July 11, 2014

Along with all the wonderful creatures of the sea, there are a few terrestrial and avian creatures that are fun to watch, or watch out for.  We have tarantulas all over, seeing lots of holes in the hillside where they hide.  We have scorpions that love to come out of the holes in the stairs at night.  There are many varieties of hummingbirds flitting all over and hanging out at the birdfeeders for them as well as crows, and frigate birds soaring on the winds.

                      I found a dead snapper in the sea grass beds and brought it back for Rob to use with his Mantis shrimp research but he decided against using it so I tossed it back in the water and the frigate birds decided to scoop it up, fighting over it in the air, dropping it, picking it up, over and over again, until one finally flew off with it.  It was a sight to see.

                     Went back to check the SE near shore area (by the base camp) to check on the movement of the previously marked Flamingo Tongues.  About 1/3 – ½ of them were still on the same fan.  Some had moved to other fans or corals, most of the time no further than 1.5m and sometimes as close as only 6 cm to the next coral.  Others were unable to be found on their original fan, in the sediment or any fans near.

                      Saw a huge purplish Donkey Dung Sea Cucumber close to 30 cm long (yes, that is their name), some different colored, fairly large cowfish and a burr fish, as well as the usual multicolored parrot fish, jellies and various other fish as well as a purple Sponge Brittle Star wrapped around a gorgonian branch coral.

              

                                                Squirrel Fish

                                           My little juvenile Flamingo Tongue.

July 9, 2014

           .  

Oops.  Left out this day.

Still haven’t made it back out to the NW point area.  Seas have been rough, especially in the afternoons when the wind really picks up, so back to the center reef, west of the dock.  Checked on previously marked flags for evidence of Flamingo Tongues.  Most corals other than the Common Purples Sea Fans (CPSF) had their polyps out in full force, unless a FT was on the coral, then the coral would have open polyps on part of it and closed polyps were the FTs were (the majority of the time).  Some of the fans showed signs of being eaten, but not to a serious extent, especially the feather corals, hardly showing any damage even though FTs were found on them often. 

                     In the lab at New College the CPSFs opened their polyps mostly at night, rarely in the daytime.  Only an afternoon dive today, whereas many days I try to get more than one session and area done.  Looked in the debris area under the dock for a reported large octopus sighting but was not lucky enough to see it, just millions of anchovies and other small fishes.

                                          

Rod Coral with polyps open - closeup

                                                   Purple Feather fan - 1/2 polyps open,1/2 closed

                                                    Rod coral - polyps open

           

July 10, 2014

                      Whew!  Still catching up on posts.  So much time in the water and then recording all the info.  Not to mention the iffy internet.

Time is flying here on the island of Cayos Major in the Cayos Cochinos chain of islands off Honduras.  Hard to believe we are more than half way done with our time here.  It is going much too fast.  A morning swim today, finally over to the NW point, all the way to the point this time, starting there and working my way back past the previous area I checked further from the point a few days ago. 

                     Decided to follow the shore line out, as trying to take the “short way” straight across to the point is a lot more difficult with the current and wind and takes as long to get there fighting the elements as it does to take the “long way” around the bend, closer to shore in shallower waters with less current and wind effect.  Coming back is a little easier the short way as the wind and current is pushing you in that direction.  That is also were the turtles and rays are seen a lot of the time. 

                     On the way out I spotted a golden colored boulder coral about 1m in diameter in the middle of the sea grass bed and under it saw 2 small lobsters, going to town feeding on the algae and such near their boulder.

                     I was excited to find the smallest Flamingo Tongue yet.  It was about as close to the larva stage as you could get, with the shell being only about 2mm wide and 5-6mm long attached to the top of a Common Purple Sea Fan.  Yahoo!  Smallest I have seen yet.  I few days ago I found a small juvenile FT but it was twice the size of this one.  Most FTs I have seen have been fully mature, around 2.5-3.0 cm with a few only 1.5-2.0 cm.  This itty bitty one was hard, but fun to find.

                     At the NW point there were a lot of sea fans but few FT.  Further back from the point a lot more FT on various corals were seen.  I need to verify that they were all of the Gorgonian phylum.  100s of 1,000s of sea urchins line the shore reef areas and the waves have a tendency to push me into some of these shallow area, being hard to get out of without running into the urchins and other reef creatures.  Almost got trapped a couple times and got close to meeting up with a bunch of spiny (ouch) sea urchins.

                                          Long spined sea urchin - all over the place

Encrusting coral

                                          Purple feather Gorgonian

                                         Strange division of arms on sea cushion

                     

July 8, 2014

Winds and current still ripping pretty good making the NW point a little too rough again today.  Went back to the southeast shore and southwest shore and point area. 

