Great Fish at Kona Makai ...the Quest Continues

   Each year as we arrive, we go to our favorite spots to see if something special has taken up residence.  Some fish swim through and are gone, generally the more pelagic (open ocean) fish.  But lots of others take up residence on a reef and stay for a while, sometimes for the duration of their lives.  This process was never better demonstrated than with the Phoenix Island Damselfish, the Notorious PID.  Four years ago on our first outing at Kona Makai we passed over a depression and saw a small (less than 3 inches) fish that was new to us.  To paraphrase the great John Lennon: Gotta be good lookin' , cause they're so hard to see!

John Hoover identified the PID from this poor picture!

   This was a small fish in a tough spot and I had an inferior camera.  Here is a picture of the fish that I sent, with field notes to John Hoover.  He writes the best fish finding guide for Kona.  My guru puzzled together the identification, sent me a picture from the web and Sandra and I confirmed it.  This was a life fish, never seen before,  for John (who as you might suspect, has seen a few fish!)  Months later he came, ate Sandra's delicious lunch and we went out on the KM reef and he took the picture that appears in The Ultimate Guide to Hawaii Reef Fishes.  I assume when he got home he ticked it off on his lifelist.  Subsequently,  other fish watchers came to Kona Makai and observed this single individual.  it lived in the very same spot for two years.  How does a tiny fish survive in a wave washed depression through a tropical storm with ten foot surf?  Amazing!  I can't display John Hoover's picture here.  Find the book and have a look.
   So the quest continues.  Sandra and I hope to find another fish new to the State of Hawaii, new to the Big Island or at least new to us.  And the best chance is the first time we go in at a certain location.  Who has arrived and taken up residence?
     You may wonder how they arrive.  Sometimes they swim in.  If there is a pair...see the Reticulated Butterfly below...this is probably the case.   But in the case of rare ocean animals (we also have a state record for a tiny hermit crab) this is what happens:  Somewhere an egg is fertilized.  Lots of eggs.  Most go to shore near where they were fertilized..  Once near shore they mature to an adult animal.  If they are in a suitable location, they survive and may live out their entire life right there.  Sometimes these eggs float huge distances, thousands of miles, on the currents.  Then a lone individual is found, known as a waif.  Such was the PID.
    You've been a good audience and I'm sure you are dying with anticipation, so here is what we have found on the reef at Kona Makai in November of 2011.
     First, a hybrid of Achilles Tang and Goldrim Surgeon.  Incestuous sheets.  (Probably the Achilles and Goldrim parents did not share the same existential angst that Hamlet found with the union of his mother and uncle.)  This hybrid is well known and is pictured in Hoover's book; I knew right away what it was.  I'd never seen one before, though.   Tick it off!  This one is living to the right of the entry in front of Kona Shores Condominium. A few days later, we saw one on the right cusp at City.  That story will follow.  If you are in the area, this is a good year for this fairly rare fish.

The Goldrim hybrid with an Achilles Tang, City 11/17/11

     Most interestingly, right near the Valley of the Sun (the depression where our Phoenix Island Damsel lived out its life, we found an immature

The Orange Tail imm. 11/09/11 @ Kona Makai

 Pink Tail Triggerfish.  The PTT is not a rare fish and its not clear why we don't see the immature form very often.  In fact, this morph is so uncommon and so different from the adult form that ichthyologists of yore thought this was a new species.  So did I, but a trip to the library and a more careful look at Hoover's book clearly showed this beauty for what she is.  (Did you know that most reef fish are immatures, then females, then males?)   We are watching it about every other day and documenting its change from the Orange Tail Triggerfish  to the Pink Tail adult. I'll show you more pics as this baby matures..so far she has stuck around for 2 weeks in the same spot.  We regard such unusual morphs as a separate entity and...Tick it off!

The transitioning immature 11/18/11

    Yesterday, I required  a spiritual ablution following the loss of my beloved Huskies to the OSU Beavers.  Getting in at Kona Makai, I swam left for the first time this season.  It has been very calm for these two weeks and I swam onto a reef in front of the Royal Sea Cliff, where ashore we hunt for sea glass.

A Pair of Reticulated Butterfly, Kona Makai, 11/19/11

        
While taking a picture of a Crown of Thorns Starfish, I spotted a flash of creamy white.  A pair of Reticulated Butterflyfish!  Tally Ho!  I carefully swam them down and got the pictures you see here.  This butterfly is a fish of turbulent water, an area in which I specialize.  Divers get the deep water so if a snorkeler is going to earn his chops, he must go where divers dare not tread... the last four vertical feet in the surf.  We have seen a single individual Reticulated Butterfly here before on the south cusp of the Kona Makai bay.  That was seven or eight years ago.  And that was the last Retic. I have seen before yesterday.  I've never seen a pair at Kona Makai.  Butterflyfish are like swans, they mate and live together in pairs.  Its always nice to see a pair.
     Well, on that touching note, i am going to wrap things up.  This has been the longest blog yet.  Thanks for your interest and see a a fish for me.
jeff