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The Cuttlefish; The Undisputed Master of Camouflage.

The Cuttlefish

The Undisputed Master of Camouflage.

  

Off the shores of every ocean except around the Americas hovers one of most ingenious creatures in the world. The Cuttlefish can blend in with almost any natural substrate and most divers will swim unknowingly right by them as they appear to look like a clump of seaweed, a rock, or a patch of gravel. To begin with, they are not a fish, but a member of the phylum Mollusca along with snails and bivalve clams. The word “cuttle” may have come from the Old Norse word for “soft”. They are in the same class Cephalopoda as octopus, squids, and the nautilus. They have eight arms and two elongated tentacles similar to squid and in the middle of that ring of arms is a parrot like beak. They also have a unique internal porous plate called the cuttlebone. The purpose of this porous aragonite plate is similar to a scuba divers “BC”, buoyancy compensator, and the cuttlefish can change its buoyancy with just a little addition or subtraction of gas or fluid within the cuttlebone. You may have seen cuttlebones at a nearby pet store where they are sold as calcium enriched nibble treats for birds such as parakeets. So, while the squid flies just under the surface, and the octopus hugs the bottom or hides in dens, the cuttlefish is hovering over the substrate like a mysteriously color changing oblong shaped flying saucer in search of its next close encounter with shrimp, fish, or crab. They may be near shore in Australia or Indonesia, or found down to depths of 600m (2000ft) elsewhere. Apparently, below this depth their gas filled cuttlebone may implode, so great depth and cold waters may be the biggest reasons why they haven’t already invaded the Americas.

A couple of other things we should quickly mention is that they have three hearts. They use two of the hearts just to pump blood to their gills as they use hemocyanin, a bluish green copper protein, to carry oxygen around and this is less efficient than the rich red colored iron based hemoglobin that we use. The third heart pumps blood to the other parts of their body. Like the squid and octopus, they can squirt out a dark or brown ink that gives them a cloud to hide behind and may as well momentarily affect some predator’s sense of smell.

  

Lastly, we have to mention the eyes and brain. The eyes are shaped like squiggled W’s and have two concentrated sensor spots called foveae on each eye; one of the spots concentrated on light forward of the body, and the other sensor spot on light emitted behind the body. The eyes have no blind spot such as those found in human eyes, and they can even perceive polarized light as well as low levels of light, and without their eyes they can use their lateral lines to hunt in complete darkness. Their eyes may be considered quite advanced in so many aspects, but for the record, the cuttlefish is colorblind. They are constantly looking for visible cues such as light intensity, contrast, polarization, background patterns, and substrate textures. They have one of the largest brain to body mass ratio sizes in the invertebrate kingdom and some scientists believe cuttlefish are similar in intelligence to vertebrates such as pigeons and mice. In laboratories they can run simple maze tests and can be conditioned to learning at least two conditional rules to be used at the same time; such as looking for secondary signs in order to determine the best routes to escape through pipes, or be taught to tap on objects to receive food rewards.

  

On the basic level, their brain takes in the surrounding visual cues and as quick as lightning sends signals out to their seemingly electric skin to change color, patterns, and/or skin texture. Cuttlefish need use only one of three distinguishing methods to make themselves appear invisible. With small backgrounds such as sand, they use a uniform pattern and they blend in by appearing as a collection of sand particles.  For certain sized gravel rocks, they use a mottle pattern and they appear with larger colored areas that replicate as a group of rocks. The third method called disruptive, is used not to blend in with the background, but to disrupt or break apart their own body outline so that potential predators don’t recognize their natural body outline against underwater backgrounds, boulders, or large checkerboard backgrounds such as tested in marine labs. Add to this pattern coloration or different light intensities from forming different colors across their skin and you have a very stealthy and deceptive predator/prey species. Now add their ability to use muscular rings to pump up and transform regional skin tissues into bumps, blades, spikes, and leaflets, and you have what could be easily mistaken as an alien species.

To take a closer look at how they make their bodies change colors we only have to go skin deep. Just beneath the skin are layers of elastic sack cells containing different pigment colors, and commonly referred to as chromatophores. First we find yellow, then red, then deeper down brown pigmented chromatophores. Each chromatophore can reduce in size or increase in surface size by 500% merely by pulling on or relaxing their surrounding muscle cords. Below these chromatophores reside a layer of iridescent emitting and reflecting cells of the colors blue, green, red, and pink.  Below this layer are leucophores, cells that reflect all colors of light at once, or what we commonly refer to as white light. It appears to be a highly complicated eye to brain to skin activity, but cuttlefish can change color in some twenty million pigment cells in mere split seconds and still have extra brain power left to use for other evolving applications.

