Maka Hiki Ho'okena

    Two weeks ago, during the fellowship period following services at the Methodist Church, I had an interesting conversation with Jon Lindborg.  Jon works for the State Department, seemingly part time, as when we see him here in Kona he is just hanging out.  When he is not in Kona, he works at the embassy in

Pele catches the leaf on his nose

Jakarta, a city which he describes in such bleak terms as to discourage anyone from planning a vacation there to visit him.  He is a recreational swimmer: his group swam to the Ironman buoy out by Alii Villas last week.  Just a little 2.4 mile swim.  La de da.

    In addition to being a pretty good athlete, Jon is a pretty good observer of wildlife and he has been known to read this blog...so I have to be careful what I say.  Two weeks ago we got to discussing dolphins and he mentioned a lady he knows who goes to Ho'okena and takes leaves which she drops in the water for the dolphins to play with.  I have seen the dolphins play with leaves a couple times.  One hears of birds like swallows and eagles playing with objects in the air and this is sort of the same thing only, relatively, in slow motion.

Starts working the leaf down his side.

   Last night Sandra and I made the decision to skip church.  If God couldn't make Jake Browning into a better passer, the reasoning went, why should we go to church?  Just kidding, God.  You're the best.

   Anyway, we were moping around the house this morning and Sandra said, "Why don't we do something special today?  Why don't we go to Ho'okena!"

   Soon enough we were heading south, along with a surprising number of early morning tourist buses.  As we made our way, I was thinking about Jon and the leaf lady and the dolphins.  I was also thinking that on this day, the penultimate day in 2017, might I see one last fish for the 2017 list.  I couldn't imagine what it might be, but Ho'okena is a good spot to look for a surprise.

Rolling over and preparing for a tail flip into the goal.

   We arrived around 9 AM and immediately saw a number of swimmers in the south end of the bay,
inside the hook of the southern cusp.  That lava reef creates a protected pool and this is the place where we see spinner dolphins.  Sure enough, a careful look revealed dorsal fins among the swimmers.

   Wiki wiki we donned our winter swimwear, layers of nylon and neoprene, and trooped down the beach.  The water was calm and the winter sun beamed down; it was a great day for a swim.  On the way out, we saw several coral heads about 25 feet down with aggregations of Hawaiian dascyllus.  We were heading for dolphins so I didn't stop to look for juveniles, but it seemed possible.  As we neared the spot where swimmers  were interacting with the dolphins, we saw two big crocodile needlefish.  Needlefish sound so harmless, but when one of these guys is pushing up around four feet, I tend to give it all due respect. 

Eye to eye with a spinner dolphin.

 
    Then we were with the dolphins and there was a bunch of them, along with a score of swimmers.  As it turned out, the lady who we had been trailing on the swim out was Jon's leaf lady.  Over the next five minutes she dropped at least a half dozen large leaves in the water.  The dolphins were very

happy to be swimming with us, making lots of close approaches (Thank you, God.)  And they loved the leaves, picking up a leaf on a pectoral fin, carrying it for a while and then dropping it off.
 

Spinner dolphin hosting a common remora, R. remora  Ho'okena 12/31

    One dolphin must have thought he was Pele, the soccer virtuoso not the fire goddess.  He picked up a leaf with his snout then maneuvered his body in such a way that the leaf slithered down the length of his body.  This took a minute or so, at the end of which he sort of flicked it off with his tail.  Goooal.

   A bit later, a group came as close as I have ever been to these magnificent animals.  As I watched, four dolphins about ten feet away were heading straight towards me.  Instead of veering off, they came right on, with dolphins passing less than
two feet from me on both sides.  At this close approach, I got a close up photograph.  I always have to give the camera credit, but I bet you enjoy this dolphin portrait.

   After fifteen or twenty minutes, we were about ready to look for something else.  At that moment a man a short distance away exclaimed, "One of those dolphins has a remora attached to it."  And he was right.  The pod turned and both Sandra and I got a very good look at the dolphin serving as host to a remora.

   There are two species of remoras that occur close to shore in Hawaii.  Both these fish occur worldwide and were named in Linnaeus's original list.  The more common, according to John Hoover, is the slender remora, E. naucrates.  It is indeed slender and has a black stripe bordered by white leading from its nose to its tail.  This is the fish that Peter Kroppje photographed to great effect while diving in Bali.  See Peter's blog, one breath kohala, for a great photo of the slender remora attached to a sea turtle.

Not so Sucky now, are you Mr. Remora?

   The one we saw today is called the common remora,  Remora remora, although (wouldn't you know it?)  it is less common in inshore Hawaiian waters.  Hoover says it usually attaches to large sharks.  I don't know about you, but I will take a peace loving dolphin over a large shark any day.  You will note in my picture that this is a fatter fish than the slender remora, with a large fan of a ventral fin.  I almost said dorsal fin , but one has to remember that these guys are attached by the top of his head so what you are seeing is his ventral side.  Having adapted to this strange life choice, much of the anatomy is reversed, hence the ventral side appears as a dorsum might in a normal fish. It makes me wonder if a neurobiologist like Amy Farrah-Fowler has been able to chart the optical nerve pathway in remoras.  They must have things rewired,  otherwise they would see the world upside down.

    This dolphin was not only hosting a remora.   On his off side, he was carrying a leaf on his pectoral

A heavenly host of Potter's Angelfish on New Year's Eve.

fin...another show off athlete dribbling towards the net.

    The best news is that this was my very first remora.  Not only a new fish for the 2017 list, but a life fish on the last day of the year.  

   On the way out, Sandra saw a pair of rainbow runners and on the way in I saw an octopus in 30 feet.  As we got opposite our landing spot we found ourselves over the angelfish coral head and I nabbed a couple pretty good pictures of Potter's Angelfish.  There were at least six Potter's and one flame in this colony.  This was a heavenly host of angels, if ever there was one.

   It was a great morning of snorkeling with the girl I love.  If this wonderful dolphin encounter means anything, I believe God forgave us for skipping church.

jeff 2017

Maka Hiki Hou means Happy New Year in Hawaiian

  

Mahu Kalikimaka or the Gift of the Magi

  Down here in Kailua Town, Christmas dawned clear and bright.  Sandra and I boarded Santa's sleigh a bit before 8 AM and proceeded north on Hwy 11.  Commensurate with it being Christmas morning, the road was sparsely populated.   As we reached Cemetery Beach, Maui appeared bigger than life on the left and a short while later we had a gorgeous view of snow capped Mauna Kea.

