Saturday, April 08, 2006

Carribean Reef Shark

I posted a bit of a teaser of this the other day so here's the whole show. These are carribean reef sharks from Bimini.
These pictures were taken at the shark feed below. Divers sit in a semi-circle watching the sharks feed on frozen bait suspended from a buoy above. Its an excellent way for divers to see their first sharks if they haven't seen one before as it leads to close and prolonged views as opposed to fleeting glimpses which can be more common in the absence of bait. A lot is written about sharkfeeding being dangerous or unnatural. I do not believe this is the case. This type of feed does not cause the sharks to associate divers as a food source they merely recognise divers are present at the same time as the food is available. The same is true of the two large groupers below. The state of florida banned shark feeding as a result of the media-created summer of the shark. Marvellous stuff......except divers there were feeding harmless nurse sharks not the bull sharks responsible for florida's attacks and they did nothing about the people baiting for and fishing for sharks from swimming beaches - oh well.
The Bahamas by contrast has realised the tourist value of its sharks and this leads to their protection thereby allowing me to take these pictures. The carribean reef shark is the ideal subject for shark feeds. It has the "shark look" and will respond well but is not too dangerous. Larger sharks like Bulls, Mokarran and Tigers can be and are fed in the Bahamas too but these are currently very specialised trips. This is appropriate in my view as it is better for shark and diver that inexperienced divers not used to being around very large sharks are not put in a potentially awkward situation. [Edit: In case you are wondering the two divers above are looking for teeth lost by the sharks during feeding (a natural process). I did manage to score one tiny one which I'll share with you all at some point soon]

This species was the 23rd shark I've dived with and two days later I spotted but couldn't get a picture of number 24 - the Alantic Nurse shark. Onward to number 25!

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Oh, wait, I was wrong.....

.......I do have a picture of a curlytail lizard with a full size curly tail:

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Stumpy

I believe this is the Bahamian Curlytail lizard, Leiocephalus carinatus virescens (hopefully I've id'd the correct subspecies), It's fairly common on Grand Bahama. The tail is often held coiled vertically up the back. Unfortunately the only decent photo I got was of one without his tail which somewhat undermines the effect. You can just see his little stump starting to curl upwards.
The use of sacrificial tails by lizards as a means of distracting predators is widespread and well-known. This works due to a weak spot in the tail's skeleton structure and is a good reason to not handle lizards of any species unless necessary - I can remember feeling very guilty after rescuing a tiny gecko from an unsafe household in Singapore only to find it had left its tail in my hand.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

I'm a big fan of Gorgonians

.....and also, as you may have guessed, bad puns; this being Gorgonia flabellum, the Venus Sea Fan.
You used to see these in tourist shops dried as souvenirs (I can't think why) but this practise seems happily to be on the decline. Sea fans are effectively nets on a stick with primitive stinging and sticking cells to catch passing planktonic food. Judging by the scale of some of the specimens we saw they must do it pretty effectively.

I'm back....

.....and I note that in my absence new issues of circus of the spineless and I and the bird came out. I'm sure you all found them already and haven't been stuck for reading in my absence as a result. For those of you wondering what I've been up to this should give you a clue - say hello to my new friend, Carcharhinus perezii (more on her later).