The Dauin Big 3
On a single dive last week my dive buddy Matt and I saw an Ambon scorpionfish, a hairy frogfish and a robust ghost pipefish. Amazing! I consider these three fishes the BIG THREE of Dauin muck diving. In African safari ecotourism there are the “Big 5”: The lion, buffalo, rhino, elephant and leopard are the top 5 animals which a nature photographer in Kenya wants to shoot.
To me, the Ambon, hairy frogfish and robust ghost pipefish are the top 3 animals to see when muck diving. Naturally, there are more very interesting animals to see on a muck dive, but to me these three impress by being rather rare, and particularly bizarrely shaped. What would your three, or four or five choices for the top muck critters be?
In the video below you can see footage of the Dauin Big 3 and listen to my raving about fish evolution:
The Dauin Big 3
Let’s look at fishes e saw in this video in some more detail. First we have the Ambon scorpionfish, Pteroidichthys amboinensis. This is a scorpionfish, with many relatives on the reefs and in the muck of the Philippines, including the lionfish which is invasive in the Caribbean. Although I haven’t found information specific to this species, most if not all scorpionfishes are venomous. The venom is contained in their dorsal fin spines. The fish is using camouflage and venom to stay safe.
Hairy Frogfish, Antennarius striatus
The hairy frogfish, Antennarius striatus, is rarely seen, even in critter rich Dauin. Or maybe I just haven’t quite found the visual strategy to detect them? There is always a search pattern in the mind of every critter spotter, for every critter.
I found the hairy frogfish in the image below (it’s the same as in the video) in 4 meters of water, in a sandy area, of course, surrounded by lots of filamentous algae which the fish mimics. The fish was rather small – you don’t get a sense of size from many underwater macro photographs – maybe only 5 cm long.
A good description of the fish is given on the Critter Research blog, including raising good questions about how the “hair” comes about.
Solenostomus cyanopterus: Robust ghost pipefish
The robust ghost pipefish is a distant cousin of the seahorses. You can see the relatedness by looking at their elongated sucking jaws.
However, the ghost pipefishes (Solenostomidae) are different from the true pipefishes and seahorses (Syngnathidae) in that the female carries the eggs. Camouflage, a strategy often sued heavily in seahorses and true pipefishes, is brought to perfection in the ghost pipefishes. The robust ghost pipefish looks and acts like a piece of detached seaweed.
I wrote an article in UW Photo Magazine detailing the biology of these unusual animals:
Best Fishes,
Klaus