PlanetCatfish.com

I've just got a new computer, and whilst trawling through disks to see what software needed putting on, I found a disk with these photos from a 2000 holiday in Mauritius. The quality's a bit poor, as they were taken with a disposable underwater camera, then scanned at too low a resolution, but they give some idea of the reef life.


barracuda


black trigger


butterflyfish


Gnathodentex aureolineatus


very large trigger- lots of reef fish used to follow this around, looking for food as it lifted up rocks/coral etc.


moray eel found in a tidal pool


some form of tropical mullet- these got 3-4 feet in length


Plotosus lineatus


Scomberoides


squid


tangs




electric ray (awful picture)


trumpetfish


unicorn tang

Impressive!! Wouldn't wanna get too close to that ray...

Nice pictures! It took me a second to spot the electric ray (I know, right in the middle of the picture ).

Did you take these scuba diving or snorkelling? I don't know how to scuba dive yet, but I was still amazed by how much I could see just snorkelling when last on holiday near a reef.

I am off to SEA soon and the wife wants to go diving. I can’t wait some nasty fish bites her and she has it in tears
The photos are amazing.
I love the one of the CATS all in a bunch.

I thought Mauritius was a lovely island and very nice native people. Would love to go back but I have to visit some other Indian Ocean Islands first! The trigger is Balistoides viridescens, watch out for them when they have a nest! We saw some HUGE ones in the Maldives.

Dee wrote:Did you take these scuba diving or snorkelling? I don't know how to scuba dive yet, but I was still amazed by how much I could see just snorkelling when last on holiday near a reef.

These were all snorkelling- I snorkelled for two sessions each day, from one to two hours mostly (nearly four hours when I mistake of following the big mullet, then got caught in a tide rip). One of the barracuda persuaded me to stop following it one day- after a couple of minutes of lazily following it, it suddenly turned round then swam three times round me in a tight circle snapping its jaws- I took that as barracuda-speak for "leave me alone or I'll bite you!"

macvsog23 wrote:I love the one of the CATS all in a bunch.

These were my favourite fish too (but then again they are catfish); they reminded me of baby bullhead cats in France- it took us nearly a week to find them; I can't imagine why such poisonous fish are so secretive. Then again, it was a shock to see that lionfish also hid during the day; the locals catch them at night to eat.

RickE wrote:The trigger is Balistoides viridescens, watch out for them when they have a nest! We saw some HUGE ones in the Maldives.

How big do these get? This was over 1m long and we estimated 20-25 lbs. in weight. Another species of trigger gave me my only ever "help! I'm afraid of this fish!" moment when a 6-8" fish chased me for over 400 yards (mainly in circles) and over 2 minutes, trying to bite me- I'm assuming it was guarding a nest. I did try snorkelling just before dawn one day (we saw a shark in the inner reef when out walking at night) to see if anything different came round, but aside from another electric ray and a stonefish, I didn't see anything different.