Ned and Anna DeLoach Lembeh

[DWhatley]

This post in The Blenny Watcher Video section of the Blog includes four octopuses (blue ring, mimic, Wunderpus, starry night) and two cuttlefishes (broad club and flamboyant - one hatching).

The goal here is 30 of Lembeh's most sought after fish and invertebrates. The "thrill of the hunt" motivates everyone and we have loads of fun in the process. Here are some of our favorite images from Week 2. Follow us at The BlennyWatcher Blog

Video are short and worth a few minutes to sit and enjoy. For more text and stills of the trip see the full blog entry for June 2012

Note for Roy, there is also a shot of a mantis striking the camera

 

[DWhatley]

Anna has posted yet another cephy video on the DeLoach Blenny Watcher Blog. Here is the egg mass video but check out the whole story with the link.

We videotaped and photographed it and returned to the boat, beside ourselves with excitement. But as we reviewed the video and started discussing it, we became less and less convinced. For example, it was firm to the touch – more like a plastic bathtub toy; definitely not like the soft squid eggs of smaller species that we knew. Also, it seemed to move on its own, like it had some internal propulsion system; that didn’t seem likely for eggs. Back home, a few minutes of searching revealed that what we observed was a pyrosome, a colonial tunicate made up of many individuals called zooids that form a tube with their joined bodies. Each individual takes in water, extracting plankton for food and expelling the water into the tube. The water flowing out the open end of the tube creates a sort of jet propulsion. So, while we hadn’t captured images of eggs of some sort of giant squid, we had in fact observed something rarely seen by divers.

Anna provides a link on the blog that describes another interaction with a pyrosome that is well worth the read as well.