On the road to Kohala

    This being the 21st Century, Sandra was exchanging text messages with our relatives as I piloted the sleigh.  Through the miracle of modern communications, we were able to see Andrew playing in the snow on the front lawn in Seattle and a coat of ice on Charles' truck parked in Portland.  Suffice it to say, living in Hawaii at Christmas time is more than acceptable.

   Our destination was Mahukona, on the Kohala coast, 14 miles north of Kawaihae.  There we were to meet my fish wallah and his lovely bride.  Yes, my friends, I have had to designate Peter Kroppje as my fish wallah.  I see the fish and then in an email or text message, sometimes referring me to his blog (one breath kohala) my fish wallah tells me what in the Ebeneezer Scrooge I have seen.

Are you sure those lyrics are approved by the Nazarene Church?

   The one thing worse than needing a fish wallah is to not have any fish requiring identification.   Our survey of the usual snorkeling destinations near Kailua over the week leading up to Christmas had

revealed an unacceptable paucity of Christmas wrasses.  Thus, our trip north to Kohala, where the fish wallah guaranteed success.

    For those of you who follow our exploits, you will know that we were on our yearly quest to see the Christmas wrasse on Christmas Day.   This is a yuletide tradition dating back many years, more than Festivus, even.  In my warped mind, I play  a small, off color Christmas carol that goes along with the tradition.  Sung to the tune of On Christmas Day in the Morning, the lyrics go so far south in the second line that I can not in good conscience repeat it.  What would Pastor Sunny say?

   Well,  even Vice President Dense can rhyme wrasse with a destination

The Spotted Surgeon lives where the waves slam into the lava reef.

of a personal nature, where in the Christmas wrasse swims up.   Hence, even the intellectually challenged Veep must know that this is an unacceptable ditty.  Can you believe that I long in the depths of my liberal heart for the day when a regime change will make this man my Commander in Chief?  What have things come to?

    Soon enough, back slapping and holiday wishes accomplished, Peter and Marla and Sandra and I were afloat in the chilly waters of Mahukona.  Despite the crystal clear water, we didn't see much as we snorkeled across the bay.  On the northwest cusp, there was a small surf breaking.  In case one was as dense as Pence, there were spotted surgeons sliding back and forth with the surge over rocks festooned with sharp, decaying coral, the better to cut you into a mince pie.  A pie, I daresay, more fit

Speeding on by.  The Christmas Wrasse on Christmas Day 2017

for the ER in Waimea than the holiday feast.

     But the surge on the edge of the lava reef is the lair of the Christmas wrasse and soon all four of us had accomplished our holiday mission.  We saw two or three Christmas wrasses, but they swam so quickly through the rocky passages that it was difficult to get a  good picture.  This is the spot where the fish wallah had taken us last summer, when the water was ten degrees warmer, to see the five stripe wrasse.  That handsome fishy was there again, but he is even more elusive than the Christmas wrasse; despite multiple effort, I did not get a picture to share.  Never the less, seeing a five stripe wrasse is always a treat and we regarded it as a very nice Christmas present.

   Knowing that there was an even better present under the tree on the south side of the bay, we turned in that direction and went in search of the pyramid butterflyfish.  As we hit the south cusp of the bay, 

The Gift of the Magi.  Milletseed Butterflyfish on Christmas,  Mahukona 2017

we received the nicest gift I could have wished for, a true school of milletseed butterflies.  At this juncture I counted seven and got an acceptable picture of the friendliest of them.

    Twenty years ago, large schools of milletseeds roamed Kahalu'u.  If you look in John Hoover's book published the mid 90s, he says that the milletseed is Hawaii's most common butterflyfish.  Not any more.  Now we see a rare  straggler in K Bay or by the pier.  I assume these sad singles have swum inshore to die.  So seeing this healthy school of milletseeds made my heart soar like a  hawk.  Or perhaps like a hawkfish, to keep the rambling dialogue in the true spirit of Fishmas.  Marla said they were not uncommon in that location.  Although we did not see them there on two previous occasions, it seems to safe to put them on the list of something you might reasonably hope to see at Mahukona.

    As expected, we found the pyramid butterflies in large numbers about 50 yards north of the

Another stocking stuffer.. Pyramid Butterfly at Mahukona Light, Christmas 2017

small navigation light.  Pyramids are such a beautiful fish and it is nice to know that we can count on this bit of beauty being out there for us.

   Sandra was getting cold, so she headed back, admonishing me not to dilly dally.  It wasn't until a couple minutes later that I discovered that she had chosen a  straight line route to the pier and was quite a ways closer to the shore than I was.  Adios amiga.  As I made my way back, I saw a bluestripe butterfly below me.  I thought about taking a picture, but I discovered, upon attempting to dive him, that he was at least thirty feet deep. This tells you quite a bit about the fantastic clarity of the water.  A bit further on, I ran into the milletseeds.  This time I was at my leisure, so I counted the aggregation.  25 milletseeds. Hoo ahh!

Orange tailed juvenile of the Pinktail Triggerfish, Alii Villas 2012

    I was feeling like I had received the gift of the Magi, but Mahukona had one more treat for me.  In the relative shallows near the pier, I saw an orange tailed juvenile of the pinktail triggerfish.  I tried to take his picture, but before I could get close enough for a really good shot, he scooted under a coral.  My fish wallah says that several orange tail juveniles have been hanging around the shallows at Mahukona for a week or so.

   This was a great Christmas swim, the best that I can remember.  We saw the Christmas wrasse, guaranteeing a happy and prosperous 2018.  And Kanaloa, in his role as the Magister of the Hawaiian Ocean,  provided lots of other treats as well.

   May your days be merry and bright.

Jeff

Christmas in Kailua and a Lionfish Update

The palm tree green,  the banyan green,
The prettiest sight that you've ever seen.
Its Christmas in Kailua, the best you've ever known.
Its Christmas in Kailua, With all of the fish at home.

