Reef Ghosts and Crinoids
Dauin, in the south of Negros Island in the Philippines, is one of the major critter diving heavens in the country, and fortunately only one village over from my home.
Recently I encountered a group of seven (!) of the rarely seen harlequin ghost pipefish (Solenostomus paradoxus) in one spot. These are, in fact, rare in most other locations, but once in a while you can see them in Dauin on almost every dive, for a few weeks in a row. I got pretty good footage of the ghosts, including footage of the fertilized eggs protected by one female between her pelvic fins:
Ghost Pipefish Fotos
This is a Flickr album with all my ghost pipefish shots from several years of underwater macro photography. they are not easy to shoot, since they don’t hold still very much, even though they are not fast swimmers; it’s more of a twisting and twitching which they engage in.
All my images on Flickr are Creative Commons, and I’m always excited when I have the chance to contribute them to an educational page, such as the Fishes of Australia page for the Solenostomus paradoxus:
Ghost Pipefish Biology
I also wrote an article about the biology of ghost pipefishes in underwater photography mag a while ago, check it out below. There are a number of really unusual aspects to the natural history of these animals:
ghosts on the reefBest Fishes & till Soon,
Klaus
