A few months ago the Department of Environment and Agriculture at Curtin University asked me if I wanted to do an interview to explain what my PhD is all about. Since I am part of that department and I love to share how amazing my weird critters are, I obviously said yes.
The underwater footage was taken by myself, Luke and one of my supervisors during fieldwork in Indonesia and Philippines last year. You can watch the video on the Environment and Agriculture website, or right here:
After a few weeks of visiting my family in Belgium and loading up on chocolate, beer and hugs of my little niece, it was time to get going again. Just over a week ago I flew back to Asia and the first stop was a small town in Philippines called Dauin.
Some of you might have already heard about Dauin. You might have heard/read me ranting on about how great the muck diving is, dived there yourself or maybe you’ve seen some of the many underwater photos appearing on various social media. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Dauin is a small town of about 25000 inhabitants in the south of Negros. The place is close to the city Dumaguete and sometimes the two are used as synonyms in dive circles (they are not). Dauin is a sleepy coastal town where most people used to make a living from fishing or farming. “used to”, because it’s rapidly getting renowned for its awesome muck diving.
In all fairness, the story actually began with coral reef diving. Facing Dauin lies a small island called Apo. The reefs around Apo were the very first MPA (Marine Protect Area) in the Philippines and have been a poster child for MPAs in developing countries ever since. The fame of Apo brought in divers and it did not take too long before people discovered that the shore dives off Dauin were something quite special.
The beaches of Dauin are mostly made up of volcanic sand, though they are not as black as the ones you find in Lembeh. While there are a few small coral patch reefs, the real treasures are found in the sand. It’s muck diving at its best: you’ll find frogfishes, seahorses, mimic octopuses, flamboyant cuttlefishes, … The fact that most sites are easily reached and that there is a growing muck dive industry makes it an ideal area for me to conduct research.
Last year I spent most of May in Dauin, doing a lot of diving and a lot of running around between divecentres to talk to people about dive tourism. This time I just went back for 5 days to talk to a few more people to fill in some gaps in my data on the socio-economic value of muck dive tourism. So unfortunately no research dives this time. Luckily I did manage to meet up with my good friend Dragos, who uses Dauin as a base to take some pretty sweet underwater photos. The underwater pictures in this post are his. If you want to see more of his (award winning) work, check out his site here.
The small trip to Dauin was the end of a productive, exhausting and entertaining research trip. I am writing this post in Manila airport, as I’m finally on my way back to Perth. After nearly 8 months of fieldwork and traveling it’ll be great to see my colleagues again and to start writing up some of my results. So keep an eye out on the blog for updates of what is going on. Or if you’re in Singapore in April, come and have a chat at the ADEX Dive expo, I am giving a talk and will be presenting some of my results.
Now the main holiday madness is over, we are all starting to take stock of the damage done by the excessive eating and drinking we’ve been doing. Or at least I am doing so… In this time of year, we can all relate to the feeling of being way too full after that unnecessary third helping of dessert. Compared to other animals we’ve got it easy, all we have to do is cook or order our food and start stuffing ourselves. It’s slightly different with the critters we find in the ocean.
Lizardfish eating a dragonet
While there is a lot of active hunting happening in the ocean, many of the species I study are ambush predators. This means they are even lazier than we are when it comes to getting food. They spend nearly all of their time lying down on the ocean floor, waiting for dinner to swim by and then gulp it down. The plus side of this is they can’t get annoyed with themselves for not ordering the more delicious looking plate their neighbour is wolfing down. The downside is that they sometimes have to wait a long time until dinner swims by.
When you are an ambush predator, being camouflaged is particularly important. If you look like what you really are (a hungry fish), no tasty morsels will be tempted to swim anywhere near your mouth. Camouflage that helps animals hunt is called “aggressive camouflage” and sometimes “aggressive mimicry”. The difference between the two is that camouflage refers to animals pretending to be a plant or dead object like a stone. Mimicry refers to pretending that you (or a part of you) are a harmless or tasty living animal such as a herbivorous fish, worm, …
Aggressive camouflage: Estuarine Stonefish (Synanceia horrida) looking like a rock covered in algae and sponges
Good examples of critters using aggressive camouflage are stonefishes and lizardfishes. They pretend to be rocks or blend in with the sand, waiting for a bite sized morsel to swim by. Aggressive mimicry is used by many species, but it is perfected by frogfishes. They use a modified fin ray as a fishing rod, the bait on top of it (or “esca” if you want to sound all sciencey) has evolved to resemble a small animal like a shrimp or worm. This bait is wiggled around until an unsuspecting fish gets too curious for its own good and ends up as prey. In one species, Antennarius hispidus the esca (=bait) has even been found to contain bioluminescent bacteria, great for luring in snacks at night. Frogfishes are not the only fish using a bait to attract meals, this technique is also used by some flounders and stargazers.