   Yes, indeed, this Christmas time has been very special here in the land of mele kalikimaka.  The weather has been cool and clear almost every day.  With the exception of two days of well needed rain last week, it has been delightful.

Saddleback Butterfly Kahaluu 12/17

    The ocean water has remained fairly calm and still not as cold as it will get later in the winter.  With a bit o' neoprene it's pretty comfortable.  Although there have been no exciting fish sightings, at least on my part, there are a few fish around to enjoy and photograph.  A week ago at Kahalu'u I nabbed this picture of a saddleback butterfly.   Sadly, on that day there was little else to brag about at K Bay.




       We have been snorkeling at the pier a few times recently.  Two weeks ago I saw this Scribbled Filefish.  He was right where you would expect him, about fifteen yards past the last swim buoy, just where the coral curves towards the sea.  As I was enjoying  Sandra's favorite fish, a recreational swimmer happened along wearing a snorkel mask replete with a bright pink snorkel.  I stalled her,

Scribbled Filefish at the pier rolls on his side to say Merry Christmas

introduced her to Mr. Scribble and she seemed pleased to make his acquaintance.  This is one of our fish that used to be a resident at Kahalu'u, which we now only see in deeper spots.  Twenty years ago the scribbled filefish used to swim right up and look you right in the eye.  Now its highly unusual to see one above fifteen feet.

    A few days ago I saw a small gurnard near the first swim buoy.  I had to take a few pictures, but he was hardly the most beautiful gurnard.  As I was watching him, a goatfish swam slowly above him and for about three seconds he extended his fins and flashed the blue owl eye pattern.  As quick as wink, his fins were refolded and brownish gray.   Envying the goatfish, I tried diving close and snapping a picture from a foot above the gurnard.  None of my efforts could get him to flash his owl eyes, but I did succeed in scaring him a few feet away where he resumed whisking the sand for tiny tidbits.

   Just yesterday I got dropped off at the pier for a quick dip.  Reclining on the seawall was one of Santa's elves playing his ukulele.  Such has been the fish watching that this may constitute the best picture taken with the water camera since our return from Bali.   You can tell that this is one happy elf.  The weather is way better than at the North Pole and he's got a Starbuck's coffee to make the season bright.

    Although the water was clear as a bell, the only moderately good thing I saw swimming yesterday was a cushion starfish, close to where we saw Mr. Scribble a fortnight past.



     Yesterday I received a note from our co-conspirator, Peter Kroppje up in Hawi.  The outcome of our subsequent exchange is that we are driving to Mahukona early tomorrow morning to look for the Christmas wrasse on Christmas Day with our friends.  Peter says that our target fish will be present in

Flying gurnard, Kailua Kona Pier december 2017

large numbers at Mahukona.  This is a darn good thing, as the Kalikimaka Wrasse has been quite a bit less than prevalent at both the pier and good old K Bay; the latter should be a lock for this festive fish, but not this year.  Stay tuned for news of this years quest.

    The chief reason Peter wrote, besides wanting to say hello, was to talk about his blogs and fish list from Bali.  I have to tell you that Peter is a much better fish photographer than I am.  If you would like to look at some gorgeous pictures of the fish he saw in Bali, check out his blog one breath kohala:

https://onebreathkohala.wordpress.com/

   As we have mentioned before, fishwatching, like birding can breed some friendly competition.  Peter and I both saw 11 species of angelfish in Bali.  He saw two species that we have seen previously, but not on this trip: the  blue girdled angelfish and the yellow masked angelfish. These are BBA (big beautiful angelfish).  I have mediocre pictures of those two species taken in previous years, but at snorkeling depth, which is unusual for those species.  In that environment, those big angels were skittish.  The fish may have been more cooperative forty feet below the waves.  Regardless, Peter's pictures are to die for and you really should take a look. Peter also saw the Black Striped Angel, a smaller angel that we probably will never see.

Yellow Mask Angelfish Japanese Wreck 2009

    You need to go to Peter's blog to see his pictures.  I'm including a picture taken in 2009 at Japanese Wreck.  That picture was taken with a cheap point and shoot camera in a cheap housing.  Since I never throw anything away I still have that camera and it looks like a toy you might give to a three year old.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure you can buy a toy for a three year old for less than fifty dollars.

   While I was taking a look at his 11 angelfish, I perused the rest of his blog and discovered that he had a very good picture of a lionfish, the zebra lionfish, that we had not claimed.  I would note that one of my greatest thrills in nature observation occurred on the Masai Mara with James.  Standing up in and poking through a land rover, I photographed a pride of lions reclining after dining on a zebra, with the odd striped hoof and tail scattered throughout the pride.

A female lion contemplates the remains of a zebra  Masai Mara 1993

    While that reminiscence may tie zebra and lion together, it is only marginally salient to the discussion of the zebra lionfish.  Peter notes that he saw this fish in the shallows in Pemuteran, where Sandra and I spent a great deal of time snorkeling.  In fact, just before we saw the baby striped sweetlips, I rousted a pair of small lionfish from under a rock.

   A few years ago I was quite wary of the poisonous spines borne so decoratively by lionfish.  Well, familiarity breeds contempt and, as you can tell, I'm not nearly so cautious as I once was.   And, at least in this case, it probably did not work out best for the lionfish.  At the minimum, their nap was interrupted.

Zebra Lionfish Courtesy of Kona Imports SA

   Well, I looked at Peter's picture and noted that this new lionfish does not look all that different from the spotfin lionfish, which I assumed that it was.  For those of you who are bird watchers, let me make a comparison.  Say you are up in the Cascades and you saw what you took to be a purple finch.  If you were unaware that you had entered the range of the Cassin's finch, you might not realize that you were looking at a different species.  A book like North American Birds, with a distribution map next to each bird, makes this oversight less likely.  I have yet to see a fish field guide with maps next to each species.  What would be really cool is if there were a hologram so you could see distribution and the depth.  Regardless, I had no idea that I might see a new species of lionfish and were it not for Peter's OBK blog, I would be one lionfish poorer.

   Luckily, I had taken six pictures of those two small lionfish,  Not as good as Peter's, mind you, but a couple of my pictures, taken at odd angles, are in good focus. At least one shows the caudal peduncle really well.  And that last stripe on the caudal peduncle with its two white spots is a quick, straight

Zebra Lionfish Jemeluk 2014

forward field mark for separating the two species.  Lucky for us, a great many fish, when you try to take their picture, turn away, thus giving you a cracker jack shot at the caudal peduncle.

