What A Croc!

      My son James hates barracudas.   His first encounter came when he was ten years old and we were snorkeling in the small laguna at Akumal, about 40 miles south of Cancun.  To this day he will tell you that the barracuda smiled at him...and he hated it.  A few years later we encountered barracudas in, of all places,the man made lagoon at the Hilton

Great Barracuda with Cleaner Wrasse  2011

Waikoloa.  They were there for a couple years, but I haven't seen them in a long time.  Clearly the management (who swear they have never put a fish into that lagoon) did not consider them dangerous, but it is surprising that they let them live there for so long, given their reputation.  I assume that eventually the Hilton managers had the barracudas removed.

    Lucky for James, barracudas have become less common on the Kona coast.  I think I have seen three individuals in the last five years or so.  I have seen two large ones, about three feet in length and one adolescent, just over a foot, who swam around the swim area at the pier.

    Three days ago Sandra and I went swimming at Kahalu'u.  What a surprise!  It seems like we have been going there a lot.  The majority of the snorkel was fairly non-productive.  Out near Surfer's Rock we saw a peppered moray eel.

    As far as being dangerous, I guess you could say that morays are more dangerous, at least in the Pacific Ocean, than barracudas.  I don't know of any barracuda attacks in Hawaii, but its not so difficult to find people who have been bitten by eels.  Mostly these are dive masters who were feeding the eels and the eel simply took too big a bite, inadvertently biting the hand that fed it.  There are also some innocents who were holding onto the bottom or exploring the coral and had their hand mistaken for a small octopus.

T. crocodilus and Cleaner Wrasse  Kahalu'u  2016

   James isn't overly concerned about morays, despite the fact that some of them are clearly smiling at you.

   Twenty yards towards the shelter at Rescue Beach this outing changed dramatically.  Suddenly we came upon three Crocodile needlefish, Tylosaurus crocodilus.  Two were larger than any needlefish I have ever  seen.  The smallest was a large houndfish, perhaps pushing up to the two foot range, which is at the upper end of what I see here in Hawaii.

     The medium sized fish was around three feet in length.  He had his mouth wide open, enjoying a teeth cleaning by a Hawaiian cleaner wrasse.  As you can see, I wasn't quick enough on the trigger to catch the cleaner wrasse on the teeth, but its still a pretty good shot.

   The third fish was the most interesting.  This fellow was dramatically larger than any needlefish I had ever envisioned.  At closest approach we were probably three feet away, but by the time I addressed this big boy with the camera, he had moved off a little.  This fish had to be in excess of four feet and much thicker through the body than I had ever suspected a needlefish to develop.  As we approached, he seemed to make eye contact and he wasn't smiling.  For just an instant, I thought, "Am I supposed to be afraid of a large needlefish?"

Don't Cross Swords With Richard Sharpe

    Having had a few days to consider that mortal question, which at the time was practical rather than rhetorical, I still don't have an answer.  This guy was bigger than any barracuda I have seen by perhaps 20%.  Not only that, but just last year a crazed fisherman went mano a mano with a swordfish in Honokohau harbor and paid the ultimate price for his foolishness.  My conclusion: Large beaked fish must be taken seriously.

    When we got home, I called Barracuda James, who was reclining, high and dry, on his deck in Camas, Washington.  I told him about the size of the fish and its sharp teeth.  He couldn't believe that it was bigger than the barracudas we had seen together.  Which just goes to show that when you are looking at something dangerous, be it a handgun or a barracuda, it may seem larger than it actually is. Also, this needlefish was a genuinely big fish.

    The most interesting aspect of this large fish, from a physical standpoint, was a large blue patch on the posterior dorsum, just before the caudal fin.  This was such an unusual marking that I wondered if this animal was a different species.  Repairing to the books, I found that, according to Jack Randall, houndfish can range up to 53 inches.  An ichthyologist takes his measurements on a cold metal slab as opposed to by sight in the ocean.  So if Jack says five feet, three inches, we have to accept that a scientist somewhere actually handled a crocodilus that big.

   Still, the blue marking was very unusual, not mentioned  (certainly not pictured) in either Hoover's orRandall's field guides.  I next consulted that most excellent scientific

The Family-size Crocodile Needlefish

resource, Google Images.  In one photo, there is a suggestion of blue on the dorsum anterior to the tail, but it is not the distinct patch we see in my pictures.

   And so I consulted the experts directly.  John Hoover wrote back right away, having noticed that the lower jaw stuck out further than the top.  He suggested that the maxillary fighting tip might have been broken off.  Bernard Cornwell, he of Sharpe's Rifles, might regard this as a a dent in the sword of an accomplished warrior.  John had not seen a blue marking like that before.

   Jack Randall responded yesterday.  His first reply ran along the lines of,  "You ninny.  If you read my book T. crocodilus grows to five feet, so I make the identification on size alone."

The Dean of Marine Ichthyology

    I wanted to give this aging giant in the field of marine ichthyology one more crack... perhaps he had just got up from a well deserved nap.  So I gently responded by asking about his health and, by the way, what did he think of the blue patch before the caudal fin.  Here is his reply:

Jeff

I haven't seen the blue patch either, but I would want to see something more before I decided that is significant.

 I guess you could say I am doing well considering I will be 92 next month. Still publishing.  Attached is my most recent publication.

Big news:  I will receive the Darwin Medal at the International Coral Reef Symposium which will be held this June in Honolulu (every four years at a different city).  I am the 8th recipient, the first ichthyologist.  Some

A Close-up of the (Soon to be famous) Blue Spot

friends have congratulated me for receiving the Darwin Award.  I hasten to explain that it is a very different award.  As you probably know, it is for persons who do away with themselves by such things as losing at Russian roulette.

Aloha, Jack

    Most importantly, I do not believe that Dr. Randall has any intention of doing himself in, regardless of the award. .  From my personal perspective, it seems like Sandra and I observed something, perhaps a secondary breeding coloration, that is not well known in the scientific community.

   
    So chalk one up for the Snorkelkids.  And be careful around big fish bearing swords. 

jeff

PS  Dr. Randall alluded to a recent paper in the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation describing 34 new members of the genus Pempheris  (sweepers) in the Indian Ocean.  He was the lead author, although at 92 I'm not sure that he made it into the ocean to identify all 34 species.  The redoubtable SKG and yours truly saw three species of sweepers in Bali.  So the Great Oz is way ahead of us.

                                          

                                                      Snorkelkids, Kailua Kona, Hi.