The inside of the mouth of a giant frogfish (A. commersoni)
If you have ever had a fish tank and tried to catch your fish bare handed while cleaning it, you will know that no matter how nearby a fish is, it’s hard to catch one. So ambush predators have a number of adaptations to make this easier. Most of them have a huge mouth that sucks in a lot of water when they open it quickly. This suction feeding causes the fish to get sucked into the predators mouth together with the water. On top of that, the teeth of most of these predators are pointed inward, making it easier to hold slippery prey. Another funky adaptation are “pharyngeal teeth”, small teeth on the inside of the throat that hold the prey when the predator opens its mouth to get a better grip on it. You’ve read that correctly, as if frogfish weren’t weird enough already, they also have teeth in their throat.
While most of us only binge eat on special occasions and then feel guilty about it, frogfishes and other similar predators really don’t care. They eat whenever they can, as much as they can. When you think you’re exaggerating, remember this: the mouth of a frogfish can expand to 12 times its normal size when eating. The equivalent of this would be you fitting an entire chicken in your mouth when eating. Frogfishes can also eat prey that are up to 1,5 times bigger than themselves! For us, this would be roughly the equivalent of eating a whole pig for Christmas, which would make for some interesting scenes around the dinner table…
A Scarlet Frogfish with prey in its stomach (source)
So next time you’re feeling stuffed at holiday eating fests dinners, remember it could be worse 😉
This year I have spent a good 3 months doing research in the waters around Bali. I worked and lived in Bali 6 years ago and it has been great to be back, even if a lot has changed since I left.
Depending on who you’d ask, Bali brings very different images to mind. For many Europeans it’s a far away tropical dream destination. For Australians it’s a surf or party destination and for many other people it is the ideal island to do yoga and revitalise (whatever that might mean). Travel agents and tour companies love to cash in on this image of an unspoiled paradise with the loveliest people you can find.
Sunrise in Amed (north-east Bali)
Lately Bali has also being getting an increasingly negative connotation. To some people it is just a place where Australians or backpackers go to get drunk and make absolute fools of themselves. It’s a place where tourism is tipping the scales from a paradise island to a congested, resort filled, money driven place for people who don’t care about the local culture. In this version of Bali, there is no more romantic notion of an idyllic paradise, quite the opposite.
As always, there is some truth to both sides of the story. Tourism has increased massively, it’s estimated that nearly 4 million people will visit Bali in 2015 (compared to just over 2 million in 2009). Traffic has increased, new roads have been built, countless new resort sprung up and big buses now drive around hordes of tourists to uninspired commercialised tours. It used to be normal cars or motorbikes taking out a fraction of the people to admire Bali’s unique culture. I am not claiming there was no tourism here 6 years ago, but the intensity with which it has increased is staggering.
I must admit that I struggle with this increase in tourism, I loved living here years ago, loved the people, the diving, the culture, the food, the diving,… Some of that has changed or is gone, which is unfortunate. It is especially difficult as I do believe tourism can be a sustainable alternative to more exploitative use of the environment. The question is how to find the right balance. It is easy for us as visitors to regret the loss of small island charm and the increase of pollution that comes with mass tourism. But who could deny the right of local communities to hop on the tourism bandwagon and make a better living for themselves and their families?
Rice fields in the centre of Bali
What I can say, is that there is still a lot of beauty out there. Head away from the busy south and explore the interior or head to the less explored northern coast. The northeast is stunningly beautiful, even if there might be more tourists around than there used to be. I still feel extremely lucky for being able to do research here and very frequently still just stop for a while to take in the beauty of it all, whether it’s on land or under water.
Getting ready to explore a new site
While dive tourism in Bali has also increased a lot, there are still many untouched places left to explore. Sure, it’s great to dive with manta rays or marvel at Mola molas, and the USAT Liberty still is a great wreck dive, but there is so much more. I might be biased as my research looks at small critters in the sand, but I just can’t contain my excitement when I survey a new site and find it has lots amazing critters like seahorses, ghostpipefish and a range of cephalopods. Next time you dive Bali, try to find a way to explore those sites that are dived less and enjoy the feeling of being away from the crowds and the excitement of finding new critters. Oh, and be kind enough to let me know if you find an amazing new muck site!
Critter Research 