   I called Sandra over (she, too had seen these little lionfish and got bored watching my flailing efforts to get a good picture).  I now made Sandra look at Peter's picture, my pictures and the pictures in the field guide.  She agreed that it was a zebra lionfish.  She did not, however, break into her happy dance.  In fact, I think I saw her stifle a yawn.  Again, I leave it to you to look at the lionfish in the

Spotfin Lionfish displaying eponymous spots.  Jemeluk 2017

one breath kohala blog.

    The story might end at this point,  but in searching for pictures to illustrate my point I reviewed my pictures of lionfish taken on previous trips to Bali.  Immediately I realized that we had mis-identified some of the lionfish at Jemeluk in 2014.  Above you see a pretty nice photo from that trip showing a zebra lionfish hiding among the coral in front of Villa Coral.  Luckily , on the trip just taken I took a picture showing the spots on (you guessed it)  the spotfin lionfish that is dramatically better from the standpoint of those spots, than anything in Google images or the field guide. 

The adorable Karen at Pondok Shindu

   Suffice it to say, this expedition was unlike the birding trips I used to take with Mike and Ken.  There was no skull session at the end of each day, where we labored over the field guides and hammered down each species on the list, toasting each addition with a sip of Highland Nectar.  If we
had, this blog would have been, in large part, unnecessary.  And I wouldn't have had to go to Pemuteran.  But if that were the case, I never would have met Karen, who was our hostess at the Pondok Shindu Guesthouse.  And she was adorable.  So I guess it all worked out for the best. 

   That's all for today.  We will keep you appraised of the hunt for the Christmas Wrasse on Christmas Day.  May your stockings be full of lots of goodies and heatfelt Mele Kalikimaka to one and all..

Faster than Santa's Sleigh, its the Christmas wrasse.

 








    

Cleaning Up Bali

   Before I get going with the Bali fish list I want to channel Garret Morris as Chico Escuela, the Dominican baseball player turned sports reporter.  This goes all the way back to Saturday Night Live,

Garrett Morris and John Belushi   Kona be berry, berry good to me.

1978.  Who among us (and here I count on the vast majority of my readers being old enough to remember watching TV in 1978) can forget Chico intoning, "Beisbol be berry, berry good to me."  In a later episode, working with Jane Curtain, Chico said, "In National Hockey league, I don't know."  and then, "In beisbol, Pete Rose, 3.2 milllion dollah.  Atta boy, Johnny Hustle, you bet."

   Well, Chico is now living in the Paradise View Condominiums down on Alii Drive and the blog has hired him as weatherman.  "In Cleveland, Ohio, I don't know.  In Kona, cool dry breezes, cool wet water, an' warm brown women. Hawaii be berry, berry good to me"

   Suffice it to say, be you Chico Escuela or this humble correspondent, being in Kona this December is pretty sweet.  Berry, berry good at a minimum.

   At this point most of you will turn off the set and go outside to pull weeds, or if you live in one of the northern climes,  you might put on your stocking cap and shovel snow off the driveway.  Does tedium loom?  I will let you, my faithful readers, be the judge.

   Since returning from Bali I have been working on the list.  Like confirmed and inherently competitive birdwatchers, us fishwatchers take the list pretty seriously.  The night before we left Bali,  I totaled up the number of fish that I had identified and came up with 243 species.   This was mildly disappointing as I had been telling anyone who would listen that we would see 250.  At that time, I suspected that with a little work I could add a couple more, but I didn't have a clear idea how that work would proceed.

    As it turns out, there are four categories of fish that have found their way onto the list.  The first were a very few species that I had simply forgot to check off.  All I had to do was read through the checklist (composed of all the fish seen on three previous trips to Bali)  and add, for example, the ornate butterflyfish.  So this first group was composed of fish that we knew well, but in the confusion of the moment had neglected to add to the list.

The Red spotted Jawfish became the Brown Barred Goby

    The second were fish that I had taken excellent pictures of and failed to identify.  In some cases I had put them on the list but given them a new name, presumably with the intention of some day going back and trying vainly to identify them.  In that case, these lateral moves only made the list better, not longer.  Over the past two weeks, I have been pleased to discover that the internet works quite a bit better here in Estados Unidos than it did in Pemuteran and Ubud.  Not only that, it has been astonishing, even to me, that there is so much information on the internet, so many pictures and descriptions of fish found at the ends of the earth.  I
really believe that this is considerably different than even a few years ago.

   At any rate, we have corrected some mis-identifications.  That wonderful jawfish we showed you in an earlier blog, to which I gave the name Red Spotted Jawfish, turns out to be the Brown Barred Goby, Amblygobius phalaena.   When asked to come look at this discovery, my beloved wife wondered if the name was related to its large, funny looking eyes.  The similarity between the words amblygobius and amblyopia were just too much for Sandra to ignore. 

Orange Spotted Goby,  Istigobius rigilius    Menangen Island 2017

     By trolling through pages related to dragonets I found the Orange Spotted Goby, Istigobius rigilius.  We have a beautiful picture of this white fish, looking for all the world like the bride at a dragonet wedding, perched on some powderized coral, on the flats at Menagen island.

   A couple years ago on the beach at Waialea Bay, my guru Bob Hillis commented on the number of gobies on his Hawaii list and how he might have just found a new one in the tide pool twenty feet from our picnic.  I dutifully examined the tide pool, didn't see anything and then, under my breath, made some deprecating remark to the effect that gobies were such plain, insignificant fish that I could not in good conscience attempt to identify them.  This was not the first time in my career as a mediocre naturalist, that I have quietly accused a superior observer of making it up, knowing full well that I was finding a way to excuse my own feeble brain and poor eyesight. Well, perhaps we need to rethink our position, vis a vis gobies.

Yellow Spotted Scorpionfish   Sebastapistes cyanostigma

       The picture of which I am most proud involves a small, secretive scorpionfish.  This animal was hiding in a cauliflower coral and stayed still while the smart little red camera did its magic.   What we have is a beautiful photo of a Yellow Spotted Scorpionfish.   Searching Google for the genus Sebastapistes  (the genus of the speckled scorpionfish found in cauliflower coral in Hawaii) and Bali, I immediately came up with two hits from Australian sites.  As it turns out, this is a widespread fish in the western Pacific, but only the extremely curious carrying a smart little camera are likely to identify it.