  

Besides camouflage, cuttlefish use their skin to communicate with each other including using locomotion indicators such as hovering, sitting, jetting, and postures such as arm position and, placement as well as fin shape, and head tilting. In Broadclub cuttlefish, smart smaller males have learned to appear as non-sexually receptive females to move without impunity around larger males guarding potential female mates. They can do this with such skill that the side of their body facing larger potential male rivals appears female in appearance while the side facing potential females partners they flaunt their male side and hence display to the female how clever they really are. While large males are allowed to mate with females some 30% of the time, the clever cross dressing smaller males are allowed to mate some 60% of the time and thus their learned ability to go covert or in duel disguise is successfully rewarded by receptive females over time and their abilities are more successfully propagated through each generation.

  

Another adaptive use of Broadclub cuttlefish is their ability to have waves of light appear to ripple across their head and arms which seems to hypnotize crabs while the cuttlefish prepares to strike from the best strategic angle, so as not to get pinched from the crab’s claws while bringing the crab into contact with their beak.

  

One species can use their colors to worn off predators or go one step farther as to highlight a yellow fringed warning color that they are poisonous such as the little Flamboyant cuttlefish who prefers to walk across the bottom of muck and rarely swims. They are the only cuttlefish known to be poisonous, and the poison is in their muscles, and perhaps as potent as the poison of the blue ring octopus. The fact that they walk similar to a lobe fin fish and have a reduced size cuttlebone could lead to a new evolutionary direction for this species. The fact that cuttlefish only live two years at most, have such a large amount of brain power, and have persisted in the fossil record since the Cretaceous times, shows that these rather unusual soft bodied aliens have the right stuff to keep on evolving and becoming even smarter and more diverse over time: that is, if sharks, fish, dolphins, seals, and humans don’t eat them all first.

 

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Frogfish, The Overlooked Camouflage Artist

The Frog Fish

Nature’s Most Overlooked Camouflage Artist

  

There are over 48 species of frogfish, but few divers ever see them. In fact, most divers can’t see these cryptic colored critters until they are pointed out by a local scuba divemaster or guide. Frogfish are currently found in tropical and sub-tropical waters worldwide except for a few places such as the Mediterranean Sea. The Sargassumfish is a species of frogfish that lives near the surface in a raft of seaweed and has occasionally drifted as far north as Norway. Meanwhile, another species prefers brackish water close to shore. Some species prefer deep water and live as adults down to 4000m.

In Australia they are known as anglerfish, which may be more appropriate as the majority of these fish don’t really look like a frog and most of them have a first dorsal spine that looks like a rod (illicium) and at the end there is a lure (esca). The esca is shaped like the food source that their prey most often is attracted to, so some species have an esca that looks like a worm, while other species may have an esca that resembles a small shrimp or fish. The esca can regenerate if needed, so they never run out of imitating bait.

  

This ability for a fish to fish via rod and lure at first glance seems impressive, but for frogfish this alluring stroke of evolutionary creativity is just the beginning. They can attract fish larger than themselves and they can swallow such unlucky fish in one sudden gulp and this quick gulp process can take as little as six milliseconds to complete. Their prey has no time to react to this speed and that includes other anglerfish that get too close as well. They achieve this overwhelming suction ambush hunting technique by widening their mouth 12 times the natural opening size, doubling their stomach twice their own size, and by pumping extreme ramjet blasted amounts of water out through their gills.

Now, all the things mentioned so far would be spectacular achievements for a typical fish, but this hunting strategy is only feasible because of the aggressive mimicry behavior of frogfish. Frogfish don’t have scales and instead they rely on bare skin to keep them safe from predators. They put themselves right out in the open and in harm’s way, but first they camouflage themselves so brilliantly that most potential predators and photographers alike, swim right over or by them. In order to maintain this “you can’t eat what you can’t see” philosophical way of life, most frogfish can change colors to match their background. This process can take seconds, days, or months. Frogfish not only paint themselves with solid colors, but they can add intimate circles with spectacular detail that allows them to look just like sponges with porous openings. They can add lines to look like seaweeds or add smaller painted pores to look like corals. Their skin can also form into remarkable warts or bumps. Some species even developed what appear to be hairs, tassels, or leave like appendages derived from skin cells. They also allow clumps of algae and hydrozoa to grow or cultivate on their skin to help make them blend in with the surrounding rocks and substrate. They are such masters of camouflage, that one of the best ways to spot them quickly, becomes looking for a clump of algae, coral, or a sponge that to your surprise, has a fish, shrimp, or crab hanging out of its mouth.

