsin to a pulp.  Actually, it was a close game but the brave boys in the relective space helmets carried the day.
An important aspect involving these different settings, is that you must remember to reverse them when you are done.  Yesterday, it being now two days removed from the Maddening New Years Horde, we headed to Ho'okena.  The water was beautiful and we saw Lei Triggerfish displaying.  There are no photos of this magnificent display, however, because pictures taken underwater on the beach mode have a ghastly white film, like shooting through diluted milk.  We tracked down a single coral head housing both Potter's and Flame Angelfish, so the day was far from a total loss.  But I need to remember to reset the camera to the cute icon with the Moorish Idol blowing bubbles.
  
Look for the baby Citron and watch out for the paddling angel on her surf board,
jeff

New Years Babies

Red Labrid Wrasse,  Kahalu'u  December 2011

   Traditionally we look forward to the first baby of the new year, perhaps because that infant is symbolic of the new beginnings promised by the advancing  calendar.   Appropriately, Sandra and I have recently seen the two outstanding Hawaiian immatures in greater numbers.  And I've got some killer pictures which I am eager to share.

A Transitioning Red Labrid at deep, turbulent Kona Makai

    In previous blogs I have talked about two immatures seen this season which are quite unusual.  The Orange-Tail Triggerfish  turned out to be the immature of the Pink-Tail Triggerfish.  We had never seen that fish prior to this season.  Recently my friend John Hoover has told me that while that fish is very uncommon, for some reason if you see one its not unusual to see another.  I've also mentioned the little green immature of the the Blacktail (Old Lady) Wrasse.  I first saw that fish last year, but had heard of it in prior years from fellow snorkelers on the beach.   After a mere two sightings in early November, I have not seen one since.   Like the Orange-Tail Trigger, I regard that fish as very uncommon.
    The two fish I'm going to talk about today are not particularly unusual; every time I swim in Kona I halfway expect to see one or the other.  However, these two make the "super" list by being extremely beautiful and unusual.  They are both so different from their parents that they initially were categorized as different species. Just in the last week, consistent with our New Years theme, both have become more plentiful in our neighboring waters.  

Clark's Anemonefish,  Bali 2009

    The Red Labrid Wrasse is the immature of the Yellowtail Coris.   This fellow has broad vertical red and white stripes.  His dramatic coloration confuses some of the uninitiated into thinking that they have just seen an anemonefish.   A cursory look at this wrasse will reveal his sharp, wrasse-like snout, much different from the blunt damselfish nose of an anemonefish.
    Anemonefish are simply not possible in Hawaii.; each species is inextricably linked with a species of large anemone.  This symbiotic relationship is elegantly defined in Finding Nemo.  Like many other groups of interesting invertebrates, these large anemones occur in the south and western Pacific, but not here in Hawai'i.  We have one tiny anemone, the glass anemone and no self respecting fish would look to that frail organism for protection. 
    As the Red Labrid transforms into an adult Yellowtail it undergoes a sequential transformation.   It trades in its red and white stripes for midnight blue starting near the tail and working anteriorly.  These intermediate forms are no less common than the pure Red Labrid immature.

Dragon Wrasse April 2011  Kahal'u

    The Dragon Wrasse is the immature of the Rockmover.  It, too, can be found in many locations in the vicinity of Kailua Kona, but it is especially common at Kahalu'u. The striped pattern of the Dragon Wrasse, combined with its irregular motion in the water, is highly suggestive of a piece of drifting weed.   This immature remains fairly constant as the fish grows.  One sees tiny one inch specimens and big four inchers that are essentially identical.  Its my impression that they transform quickly into a mature Rockmover.  You will see the occasional smaller Rockmover with "antennae" anterior to the dorsal fin, but there is no common fish with other characteristics of the Dragon Wrasse. 
   I hope you enjoyed the pictures of these New Years babies.  And I  hope you will know an anemonefish when you see one...or not!  And most of all I wish you a Hau'oli Makahiki Hou with plenty of time at the beach.

jeff