    The list of this second group of fish would stretch to a dozen or so.  But the third and fourth groups are more interesting.  For as long as our military has been fighting in the middle east, we have been exposed, on the nightly news, to a recurring situation.  The enemy is hiding in a house and some pilot sitting at a console in Fort Huachuca, Arizona  pulverizes the house with a missile shot from a drone.

This Snooty Wrasse (unlike Everett McGill) is Bonafide 

  The following day it turns out that the militants were permitting a family of four to remain in the house.  That family, we are told, is collateral damage.

   Don't worry. Completing the fish list did not involve any dead Muslims, or even any dead fish. Our collateral damage involves finding new fish in pictures taken of other fish. Suffice it to say, Yesterday I was looking at one of the two truly beautiful fish that I had not been able to identify and I spotted an unmistakable sign on an adjacent fish...barbels.  The beautiful fish, possibly a dottyback, was twenty feet deep, so the picture even of the object fish wasn't perfect.  I asked Sandra to come over, pointed in the general direction with the cursor and she verified that we had a dark fish with whiskers.  (I can here you now, "Poor Sandra.  She should have been having a coffee at Starbucks.)  We then had a little debate about whether the nearby yellow tail, which had directed my attention to the fish in the first

Sergeant Schultze's Pipefish.  I know nussink,  I see nussink.

place, was associated with the dark fish with whiskers or the inanimate object next to it, which I maintain is a peice of coral rubble.  My position was that the yellow tail was indeed associated with that fish.  And the fish was a bicolor goatfish.

   This points out a dilemma.  Let us say that before you can add a fish to the list, you have to complete a questionnaire.  Did you see the fish in the wild?  Did you identify the fish from a photograph?  In a case like this, the answers are no and yes.  many is the time, especially with small secretive animals like hermit crabs and fish that hide in coral, that us latter day naturalists point a very smart camera in their direction, focus and shoot.  Back at the ranch, we are often blessed with a very convincing photo...of an animal that we at least saw with our own eyes, albeit not well enough to identify. 

    There is no way that I saw that bicolor goatfish in the wild.  I simply captured it inadvertently  in a digital image.  I don't know of any rules in the birding community that cover this eventuality.  It
simply wasn't much of a problem prior to digital photography.  In searching the internet, I did not find an answer to my question, so I attempted to call that consummate arbitrator of listers, the American Birding Association.  Naturally they did not answer the phone, so I called the Portland Audubon society and spoke to Joe Liebbezeit.  Joe is an ace birder, keeps a list and, most importantly, happened to be in the office. 

   Joe's opinion was that if you captured a bird in your camera, you could count it, but with a

Ruby Headed Fairy Wrasse,  Cirrhilabrus  cyanopleura  Jemeluk

notation.  I liked this idea,  because it was what I was already doing and it got the bicolor goatfish onto the life list.  

   Finally, we were left with a couple fish that defied identification.  And so, on our last afternoon in Pemuteran, we spent an hour at Sea Rovers where one of the owners, Wayan, attempted to identify a few fish that I could not find in Reef Fish Identification, Tropical Pacific, By Gerald Allen, et al.   Wayan was very gracious, gave us each a cold bottle of water and, along with our guide Aleef, attempted to identify our mystery fish.  He was pleased to put names on the mystery fish and we left happy, clutching our cold bottles of water.

     Sadly, if you are keeping score at home, Wayan went 0 for 2.  But little did we know.

     Luckily, our co-conspirator, Peter (who was the same guy that suggested that Wayan might be able to identify our fish)  sent us an email a few days ago.  Peter had found a site, i Naturalist.org.  Run by the California Academy of Sciences, iNatralist permits you to submit pictures of unidentified organisms.

Peter, Wayan and Aleef discuss fish identification.

The experts at CAS then attempt to identify your animals and, I suppose, plants.  In the process of introducing me to this site, Peter shared his own iNaturalist account.  Right there, I found a correction to one of my identifications.  (In my defense, there are a plethora of cardinalfish.) 

    The first fish we tackled with our new best friends at CAS was an active fish that we had seen twice.  The first observation was at Jemeluk where it was swimming in a mixed school of damsels and fusiliers, feeding on plankton.  The second was at the drop off at Mangroves on Menangen Island, Pemuteran.  This is a very pretty fish, he has a head the color of a ripe plum.  Or possibly a Beaujolais nouveau with the sun shining through the glass.  

Blueside Wrasse  Cirrhilabrus  cyanopleura  Menangen Island 2017

    Wayan had called this fish a Rainbow Anthias.  The identifier at iNaturalist, who goes by the screen name maractwin, called it a Bluesided Wrasse.  This fish is found in our field guide.  However, the picture there looks absolutely nothing like what we saw. I searched  the scientific name,  Cirrhilabrus   cyanopleura,  and came up with a fistful of hits.  There I discovered that our fish, in the color pattern we observed, is known as the Ruby Headed Fairy Wrasse.  Not only that, from LiveAquaria.com you can buy one for 34.99 plus shipping.  Live caught, aquarium conditioned.  they recommend a 90 gallon tank and operators are standing by.   Perfect. 

   The second fish we added to the corrected list was one we had seen three years ago at Jemeluk in the very same place.  And it was in the process of photographing this enigma that we caught the bicolor goatfish.  As you can see, this is a beautiful light colored fish with a blue head.  I thought it might be a dottyback. Having never seen a dottyback I was in a poor position to say, but Wayan agreed and named it the bicolor dottyback.   Maractwin, on the other hand, thinks it is a damselfish, specifically the Pink (or King) Demoiselle, Chrysiptera rex.  Once again this fish is found in the book
and looks nothing like what we saw.

Pink Demoiselle, Chrysiptera rex   By Diver's Cafe, Jemeluk  2017  If you find the fish with the barbels you win a prize.

    Early in our trip, I pointed out to Peter and Marla that the Indo-Pacific is a big place.  If you are used to using a solid field guide like Hoover, you have become accustomed to pictures of fish taken in Hawaii.  In the wide region covered by the field guide we were using, there can be many different color patterns for a given species.  Or to put it succinctly, the fish you find in Bali may not look like the one in that book. 