  

It’s not just the adults that are good at camouflage, but the juveniles do it too. Larval forms floating in the plankton may have little tassels that help make them look like little tentacled jelly fish, and when they get big enough to sink to the ocean’s substrate, the young will change colors so they resemble toxic or foul-tasting sea slugs and flatworms.

Yes, they are cannibals, so no fish no matter what species that is less than twice the size of the frogfish is safe around them. Males may be one tenth the size of females, so after a moonlit night courtship which involves swimming upwards and releasing sperm and eggs, the male may end up as a lite snack if he gets too close to the larger female; it’s just what they do, nothing sexist or personal, fish gotta eat.

  

Now you would have to scuba dive around the globe to see most of them as one specie is found only in Hawaii. For the specie found in the Sargasso seaweed it might be easier to visit the display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City than paddle out hundreds of miles in the North Atlantic looking for the sargassum. Still another new species of frogfish was found recently in the Lembeh Strait off Sulawesi island, Indonesia. Coincidentally, Lembeh Strait has the highest concentration of different species of frogfish in the world. Local divers and resort operators track the movements and whereabouts of different frog fish throughout the year, as some species of frogfish remain in one place year-round if the hunting is good, while others either move around depending on what they currently feel like eating or to avoid predators such as sharks that use electro and chemical sensors to locate food. So, their camouflage may not always work with all predators at all times, but the fossil records show that it has worked pretty well for the last 23 million years and ironically, their evolutionary adaptations and longevity really make frogfish as a species stand out.

  

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110,000 Reasons to Go Liveaboard

 

110,000 Reasons To Go Liveaboard

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There are more than 110,000 islands in the world and many pinnacles that rest just below the surface and each and every one of them may be filled with multitudes of critters and creatures that seldom come in contact with humans. Sure, some of these islands may be inhabited, but most require transportation via some sort of marine vessel to get there and it may take a day or two to reach some of these remote destinations. Even destinations that are not remote, but are near other dive sites, may require a liveaboard to maximize your dives as you simultaneously minimize your back and forth to port travel time. Weather, animal migration patterns, multi-nation destinations, and toys/technical gear supplied, are other considerations for choosing liveaboards.

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While many of these liveaboards offer first class dinning experiences with remarkable onboard chefs and while many of these vessels are built using iron wood hulls and beautifully hand crafted teak interiors or modern steel designs with the latest in furnishings and electronics, we will restrict this article to dive destinations, as well as mention some of the experiences you may encounter while being a guest on one or many of these luxury liveaboards vessels.

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Starting off down under, Mike Ball offers great expeditions to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia for three nights/12 dives, or to the Coral Sea for 4 nights/14dives, or a combination of 7 nights and see both incredible dive destinations on one spectacular trip aboard the specifically designed twin hull Spoilsport. It’s just impossible to do so many dives at so many remote Great Barrier Reef dive sites from a shore-based resort or per day dive charter.

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How about diving one nation, but with thousands of islands? The MV Pindito , Msy Seahorse, Komodo Dancer, Raja Ampat Aggressor and the Pelagian are just some of the vessels that cruise though the 15,00 plus island of Indonesia. Indonesia is the epicenter of marine biodiversity. These vessels have different itineraries depending on the time of year to maximize your visit and to view an unforgettable as well as incredible amount of sea life.

How about diving three different nation destinations on one liveaboard trip? The M/V Caribbean Explorer II travels 8 days/ 7 nights to SABA, St. Kitts, and St. Maarten. Perhaps you would prefer one island chain like Turks and Caicos, where the Turks and Caicos Aggressor II and the Turks and Caicos Explorer peruse some 70 miles of reefs, walls, multiple cays and islands, as well as visit when possible the 22 mile long Columbus passage that is 7,000ft deep and right on the migration route for Atlantic humpback whales from January to March and large pelagics the rest of the year.

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Speaking of seasons, the Rocio Del Mar is either in the Sea of Cortez around the Midriff Islands or near Revillagigedo-Socorro islands from November to May. The Sea of Cortez also called the Gulf of California; Jacques Cousteau called this area the Galapagos of North America.

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The Nautilus Explorer also leads expeditions to Socorro Island as well as Guadalupe Island, San Bernitos Island, and even all the way over to a seldom visited exotic destination of Clipperton Atol. Guadalupe Island gets the most notoriety as these crystal clear waters make it easy to view some 108 different great white sharks each year. Nautilus Explorer uses double decker descending cages to make your experience with these apex predators unobtrusive, and arguably second to none.

