Kathy and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Coris

    Thursday broke as a beautiful day.  Blue skies and fleecy clouds.  Although Kathy and Vernon had decided to take the day off, by lunchtime they were clamoring to go snorkeling.  Locally.  At Kahalu'u to avoid the parking problem at the pier.

Calcinus latens.  Strawberry shelled hermit crabs forever

   And so Sandra and I met them at 1 PM at good 'ol K Bay.  By this time the sky was mostly a steely
gray.  This isn't entirely bad because it keeps the temperature down.  If there is a down side, gray skies make for less vibrant photographs.  Kathy has a new water camera which she is learning to use, so this may have been an issue for her.

   This time out, we were able to enter the water leisurely and let Vernon get comfortable.  We all snorkeled together for twenty minutes and then he headed for shore. Picking up the pace, the three of us headed for the middle of the bay.

    The first thing we found to challenge Kathy's camera was a bright orange shell of indeterminate species, roughly the size of a large strawberry, perched on  a coral shelf.  This shell, covered with gorgeous coralline algae, was serving as a home for a hidden hermit crab, Calcinus latens.  the walking legs are definitive.  Sadly we can't see the claws with their constellations of stars.  We took

Black Lipped Pearl Oyster, Kahalu'u December 2019

turns shooting this cooperative little fellow and then moved on.

    At this point there wasn't too much else.  I took a picture of a black lipped pearl oyster whiling away his days encrusted in the coral.  Little did I know that there were not one, but two pearls dead ahead.

   Mrs Yoder and I made the turn for home a beat or two behind the Redoubtable SKG.  As I caught up with her I could she was waving one hand and pointing under water with the other.  As I approached I could see she had an excellent teenage yellowtail coris just below her.  What a treat!  Suddenly, just off to the side there was a small octopus doing the seaside creep at the foot of a rock.  Trusting Sandra to keep an eye on Mr. Octopus, I turned and snapped five or six quick pictures of the coris.

    Later I explained yellowtail coris development to Vernon and Kathy.  As faithful readers of the blog, you probably recall that the yellowtail coris begins life as a very different looking fish, the red

Intermediate Yellowtail Coris, Kahalu'u December 2019

labrid wrasse.  This small red fish has four vertical white stripes.  This pattern causes some morons (don't be so judgemental) to call the red labrid a Nemo fish, by which they mean an anemonefish.  That, of course, is complete nonsense.  It is obviously a tiny wrasse and their are no giant anemones in Hawaii.  After a month or so it changes rather quickly to a female, boasting a blue body with striking white stars and a yellow tail.  Hence the name.  The Star Spangled Coris.

     Finally the wrasse undergoes its final sex change to a super male.  Thus spake Zarathustra.  This guy can be much bigger, he adds a red tip to his tail and a white stripe to his flank.  He is the dude. 

What red labrid wrasse wouldn't want Beverly Goldberg for a mother?

   So where does the young teenage Adam Goldberg come in?  For a very short period of time the red labrid is in complete transition.  The aft part of his body is blue and he has a yellow tail.  But as you head
forward the blue fades into red and he has vertical white stripes, including one on his nose.  This fish is both funny lookin' (in a general sorta way) and quite handsome.   Like Adam Goldberg in the eyes of his mother, Beverly, as played by the foxy Wendi McLendon Covey.  Although you never see her trying to help, I'm sure mama coris is just as proud of this teenager as Beverly is of Adam.

   Regardless of all that, I did manage in that short period of time to get a couple good photographs of the fast moving and elusive teenage mutant ninja coris.

   Immediately after taking those pictures I returned to octopus central.  It couldn't have been more that thirty seconds.  But, you guessed it, the octopus had crawled under his rock.  I dove down and succeeded in driving him further under the rock.  We all waited for a minute or so, then Sandra decided she was going in.

   Kathy seemed willing to stay, so I swam slowly in a circle singing the octopus doxology.  We waited another minute or so and he broke cover.  At first he was the dark chocolate torpedo with short tentacles. Then he plopped down on the sand and did the octopus Christmas ornament, the eight legs

A big, beautiful Humpback Cowry.

arranged symmetrically around him, his head coming to a blunt point.  Then he dashed again to the foot of a rock and changed colors and textures a couple times.  All this went very fast, maybe fifteen seconds for the whole routine.  Somehow Kathy didn't see it at all, even though she was looking right where I was.  Which just goes to prove: the octopus is the holy ghost.  And I have other evidence.  The octopus is of another world.

   On the way in we saw a large humpback cowry.  The way people take things out of Kahalu'u, it is amazing a creature like this still exists there.  As it turned out,  Sandra saw the same cowry on the way in.

   This was a really great snorkel.  Thanks to Kathy and Vernon for inviting us along.

jeff

One more look at the transitional yellowtail coris.