    As before, the internet provided several pictures  of the Pink Demoiselle very like the one that I took.  Sadly, I did not find one for sale.  I guess I will just have to rely on my memories.  

    You can wake up now.  I think he is finally done.

   Thanks so much for wading through this blog.  I hope you enjoyed the pictures and that this excessive bit of reading did not induce amblyopia.  If nothing else, the next time you see a fish or a plant that you can't identify, you know who to call.  And I don't mean Wayan. 

jeff 2017

Won't You Buy Some Beads?

The Hairy Red Crab

   Since returning from Bali, we have been enjoying some relatively cool dry weather here in Kona.  Of course, there is nothing like returning from Indonesia to make where ever you are feel cool and dry.  We have not been snorkeling since our return, in large part because, before we could get our feet

Prior to the onset of Bali Belly, Sandra could shop and dance.

under us, we both became ill.  Sandra got a case of Bali Belly.  To my dismay, this seems to have

curtailed her belly dancing, at least for this week.  I, not wanting to be outdone, got a whopping good case of gout.  I am barely able to hobble to the computer to write this blog.  And suffice it to say, I, too, am not belly dancing. 

   As I have been sitting around with my leg elevated, I have been thinking about the hermit crabs we saw in Bali.  The water was delightfully warm there and Sandra and I spent many hours out on the shallow reefs, which were ideal for hermit hunting.  Over these many halcyon hours, we saw a total of ten individual hermit crabs.  Upon our return, with a moderate amount of scholarship, I was able to identify all ten hermit crabs that we saw.  John Hoover's critter book was a help, but, as it turned out, not a single one of these was a crab species found here in Hawaii. This is a little surprising because crabs seem to be more widely distributed than fish and most of the hermit crabs found in Hawaii are found throughout the Pacific, many extending into the Indian Ocean.   As a consequence, I was forced to scour the internet for sites showing pictures of hermit

Calcinus minutus   Keahi, the Fiery Hermit Crab   Menangen Island 2017

crabs of Indonesia.  Isn't it interesting that a topic so esoteric would be covered on the net?  A site which I found most useful, and will refer to later in this rambling discourse, is Diverosa:

  http://www.diverosa.com/categories/Hermitcrabs.htm

   In the event that the following dialogue becomes too confusing, you may want to refer to that link.  Clearly, the boys and girls at Diverosa are as hung up on hermits as yours truly.

   By comparison with the hermit crabs, possibly fifteen percent of the fish species we saw in Bali are found in Hawaii, as well.  As you will recall, because Hawaii is so widely separated from other islands in the Pacific (take that, Jefferson Davis Beauregard Sessions) we are blessed with more than our fair share of endemic species.  Roughly 30 percent of our commonly seen reef fish are endemic, but that still leaves a large number that are seen regularly at a considerable distance from these Very

Ca. Gaimardii  Blue Eyes on Apricot Stalks

Sandwich Islands.

   Unlike hermits in Hawaii, the three species of hermit crabs that we found in Bali did not seem to show any preference for habitat, occurring in areas of rich coral growth, coral rubble and muddy weeds.  Additionally, as you will see, they did not seem to show any strong preference for type of shell.  In Hawaii, in a given location, I can frequently predict what species of hermit is living in a given shell. I have no idea why Indonesian hermit crabs are so lacking in discretion.

   Of the ten individuals we saw, three were of a species that we had seen on previous trips to Bali.  This is a relatively small white crab with orange tips, Calcinus minutus, known to some as the Fiery Hermit Crab.  The scientific name smacks of insignificance, but at least by the standards of the genus Calcinus, he is a modestly impressive hermit crab.  If he lived in Hawaii, we would have to call hm Keahi.  This under utilized Hawaiian name means "Man of Fire" and I am attempting to apply it to my grandson Colsen.  We can now see how this may relate to his ever so occasional crabbiness.   But I digress.

Blood Hermit Crab  December 2013, Kahalu'u Bay, Big Island

   Hopefully you remember from previous blogs that a major key to identifying hermit crabs is  the color of the eyes and the eye stalks.  Carcinologists (which is what scientists who study crabs acually call themselves),  when describing a hermit crab, actually draw large pictures of the eye stalks by hand.  In the case of minutus here, its white stalks and black eyes, simple and elegant. Unlike those that are to follow, this crab is easily named on sight.

   The second species, Calcinus gaimardii, was also seen three times and in a full variety of habitats. He was a little more evasive and our last sighting had to rely on a very poor picture, (hold the camera near the hiding crab, focus and hope for the best)  but the eyes gave him away.  And just look at those peepers: apricot colored stalks with two tones of blue stripes, capped off handsomely with bright blue eyes.   There is a hermit in Hawaii, the Argus Hermit Crab, Ca. argus, (which I have never been lucky enough to see) that looks a lot like Gaimard's Hermit,  but with pink stalks with a white band.  Hoover says it is distributed in the Indo- Pacific, but I wonder, given the similarity to the Gaimard's, if it is found in Bali.   If one can draw a conclusion from the pictures on their site, the boys at Diverosa don't seem to think so.

Red Hairy Hermit Crab,  D. lagopodes  In a Triton   Menangen Island  2017

    The last crab we will discuss is one you have met previously in the blog, the Hairy Red Hermit, Dardanus lagopodes.  This sasquatch of a crab comes from the only genus that I have recorded here in Hawaii that contains truly hairy hermits.  Prior to this trip to Bali, my sole hairy hermit was the Bloody Hermit Crab, D. sanguinocarpus.   If you follow the blog, you will know that the Bloody Hermit is one of my favorites. 

    We see him ever so occasionally in Kona at two locations.  The first is in the small patch of coral right by the pier.  Thus, Señor Sanguinocarpus lives in coral that grows beneath the spot used by the tenders from the cruise ships.  In a way, Kailua Kona is running a little experiment and demonstrating rather clearly that coral is not especially harmed by regular exposure of a variety of hydrocarbons associated with diesel engines.  And the bloody hermit lives there in spite of those cruise ship tenders.  In that thirty foot long patch of coral I have seen at least three Bloody Hermits and all were wearing long, smooth miter shells.  These shells were so large that one could not imagine that locomotion was possible.  By moving one of the crabs and

Red Hairy Hermit Crab, D. lagopodes, in a long, smooth miter shell  Bali  2017

coming back the next day, I was able to show that the stout fellow could lug that cumbersome edifice over twenty feet in as many hours and back up to the top of the coral, an ascent of perhaps two meters.  Woof!