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The Solmar V is also at Socorro Island from November to May and at Guadalupe Island during great white shark season. They are also part of the Dive Encounters Alliance. All vessels are independently owned and they have eight liveaboard destinations including Galapagos, Cocos Island, Maldives, Indonesia, Palau, and Honduras Bay Islands as well as Guadalupe /Socorro Islands.

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For some, the ultimate dive sites are in the Galapagos Islands for this is where Charles Darwin first observed how cormorants had evolved into flightless birds, and Iguanas had evolved into ocean going reptiles. Galapagos penguins and tons of fish, silky and Galapagos sharks round out the rest of the underwater one of a kind marine environment and make this dive adventure so inspiring; the Galapagos Aggressor III and the Humboldt Explorer journey to these enchanted waters.

Now, as they “sea” it, sharks don’t care if it rains, but the time of year you plan your liveaboard trip can greatly effect what you see on your dives. We could be more precise, but generally fish and whale sharks alike rely on the phase of the moon, water temperature, hormonal changes, and Neptune’s will. Then again, you could book the same trip three separate times of the year and end up with three unique diving experiences.

For wreck divers we recommend diving the 50 mile wide Truk Lagoon where you can dive some 60 ships from WW II. This former southern fleet headquarters of the Imperial Japanese fleet is a historical graveyard and with a ghost fleet of submarines, destroyers, cargo ships, Betty bombers and more sunk during two raids in 1944. The Truk Odyssey ventures here. For those that are into tech diving and rebreather diving you might like to journey on the SS Thorfinn.

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Palau also has sunken WWII wrecks as well as a freshwater jellyfish lake. The reef and manta cleaning stations are a big hit with divers, and night dive spawning trips are coordinated with local marine biologists and tour guides from Palau.

The Aggressor and Dancer Fleet Boasts 22 itineraries from East Flores, Belize, Maldives, Myanmar, and to the Red Sea. Their Kona trip will let you dive sites too remote for most one day charter trips and their Cayman Aggressor IV will allow you to dive, weather permitting, Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman all in one trip; Saturday to Saturday.

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For something completely different might we suggest one of the 7 trips available by Oceanwide Expeditions to dive the Arctic waters of Spitsbergen using zodiacs to take you close to spider crabs, soft corals, peacock worms, dogfish, and walrus from a safe distance during the warmer summer days when the sun shines 24/7. They also dive in the Antarctic where you’ll see penguins, leopard seals, krill, and fur seals. These dives are for more experienced drysuit trained divers.

We ran out of space before mentioning the Okeanos Aggressor and the hammerheads of Cocos Island off Costa Rica. The M/Y Sun Dancer II is a great way to experience the diving off Belize such as Turneffe Reef and the world famous Blue Hole. The Caribbean Pearl II explores the Honduras Bay Islands. Both the Nai’a liveaboard and the Island Dancer II cruise through Fiji. The M/V Atlantis Azores allows you to dive with ease off Tubbataha Reef and the colorful corals off Anilao in the Philippines. The M/Y Spirit of Niugini lets you tour the muck diving sites of Papua New Guinea. The MV Bilikiki and the MV Spirit of the Solomon Islands let you dive 1500 miles west of Fiji and 1,200 miles northeast of Australia, and just like Fiji, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea, you are still diving within the Coral Triangle. In the Maldives you may like to try an adventure aboard the Carpe Vita Explorer, the Maldives Aggressor, or the MV Emperor Voyager. We just might have to write a book to let you know everything about these spectacular world class dive destinations.

Having mentioned all these destinations and luxury liveaboards, we have to admit, that, one of the best reasons to go on one or all of these diving excursions is a chance to meet and dive with other divers that share your level of enthusiasm and passion for the sport; some of these people may become life long friends. Some of these individuals may be professional underwater videographers, photographers, or marine biologists, while others may be relatively new to the sport, and just fun to be around, talk about diving, share past dive adventures, share good food, and most importantly share incredible experiences on a planet mostly covered by water, yet still called Earth.

To access additional information on these and other dive liveaboards as well as their destinations click here or to view possible exclusive deals click here.

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North Sulawesi, Indonesia Part Two

 

North Sulawesi, Indonesia

The Center of Life’s Diversity

Part Two

  

As you last recall, we tried to include all 50,000 miles (70,000km) of shoreline of Indonesia in one article, then we briefly mentioned three dive resorts on the northern edge of Sulawesi Island where some 390 species of coral, 90 resident species of fish, and where some 1,650 species of fish commute to work daily to and from the Bunaken National Park which is considered Grand Central in the incredibly bio-diverse Coral Triangle which stretches from the Philippines down over to Malaysia and across to the Solomon Islands.