                     Yesterday I met one of the tourists, Norma from the capital city of Honduras, who is going back to school at FIU in Miami for a BA in Marine Bio.  She was interested in tagging along with me on my research and I was more than glad to have her along.  She read the GPS unit for me, giving the latitude and longitude coordinates for the locations we found the Flamingo Tongues.

                     We marked the beginning and end of the shelf with the 100s of sea fans, but still found few FTs in that area.  I did spot a small octopus that disappeared real fast upon seeing me.  Together we mapped the location of all FTs found, whether on the fans, the feathers, branches or rod corals, or even in the sediment.

                     I found a FT approximately 10-12 cm from a purple ribbon coral.  As I proceeded to grab my camera and take a pic of it off the coral it moved to the base of the coral, within 30 seconds.  I was amazed at how fast it moved considering I watched one move last year for a period of 10 minutes at a “snail’s pace” moving only about 40 cm in that time.

                                                   Diseased coral with purple spots and black streak from Flamingo Tongue eating the coral polyps.

                                         Odd pattern in Brain Coral

                                          Chain eel in sea grass bed with mouth open

                                                    Black ball sponge

July 7, 2014

                     Due to the high winds and strong current I did not go out to the far NW point area but went back out to the same reef area as yesterday, west of the dock 100m to see what kind of movement the Flamingo Tongues do in a 24 hour period.  In the shallow area of the reef in a 3m² area were found 12 FT.  In other random 3m² areas there were no FT found.  One shell of a FT was found near the base of a branch coral.  The cameras have been working well, especially the compact Olympus camera I got just before leaving.  The clarity of the camera for close up shots seems to be better than the Sea Life camera supplied by Dr. Gilchrist.  Check out the difference in these photos.

                                          FIRE WORM - CLOSEUP - SEALIFE CAMERA

                                FIRE WORM - CLOSEUP - OLYMPUS  CAMERA

FLAMINGO TONGUE ON COMMON PURPLE SEA FAN CREATING A BLACK STREAK ON THE VEIN - EATING THE CORAL POLYPS

                     July 6, 2014

Since internet has been iffy I am playing catch up again with the posts.  

          Did not push too hard today.  Only a morning swim (3 hrs) and a laid back afternoon, catching up on blogging and consolidating info, even a little easy reading.   Aaahhh!  Checked out the area in front of the dock, west about 100m or so.  There was quite a bit of rubble before reaching the actual reef area.  The rubble area had rock, some hard corals, such as boulder and brain corals.  Heading towards the northern side (to the right) the reef started to come alive with a lot of different soft corals, some sponges, anenomes, urchins and brilliantly colored fish.  There was an abundance of feather and branch corals compared to fans.  Many FT were found on the feather and branch corals, a couple on rod corals and even some in the sediment between fans.  The FT tended to congregate in a fairly tight area near the center of the reef which is in a pretty open area getting a fairly strong current.  Marked as many as possible with flags before lunch.  Worked with the GPS unit getting used to it to mark the FTs throughout the bay.

                                     BRANCHING FIRE CORAL - OVERTAKING SEA FAN                                         

                                          SPLIT-CROWN FEATHER DUSTER

                                          CHRISTMAS TREE WORMS ON BRAIN CORAL

                                          CHRISTMAS TREE WORMS - CLOSEUP

July 5, 2014

            Headed to the southeast near shore area this morning.  Saw a few Cushion Sea Stars of various colors along the way, pretty good size, about 1 foot across that look like a puffed up version of a “starfish” or sea star as is the proper name.  Worked my way to the shelf area where 100s of fans are on a rocky area about 30m offshore and 1-2m deep.  For as many sea fans as there were, there was very few Flamingo Tongues (FT), only on the edges of the reef, not in the center.   Very surprising considering the quantity of fans.  I would have thought it was a cornucopia for the snails.  Apparently not, and it makes me curious as to why.  Continuing to follow the shoreline, within 30m or so more FT started showing up as I neared the bend turning west.  All FT were seen on Common Purple Sea Fans except for one that was on the sediment in front of a fan (about 10cm away).  As I proceeded towards the southern point heading west more FT started appearing.

            Afternoon had me prepping equipment and cameras for tomorrow and catching up on transferring information from my reusable, waterproof “paper” and cameras to my info sheets and computer.  Not as much fun as being in the water checking it all out, but necessary none the less. 

                                                    FIELD OF SEA FANS - FEW FLAMINGO TONGUES

             
                                             GIANT SEA ANENOME

                                          BLUE ENCRUSTING CORAL

                                          BLUE ENCRUSTING CORAL - CLOSEUP

                                          SEA CUCUMBER - PURPLE - ABOUT 12"