The Mystery Fish, A Well Dressed Hermit and Not an Anemone, Or My First Swim After the Hurricane

    For those of you who don't live here and don't pay much attention to the news, about a week ago the Island of Hawaii took a direct hit from a hurricane coming from the east.  There is some discussion about whether there was a similar event around 1870, but essentially Hurricane Iselle was the first such cyclonic

Surfing Iselle at the Kailua Kona Pier

wind storm originating near Mexico to hit the Big Island in recorded history.   Kona was spared completely as the wind could not surmount Mauna Loa and Hualalai.  Having prepared as best we could, we waited all night for the hurricane to hit. We rose in the morning with a profound sense of reprieve.  Kona was the least effected spot in the entire state. What a blessing.

      Sandra and I spent the morning poking along the beach.  Iselle had sent waves straight into the bay and (another first) there were surfers and boogie boarders riding the waves right next to the pier.

      The people between Hilo and the volcano were not so lucky.  Many of them still do not have water or electricity.  Two days after Iselle struck, the state voted for our next governor and senator.  Because of the

Will Mr. Ige be a better friend to the fish than Abercrombie?

 extreme damage in the Puna area, two polling precincts were closed.  The race between Colleen Hanabusa (Daniel Inouye's chosen successor) and Brian Schatz (who Governor Abercrombie appointed to fill out the term upon Inouye's passing) is still undecided.  Schatz is ahead by 1,600 votes, those two precincts are going to vote tomorrow and Collen Hanabusa is appealing to the courts to throw out the election.  What a mess.  Abercrombie lost in a landslide, so us friends of the fishes will soon find out where David Ige stands on protecting our reefs and the fish. 

   Although there was no storm damage, it took me the better part of the week to restore our house to its per-hurricane clutter and it wasn't until yesterday that I resumed snorkeling, down the hill at K Bay.  The water at Kahaluu was warm and cloudy.  And full of tourists from the cruise ship.  Once I got clear of the mob, I swam to the left and upon a single

 lump of coral saw two pretty interesting things.  My eye was immediately attracted to a hermit crab.  Wearing a brightly colored hat with numerous ridges the hermit was sitting very near the top of the coral and permitted me two attempts at a photograph before dropping into the center of the coral. 

    When I looked at the picture at home, it appeared that the Hazlett's Hermit Crab was wearing a very small pink mushroom coral.  This didn't make any sense, so I submitted the picture to John Hoover who sent it along to Cory Pittman, who at this point is a bit of an enigma.  He is definitely a biologist specializing in marine invertebrates.  If you Google him, you will find that he is an expert on Hawaiian nudibranchs.  At any rate, its really nice to have his opinion on our finds. Cory's diagnosis is that the hermit is in a triton shell that his heavily encrusted with coraline algae. I ask you to look at those magenta rugae and tell me what you think.  If nothing else, it is the most flamboyant home for a hermit crab that I have ever seen.  Dr. Hazlett would be proud.

    On the same coral head, about two feet below the surface, I found what appeared initially to be the waving tentacles of an anemone.   As you can see from the picture, these tentacles were almost white, occurred in two clumps each about 2 cm across and were waving back and forth in the surge.  Unlike the hermit crab, this organism wasn't going anywhere.  So, dealing with the surge, I got the best picture I could. 

     When I first looked at the picture, I thought for sure it was an anemone.  But on closer examination, those tentacles looked more like infinitesimally small branching hydra.  John Hoover and Cory Pittman weighed in on this, as well.  It is their conclusion that this is the octocoral, Sarcothelia edmondsoni.  We usually think of coral as being stationary, sort of rock-like.  But of course it is a living animal and the polyp in this case is permanently extended.  Cory sent John a picture of the same species, which is in better focus than mine.  I'm passing on a cropped version of his picture so you can appreciate the feathery polyps. 

    Apparently this species of coral is not extremely unusual.  However, I had not seen it before  Perhaps you will be lucky enough to see it as well, armed with the knowledge that what looks like an anemone is actually an interesting species of octocoral.

    Finally, the title of this blog promises you some closure on the mystery fish that our friends saw (and we could not find) at City last week.  As I was working on the pictures yesterday afternoon, I discovered I had an email waiting for me from Terry Tauzer.  Here is her report:

  The mystery fish was a juvenile threadfin jack (Alectis ciliaris). Contacted Hoover and he was excited to come to 2 Step to photograph. We event back after hurricane and found three of them. Just arrived home and are downloading pictures. Will let you know if we get a good one. No guarantees...they were very quick! Terry&Rich

    Several years ago Sandra and I saw this species in the lagoon at the Waikoloa Hilton.  Six months ago we reported on some snorkelers attempting to photgraph it at the Kailua pier.  I still haven't seen it at the pier, but I continue to look.  Its a really neat little fish and I'm glad Terry and Rich were finally able to identify it.  And Terry, if you are out there please contact me directly at jhill257@gmail.com.  We would like to invite you to a Spam-be-cue, featuring our supplies left over  from Hurricane Iselle!



jeff