 

 One of the most famous dives here at Bunaken Park is Lekuan 1, which is a 120ft (40m) wall dive where away from the wall you might see pelagics as big as whale sharks.On the wall you might find pink pygmy seahorses, and small orange colored orangutan crabs, colored corals, sponges, and perhaps a turtle resting on a ledge. Sachiko’s is another wall dive where you might encounter black tip sharks, schools of bumphead parrotfish, or napoleon wrasse. Ron’s Point is a site for advanced divers where two currents entwine and tunas, black tip sharks, leaf scorpions, and pontohi seahorses are spotted. In addition, at any of these sites, you may see emperor anglefish, bluestripe snapper, pinkish basslet, two-lined monocle bream, frogfish, and a plethora of small shrimps, crabs, and other invertebrates.

  

The resorts we mentioned were the Eco Divers Lembeh and Minahasa Lagoon Resort and Eco Divers Manado.  From Singapore, Bali, and Jakarta, as well as several other airports you can fly right in to Manado, the capital city of northern Sulawesi. It’s a big bustling modern city with KFC and McDonalds, innumerable blue taxi buses filling the streets, yet there are also regions where you can taste cooked to order local foods from outdoor vendors, visit street markets, and enjoy a ride on an ornate decorated horse drawn carriage.

  

We think that there is something for everyone in Manado, but if you came here to completely relax at a secluded dive resort or do some serious muck diving, its time to leave the big city.

  

Minahasa Lagoon Resort and Eco Divers Manado, is within 90 minutes of Manado. This oceanfront property with several types of accommodations and expansive beach is surrounded by a tropical rain forest. It is highly rated on TripAdvisor with modern amenities, spa services, local and international cuisine.

 

Besides the dives at Bunaken Park, the Minahasa Lagoon Resort and Eco Divers Manado  has a house reef that is ideal for divers and snorkelers. Some of the other boat dives in the area include City Extra, which is a muck dive with seahorses, ghost pipefish, and down the slope you might find frogfish, mimic octopus, and black and blue eels. At Tanjung Bulo there are some 15 different species of nudibranchs, cuttlefish, harlequin shrimp, and sea snakes. Molas Wreck is a Dutch cargo ship that 70 years later has lots of coral growth and sponges. After diving the wreck divers typically go check out a nearby reef.

  

 Here you will see tons of coral that make up the fringing reef and tons of sea life as well. Batu Goso is a boat site with several steep pinnacles (5- 35m). It’s a drift dive where you can see white tips, black tips, turtles, grouper and multi-colored corals. Across the waterway on the Sulawesi coastline is Paradise Pier. This is a muck dive site at the old paradise hotel pier. Hot springs are located at the bottom of the steps. Frogfish, seahorses, octopus, squid, and batfish apparently don’t mind the warmer water. Sabora has nudibranchs, pygmy seahorses and a great place for night dives. Sahuang has jacks, dogtooth tuna, barracuda, red-toothed triggers and colorful corals.

  

Their is also a combination two resort package that lets you stay 7 nights at Minahasa Lagoon Resort and Eco Divers Manado, then a land transfer of 2.5 hours to Eco Divers Lembeh for another 7 night stay. This gives you the opportunity to experience the best diving that Manado and Lembeh can offer. For every divers piece of mind there is a hyperbaric chamber within 90 minutes of both resorts. When you depart it is a about a one hour van ride back to Sam Ratulangi International Airport in Manado.


 

  

Eco Divers Lembeh uniquely offers the comfort of a land based resort and all its amenities and services with the convenience of a stationery day dive liveaboard.  A maximum of 16 divers can relax, eat and depart in smaller dive boats to over 60 dive sites in Lembeh Strait. But just to inform you, don’t expect 100 plus feet of visibility here. What you will see is a black sand and silt substrate with patches of reefs, discarded man made objects, lone anemones, a few wrecks, and even small rocks with absolutely breathtaking rare creatures of every size, color, and texture. This is Mecca for underwater photographers.  An anemone with clown fish, an old bottle with a blue ring octopus inside, or a rock with a frogfish leaning against it fill your camera frames and image cards on almost every dive. And when we say frogfish, we are talking hairy frogfish, clown frogfish, painted frogfish, or the newly discovered Lembeh frogfish to name of few. Fish moving across the sand or mimic octopus or mantis shrimp burring themselves in the sand are common sites too. Keep in mind that there are also multiple species of shrimp, octopus, pipefish, and nudibranchs often seen on the same dive. Some oddity fish you will find include: stargazers, crocodile fish, Pegasus sea moths, bobtail squids, devilfish, rhinopias, and candy crabs, but it’s not just about these fish, as the strait is also home to juvenile pelagic fish that are drawn here for safety and plentiful amounts of zooplankton.