   The second location where we have recorded the Bloody Hermit is good ol' K Bay.  We have seen him at least four times at Kahalu'u and every time he was living in a triton shell (and there he kept her very well).   So both locations where we see the Hawaiian Dardanus have been in peaceful, protected waters. 

    Being a lister of the first water, I really wanted all four of these red hairy hermits to be different species.  On my preliminary list I named them black hairy hermit, fuzzy hermit, etc. And in fact, I identified the very last hermit we saw in Bali as a bloody hermit crab.  When we got back to the library, this preliminary identification was debunked.   John Hoover's critter book points out that the bloody hermit is found only on other islands near to Hawaii,  not in the west Pacific and certainly not in the Indian Ocean.

D. lagopodes in a ribbed miter impersonates sanguinocarpus

    As we promised, it came down to eye stalks.  Our picture from K Bay shows the bloody hermit with his tan eye stalks and discrete terminal yellow ring.  in these several pictures of lagopodes, you note pearly gray eye stalks and a a large yellow ring with a yellow nipple extending onto the eye.Nevertheless, if you look at the pictures on Diverosa and you don't make too big a deal out of the eye stalks, you will see two examples from Indonesia that could pass as sanguinocarpus.

    When all was said and done, we saw D. lagopodes on Menangen Island in a situation very much like Paul Allen's Reef, which is to say, exposed to the surf.  He was strolling around in a well worn triton shell.

   The other three sightings were in the peaceful waters of Pemuteran Bay.  The biggest and hairiest of this bunch was in a large miter shell wedged so solidly into the rubble that, much like the giant clams

Fuzzy   Dardanus lagopodes, Hairy Red Hermit Crab.  Weedy Pirates, Pemuteran  2017

that live in the substrate, it appeared to be part of the reef.  One has to assume that at some point the crab moved that shell.  But maybe not.

   The last two of these lagopodes were found on the sandy, muddy bottom, not associated with coral or even rubble.   This is dramatically different from the habitat in which we would expect to find a bloody hermit.   In the case of the crab that so convincingly imitated the blood crab, he is living in a ribbed miter.  the last one I am showing you I hopefully called a fuzzy hermit.  While my hopes for a new species were dashed (Fuzzy is clearly lagopodes) I absolutely love the picture.  That little red point and shoot T4 can knock one out of the park if you give it a chance.  

   Well, thank God for eye stalks.  We are already missing the warm waters of the enchanted island of Bali and shivering in anticipation of what awaits us here at home in the waters of kailua Bay.  I hope you enjoyed the pictures of  the hermit crabs, and that you all have a warm and merry holiday season.

jeff

While Sandra and i were out hunting hermits, the lovely Miss Kadek was gathering flowers for our bed.

Pemuteran: Three Worthy Snorkeling Sites

      We spent seven nights in Pemuteran on the far northwest coast of Bali.  Our original plan was to spend only four nights, which would probably have been about right.   The potential eruption of Mt.

One of the Biorock Structures

Agung caused us to change our plans.  It must be noted that the travel time to Pemuteran is far greater than what you might expect, no matter which way you approach it.  It took over four hours for an experienced driver to travel the 70 miles from Amed to Pemuteran and, just yesterday, over four hours for the same poor fellow to make his way through Singaraja, over the mountains and down into Ubud.  So although on the map it doesn't look very far,  it is a destination not to be taken casually and once you get there it is worth staying for a while to justify the effort.

    As the title suggests, there are three good spots to snorkel from the beach in Pemuteran,  Our discovery was aided by our good friend Peter Kroppje who did some very helpful research in a book

The Hospital de Saint Pau would look at home in the Biorock

on Bali snorkeling.  By virtue of going diving several times, Peter talked to the nice people at Sea Rovers, who were instrumental in helping us find the third site described here.

    The first site I will describe is the Biorock Project.  This endeavor began in the year 2000 with a few steel structures, charged with low voltage electricity.  These were placed in the Java Sea in front of Taman Sari Resort.  Biorock now extends about forty meters along the coast.  The reef in Pemuteran had been largely destroyed by cyanide fishing.  Sounds crazy, right?  But nevertheless true.

  When Sandra and I visited here in 2009 there were some discrete patches of coral and a few sponges.  things have changed dramatically.  As noted in a previous blog, the last two years subjected the biorock reef, and all the other reefs in the area, to high ocean temperatures courtesy of climate

A Dusky Wrasse among the Biorock coral rubble.

change. Now in 2017 the reef associated with Biorock looks a lot like what you might expect coming from Kona: some living corals, but lots of coral rubble as well.  As in Kona, the branching corals seem to have taken the biggest hit.

   The biorock structures still exist, looking ever so much like something envisioned by Isaac Asimov, Buckminster Fuller or, possibly, one of  the Catalan modernisme architects from late 19th Century Barcelona. Those science fiction dudes had little on Anton Gaudi and Luís Domènech Montaner.  If, for example, you picked up the Hospital de Saint Pau, plopped it in the Java Sea and electrified it, it would not seem especially out of place at Biorock.  Perhaps you could get a free tonsillectomy in the process.

     Regardless of the design inspiration, there is a greater variety of organisms on the structures than

Clown Anemonefish living on the Biorock

we saw eight years ago.  Everybody loves Nemo (sorry Raymond) and may of the structures boast anemones with false clown anemone fish.  On one structure we counted four such anemones replete with the cutest little fish on our emerald orb.

    To visit this site, enter on the soft sand in front of Taman Sari or slightly to the east.  In their efforts to deflect the hoi poloi away from their paying guests, the fine people at Taman Sari have placed signs along the beach extolling in English the dangers of entering in front of their hotel (Sea Urchins! Scorpionfish! Sharp rocks!) This is nonsense, of course, but the entry is equally safe on the beach a few meters to the east.  Swim out about twenty meters and enjoy the sea life and the biorock structures. 

