by Barry Brown | Apr 15, 2016 | Fish, Invertebrates, Reef, Science
Good morning friends, I placed 2nd in Masters and 8th overall yesterday in the annual 45k Montana/Ennia mountain bike race. The race started in Montana (sounds like mon-ton-ya not like the state of Montana) at 3:00 in the afternoon and went to Playa Kanoa and back! For me it wasn’t the distance it was the heat and wind, who starts a race at three on the island of Curacao??? I am sure it was close to 100 degrees when we started and wasn’t much cooler at 4:30 when I finished! I had packed some food to eat at the half-way point like banana’s but apparently they fell out of my pack early on?? by Barry Brown | Apr 14, 2016 | Fish, Reef, Science
Hello friends, I have a scorpionfish for you all today with his classic grumpy face, big mouth and ornate decorations that we found late at night out on the reef. I’ve been searching high and low looking for scorpionfish with our blue-lights at night but am not finding any, it’s a case of when you don’t want them they are everywhere and when you need one you can’t find one to save your life! Most species of scorpionfish are bottom-dwellers that feed on crustaceans and smaller fish. Many inhabit shallow waters, but a few live as deep as 2,200 m (7,200 ft). Most scorpionfish, such as the stonefish, wait in disguise for prey to pass them by before swallowing, while lionfish often ambush their prey. Like many perciform fishes, scorpionfish are suction feeders that capture prey by rapidly projecting a suction field generated by expansion of the fish’s buccal cavity. by Barry Brown | Apr 12, 2016 | Fish, Reef, Science
Good morning folks, we have a slight cloud cover this morning and a few drops of magical rain have fallen but so far nothing major! I was up early as usual and took the hounds for a long walk before work, got the bird feeders filled and the water bowls for the birds all ready. Tonight we are doing a 1st ever blue-light night dive under one of the big piers at Caracasbaai, it will be me, Stijn and our best friend Tina who used to work for the Smithsonian. I have a beautiful school of Blackbar Soldierfish that I found hiding inside the sunken tugboat at Caracasbaai, this is what I call safety in numbers! The Blackbar Soldierfish, Myripristis jacobus can be located in a marine environment within a subtropical climate. by Barry Brown | Apr 5, 2016 | Fish, Reef, Science
Good morning from Curacao! I have four photos for you today showing a behavior we see quite often called “Shadowing or Shadow Hunting”. This is a unique hunting technique that usually involves a trumpetfish (the long fish) slowly swimming behind or on top of a large herbivorous fish, using the larger fish as camouflage, then coiling its body into an s-shape and rapidly lunging at prey when an opportune moment to strike presents itself. Trumpetfish seem to select a shadowing fish based on color but this doesn’t always hold true as you can see from the photos above: red-brown trumpetfish tend to shadow brownish fish like grouper, blue-grey trumpetfish shadow schools of blue fish like blue tang, and occasionally even scuba divers. Trumpetfish are carnivores that feed on fish and crustaceans. They are ambush predators so they rely on camouflage and stealth to allow them to get close to potential prey. by Barry Brown | Apr 1, 2016 | Fish, Reef, Science
Good morning friends, did you all have a wonderful Easter vacation??? I had a four day holiday and was busy from sun-up till down-down every single day with watering my baby agaves, dog walks, diving and mountain biking, that seems to my World in a nutshell!! Stijn and I did fun night dive Sunday evening, he went in search of lionfish while I worked on more blue-light images. Near the end of the dive Stijn franticly signaled me to come over and help him with a seven foot long green moray eel that was wrapped around his lionfish bucket. These eels have such an incredible sense of smell, you think sharks can smell blood, heck I think eels can smell it even better! I ended up chasing him off with my light and using my fins to create a surge of sorts that he felt immediately