  

Some of the other favorite dive sites include Nudi Falls (nudibranchs), Jahir (night dives), Tk 1 (everything in this village bay), Hairball (frogfish), and of course the Mawali, a Japanese cargo wreck, which sunk in 1943 and now resembles a coral reef with occasional straight edges.

 

As you can see, we’ve run out of space again, and we haven’t even mentioned land activities such as jungle tours, guided treks into rainforests, volcano trekking, white water rafting, or birding to see the endemic species of birds found no where else in the world. Also, the 6 national parks, 19 nature preserves, and 3 marine preserves of Sulawesi along with the freshwater fish, freshwater shrimp, and the highly cave adapted freshwater crabs will have to wait for another time. Sulawesi has so much to see and explore, but none of these spectacular marine creatures can truly shine unless immersed by the light from your own camera or dive light.

   

For more information on exclusive dive travel offers, competitive airfare, and how you can visit North Sulawesi, Indonesia, please contact us or CLICK HERE     

 

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North Sulawesi, Indonesia, Part One

 

North Sulawesi, Indonesia

The Center of Life’s Diversity

Part One

   

You’ve probably heard of the Coral Triangle where the waters of the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea collide and infuse each other with nutrients and where different species of fish and invertebrates intermingle with scuba divers from every culture around the world? You haven’t? Well, before we go in depth on this incredible zone of creatures, critters, and coral cornucopias, we should mention the country that hosts this unique spot in the world.

  

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, and it is also an archipelago made up of some 17,508 islands of which 6,000 are inhabited, but who’s counting? Now if you weren’t there or don’t recall, after the super continent of Gondwana began to split apart some 140 million years ago, the Pacific, Eurasian, and Australian tectonic plates with much volcanic fanfare met right where Indonesia now resides. Indonesia has 130 active volcanoes and most of the eruptions currently take place in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra just above the Eurasian plate subduction zone and when we say current, we’re talking geological time; Krakatoa last erupted in 1883, a much bigger eruption happened 70,000 years ago at Lake Tobo, Sumatra, but small earthquakes are more common in this region.

  

When seas were lower than they are today, animal life came down through Eurasia until deep waters stopped their advance. Animal life from Australia came up and over until deep waters stopped them too. The point or line made by these deep waters is called the Wallace Line and where these transitional animals mixed is called Wallacea. So now you know why Orangutans, Tigers, and Sumatran rhinoceros are found in western Indonesia, and two species of Anoa (miniature water buffalo), Babirusa (a curling tusked pig), and many other smaller placental and marsupial animals are found in Sulawesi and eastward Indonesia.

  

Now when you include birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish, and invertebrates, Indonesia is only second to Brazil in biodiversity with a greater percentage of endemic species than any other country except Australia. In fact it’s hard to view many of these creatures found nowhere else in the world without the voice of BBC’s David Attenborough narrating in your head. We think a local monitor lizard that hasn’t change much in 3.8 million years, and whose ancestors go back at least 100 million years ago, called the Komodo Dragon is the perfect poster child for the rare creatures found only on a few of the thousands of Indonesian islands.

  

The first tourists attracted to all this diverse wildlife was Homo erectus “Java Man” (1.8 million years ago to 35,000 years ago), but apparently Java man followed the Boy Scout slogan of “Leave no trace behind”, so little is known of them. The second wave of tourists were modern Homo sapiens and on their way to Australia they left trails thousands of miles wide with items like the 40,000 year old hand stencils in Pettekere Cave in Maros, Sulawesi. It is the oldest art work known to date in the entire world. Someone later drew a pig on the wall 5,000 years later near the hand. Speaking of art, we should mention that the entire island of Sulawesi (formerly called Celebes) looks like a stencil of an elephant standing on two legs with its mouth wide open. Not to be out done by others, one group of artists left some 400 stone carved megaliths between 3,000 BC and 1,300 AD on Sulawesi Island. In general, each group that found its way to Indonesia brought its unique language and culture so that by today there are 300 ethnic groups with 742 languages and dialects spoken in Indonesia with the official language being Bahasa Indonesia.