    Were this the only spot for the snorkeling in the bay we would have made the most of it.  However,

Gorgeous anemone on the Reef Seen flats.

at least twenty years have elapsed since the end of cyanide fishing on this coast and the marine life is rebounding everywhere.  The second entry we utilized is directly in front of the Reef Seen Dive Resort. The management here seems to embrace the visiting snorkeler.  We utilized an elevated bench attached to a shady tree for changing and all we got from the Reef Seen people were smiles.  As at Taman Sari, you enter on soft sand.  There are residual piles of rocks leading into the ocean from the beach, the remnants of the weighs left over from the fishing days.  And there are tall, sturdy signs  anchored in cement platforms marking the way, in the event that you have any doubts.

   Here you find yourself on a reef flat with recovering coral with occasional patches of grass. Perhaps because the coral has not been force fed by well meaning electricians, there is far less rubble.  The shallow flat extends out about

The mystery damselfish with the peach colored caudal peduncle

thirty meters and then slopes sharply downward.  There are some protruding coral heads in the deeper water and a few mooring buoys. I employed the anchor lines from the buoys to hold myself down while attempting some photographs.

   We snorkeled this reef three times and it never failed to produce interesting organisms.  On my first snorkel, I saw a gorgeous anemone.  We found several hermit crabs, including the blood hermit crab that we know from Kona.  Not for the first time in Bali, did I see a damselfish that isn't in the book.  A handsome gray damsel with a yellow caudal peduncle, the tail trimmed in brown.  Any help from the peanut gallery?

There were several of these colonies of blue sticks.

   I can hardly wait to get back to a library where we can ponder some invertebrate books.  What do you make of this odd, blue organism that looks like a bundle of sticks?

   We chose this site for our last dive in Pemuteran.  Towards the end of our hour and a half swim, we experienced a flurry of interesting animals.  This included the Blue Ringed Angelfish, an interesting

Schultze's Pipefish,  Reef Seen  2017

transitional specimen displaying faint vertical stripes of the juvenile and the classic up sweeping blue lines of the adult, a duo of baby lionfish and what has to be one of the treasures of our expedition: a baby Lined Sweetlips. This three centimeter beauty was flitting in and out of a coral rubble shelter in the sandy grass.   The striped  sweetlips baby is a significantly different shape from its many spotted cousin, which you will recall from the Jemeluk blog.  He is sleek and has longitudinal stripes and a striking chestnut cap.  Like other baby sweetlips, his undulating locomotion is entrancing.  We worked for at least five minutes attempting to catch this quick moving sprite in the open.   I did get two shots with the macro lens, but the fish was just too kinetic and the pictures are poorly focused.  It would have been a fantastic fish even without any pictures. 

   The third spot I'm going to tell you about truly would have been impossible without Peter's

Bengai Cardinalfish at Weedy Pirates  Nov 2017

research.  Pemuteran Bay, a long shallow scoop on the north west coast of Bali, is divided roughly in half by a sandy point.  Just inside that point, perhaps 500 meters down the beach from Taman Sari, is a small pier which is notable at some distance for a large white, two masted sailboat moored there.  The pier marks the inside boundary of what the Sea Rovers Dive Emporium calls the Weedy Pirates dive site.  (The company fashions themselves as scuba diving buccaneers.)  On our next to last day, Sandra, Peter and I made the trek down the beach to this pier, hoping to see a premier muck fish like a batfish or sea moth.  We had been told that they were there, along with anemones and other interesting animals.

   At the foot of the pier there is a small grassy spot and a leaky hose with fresh water, providing an excellent location to transition in and out of the sea.  After entering on the soft sand we swam around the pier, not seeing much of interest.  As we headed slowly out to sea, things changed

Banded Coral Shrimp at Weedy Pirates 2017

dramatically.  Under a piece of stony rubble I spotted antennae, these belonging to a trio of banded coral shrimp.  Adjacent to the stone was a long spined sea urchin housing two extraordinary species, the Bengai Cardinalfish and a pair of sweet little Radial Filefish.  The spines on these urchins are longer than any we have experienced in Hawaii and Weedy Pirates served as home to at least three species of cardinalfish.  They were able to rest the day away among the urchin spines before entering the open water at night to hunt.

    Certainly the shrimp and the filefish were interesting, but the Bengai Cardinalfish is amazing.  Flipping through the pages of the field guide over the years, I have admired this fish, figuring it must be extremely rare, that I would never be so lucky as to see it in the wild.  We spent some time with this group and then swam out a little bit where a screen had been

Toothy Cardinalfish,  Weedy Pirates  2017

submerged creating a home for more animals, among them rested the bengai cardinalfish, now not surrounded by sea urchin spines.

    Over the next hour and a half we swam out towards the point about fifty meters and about thirty meters out to sea; not really all that far.  Over and over we were stalled by new finds, anemones winking in the clear water, hermit crabs, pipefish and two more cardinalfish.  Sandra found a remarkable sea urchin shaped like a corrugated garden hose with a duster on the end.

    At about the same time, we saw two of the most peculiar sea urchins ever.  the globular urchin looks like a royal blue handball to which has been affixed lines of bristles fron a clothes brush.  Very beautiful and most unexpected.  wayan at Sea rovers was able to put a name on this one for us. 

The Globular Urchin... one peculiar echinoderm.

    Halfway through, I spotted a bannerfish that I knew was different for the trip.  It turned out to be the Masked Bannerfish, not in our field guide, I later identified it from an Australian fishwatching site on the internet. We followed this handsome individual for a while.  He wasn't extremely cooperative, but as there was only one of him , he was not so elusive that we unable to get a good shot.

   A bit later, patiently cruising the grassy area, we were lucky to see a jawfish, also not in our field guide, but in this instance not readily identified from the internet either.  Challenges like this make fish watching interesting.  We watched this fellow with crown of red spots and an iridescent blue mustache for five minutes and were rewarded with a couple good

The Brown Barred Goby, Amblygobius phalaena at Weedy Pirates  2017

shots.

   Clearly Pemuteran has a lot to offer the adventurous naturalist.  There is a variety of food and lodging to be found.  I don't see a way around the difficult transfer, be it from the airport or Amed, but if you make the trip you will certainly find your rewards.

jeff