The idea for this post was prompted by a two recent dives. One we did at Partridge Point, where the life on the rocks is so prolific that in places it seemed to be stacked on top of itself for want of space. The other we did one evening at Long Beach, and on the way out at the end of the dive, in the first two metres of water off the beach, I spotted two tiny long-siphoned whelks, clearly juveniles. One was hitching a ride on the back of a hermit crab!
Returning the favour, here’s a close-up of part of the shell of a simply enormous long-siphoned whelk (probably over 30 centimetres long) at Partridge Point. He’s got a variety of creatures on his shell, most noticeably a bright red-chested sea cucumber!
Many of the brittle stars I’ve seen lately have been covered with very photogenic little crustaceans called ornate amphipods, looking a bit like wood lice in full party dress. They are common, but not often seen by divers as we tend to focus on the big stuff! They are scavengers and feed on whatever they can find as they travel over reefs (and, in this case, other marine life)!
Even though sea squirts don’t have thoughts or emotions as such, I was amused by this cluster of red bait that I saw at Long Beach. It’s been covered by another kind of colonial ascidian (the greyish blue mass with white siphons), leaving just the large siphons of the red bait visible.
Something similar has happened here:
Some of the hitch hikers we see aren’t entirely benign. I’ve already posted a picture of a puffadder shyshark with a copepod parasite sticking out of his gill covers – these parasites don’t cause the fish any noticeable discomfort, but they’re not without impact. Here’s another unfortunate shyshark we found at Long Beach early in February.
Fish lice tend to attach themselves just above the eye of fransmadam, hottentot and similar fish. The lice essentially drink the blood of their host fish – they’re horrible creatures and we’ve noticed that many of the fish affected by them tend to hang around divers and to swim very sluggishly. Guido of SURG has pulled off a louse before, from a very docile fish, and there was a big seeping hole in the fish’s head underneath where the louse was attached.
Tony and I have seen very small fish with lice attached, almost a quarter of their size, and fish with more than one fish louse in residence. Here’s a maasbanker, one of a school that followed us around for a couple of dives at Long Beach in March.
In the picture below, the fish second from left towards the top of the photo has a large louse on his head.
After all that depressing parasite stuff, here’s a picture I find absolutely hilarious. The starfish isn’t going anywhere fast, but looks as though he’s reclining in a plushy couch formed by his fellow marine creatures. He is begging to have a smile photoshopped on!