 

Most of the islands were Islamic by the time the Dutch became nuts about nutmeg, cloves, and cubeb pepper and therefore claimed this area their own as The Netherlands East Indies and later The Dutch East Indies. Imperial Japan took control from 1942-1945 and divided Indonesia into three regions. During the three years of Imperial Japanese occupation some estimated four million or more Indonesians died of forced labor, forced prostitution, or famine. Sultans, intellectuals, as well as 30,000 Europeans were either murdered or sentenced to death and anything of value was shipped back to Japan or to other locations in the ever-expanding Japanese Empire. After the war ended, Indonesia gained independence, but there was later a protracted battle with the Communist Party (PKI) during which time 500,000 people were killed during the anti-communist purge. A political settlement was reached in 2005 and things have been comparatively peaceful in recent times for this diverse yet united tropical island nation. It’s interesting to note, that now the top five visitors of Indonesia are from Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, China, and Japan.

  

So now you might be thinking, sure Indonesia’s enchanted and a one of a kind paradise with a very interesting history, but what about the 500 plus dive sites that we’ve heard about? And for this reason we are going to focus on the northern tip of the island of Sulawesi. Here on the Eastside we have Eco Divers Lembeh with access to over 50 dive sites in the Lembeh Straight, which separates Lembeh Island from the Sulawesi mainland. This area is considered the “muck diving” capital of the world.  Here with a backdrop of black lava, a macro world of pygmy seahorses, pipefish, frogfish, and several unique and bizarre species of octopus, and other invertebrates steal the show on every dive.

  

On the west side of North Sulawesi is the capital city of Manado and nearby  the oceanfront Minahasa Lagoon Resort and Eco Divers Manado. From the resort you are close to Bunaken National Park which is comprised of five islands: Bunaken, Manado Tua, Nain, Mantehage, and Siladen. Were not sure if this marine preserve is more famous for its wall dives where you can see giant clams, black tip sharks, white tip sharks, sea turtles, and eagle rays, or its famous because of the local species of brown coelacanth fish they found living just beyond the reef walls in deeper water.

  

Lobed fin coelacanths have been around here for over 485 million years and they were thought extinct for 65 million years until they were seen as the catch of the day in a local market in Manado Tua in 1997, and just like the Indonesian dugong, and 200 million year old chambered nautilus, coelacanths have become ambassadors of Indonesia’s marine life.

 

We will mention more about these resorts and some of the top dive sites in “Part Two” of our North Sulawesi expedition. Suffice it to say, it won’t be easy, as a country with black sand beaches, white sand beaches, sand dunes, mangroves, estuaries, coral reefs, sea grass beds, coastal mudflats, algae beds, thousands of small islands, and a few large islands where even elephants run freely is hard to cover with just one pair of fins and booties.

For information on exclusive dive travel offers, competitive airfare, and how you can visit North Sulawesi, Indonesia, please contact us or CLICK HERE

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Diving With Whale Sharks

 

Diving With Whale Sharks

Whale Sharks, Rhyncodon typus, are the largest cartilaginous fish in the world today. The largest ever recorded was just over 41ft long, but rumors by fishermen say that they may grow over 46ft in length which makes whale sharks the

second largest cartilaginous fish ever to exist and places them only second in length next to the Megalodon shark that existed some 20 million years ago and as recently as 1.6 million years ago. Only true mammalian whales are greater in length than whale sharks, with the blue whale being the largest creature by mass to ever exist on this planet. Like some species of whales, the whale shark has been able to achieve it’s great size by eating the smallest food source; plankton. They also eat krill, small fish, jellyfish, and squid. Whale sharks are one of only three types of sharks that through convergent evolution some 60 to 30 years ago became plankton feeders. The other two plankton feeders are both lamnoid sharks and include the megamouth shark and the basking shark. These two sharks have more in common with great whites than they do with whale sharks.

Whale sharks belong to the order Orectolobiformes and are related closer to carpet sharks such as wobbegongs and nurse sharks. Whale sharks have a distinct checkerboard pattern of lines and dots on their top/dorsal side that would be useful for a shark that tended to lay hidden in plain sight on the substrate, but whale sharks are constant movers, so why exactly they retain their bottom dweller camouflage pattern after millions of years is not quite clear. Perhaps the pattern helps diffuse radiation on their skin as they glide so close to the surface. Perhaps it helps distinguish others of their kind from predator sharks such as the now extinct Megalodon sharks and current Great White sharks.

Besides their length and disruptive color patterns, there are several other features that make whale sharks unique. To start with, they swim by not only moving their tail from side to side, but by moving two thirds of their body length from side to side. Only the head region remains relatively stationary as they thrust forward in the water forcing huge volumes of water to flow into their forward facing over one meter (3.3 feet) wide mouth. The seawater is expelled out though their five pairs of gills similar to how giant mantas feed, but on a scale as great as 6,000 liters of water per hour. Any plankton in the water over 1millimeter in size becomes trapped by thousands of 10cm long bristles that make up the gill-rakers and is eventually swallowed and passed down a relatively small digestive tract.

Only modern hammerheads sharks move their entire bodies from side to side as they hunt using the electrical receptors in their head to locate buried fish in the sand like a metal detector passing back and forth for greater coverage. Unlike other plankton feeders, whale sharks can also thrust their jaw forward and suck up plankton or small fish. Inside their mouth are some 300 rows containing over 3000 small slightly hooked Velcro like teeth. These small teeth may be used as a rough raspy surface to make it more difficult for small slippery jellyfish and slick squids to escape their ultimate fate, but little other purpose for these tiny teeth has yet to be documented. We do know that Mother Nature does not like to waste energy, and therefore a species will lose what it doesn’t use. For instance, after a brief 10,000 years living in perpetually dark caves, fish will lose their eyesight and become blind. Over millions of years ancestors of whales that returned to the sea, lost their back legs in addition to other bodily changes. Zygorhiza, a primitive 6m/24ft whale had hand sized back legs, while modern whales show no outward sign of ever having back legs except for possible small internal vestigial remnants of back leg bones.

As for their life span, we believe that they may mature after 30 years and live for over 100 years. One female can carry some 300 encased embryos. Offspring are born live: ovoviviparous. The smallest whale shark ever found was less than .5m/15inches in length. Juveniles have been found in the stomachs of blue sharks and blue marlin to name a few. In Taiwan they are called the tofu shark because of their taste and texture. They are currently determined to be vulnerable as a species, but as more divers and snorklers alike get the opportunity to swim with these gentle giants more may be done to assure their ultimate survival.

 

Now once you know how whale sharks live and what they feed on it is easier to find them in the wild. They live in tropical and warm-temperate waters around the world including the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan, Belize, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Israel, Jordan, Africa, Yap, and anywhere else near the equator or where the water temp is between 70-86 degrees Fahrenheit (21-30ºC). They will also migrate in many other destinations at certain times of the year such as the Galapagos Islands, Andaman Sea, Honduras, Myanmar, Thailand, Sumatra and Indian Ocean. Much of their habitat overlays the habitat of mantas and other plankton feeders. However, whale sharks are not only found on the surface near bays, reefs, or inside lagoons, but they are known to dive down to 1,286m/4,219ft.

Guides off Isla Mujeres, Mexico to Ningaloo Reef, Australia look for signs of sea birds flocking over the water or tuna jumping in the water. Chances are, the birds and tuna are there to get the fish that have been attracted to the high concentrations of plankton. It won’t take long for one or more whale sharks to join in on the planktonic festivities. Some whale sharks such as a few off of Yap Island, Utila Honduras, and Indonesia like to reside there year round, while others migrate great distances to their preferred feeding destinations. Three days before or after a full moon when corals and reef fish spawn, whale sharks will congregate near these designated areas. In 2011 some 400 whale sharks congregated off the Yucatan coast of Mexico to feast on the aggregate release of cubera, mutton, and dog snapper larvae.

Now you might encounter a whale shark while diving off of Tampa, Florida, an oil rig in the gulf, or off of Costa Rica, but the most popular sites don’t even let you scuba dive with these fish. At certain locations masks and snorkels are permitted only, no flash photography, and keep a distance of 3.3m/10ft away from the fish. Belize is one of the few exceptions, as you may have to scuba dive down to 33m/100ft to view the whale sharks here. The point is that they want the tourists to enjoy the viewing without scaring or harassing the fish. Even a hand on a fin will remove a thin layer of gel that keeps bacteria away from the whale shark’s body, and locals will do anything to protect the tourist equivalent of an aquatic cash cow; if you will.

So when is the best time to see these massive creatures? The locations and time periods vary but here are a few. In Mozambique the best time is November to February, in the Yucatan mid-July to August, at Ningaloo Reef mid March to mid-August, for Belize April to May, Galapagos Islands June to November and in the Philippines December to May with the most whale sharks congregating February to April, but the waters are the calmest April to November. Yeah, sounds a little complicated, and in addition to all this, as famous formidable fish, whale sharks ultimately migrate when they wish.

 

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