Clownfish
During the month of December, our Maldivian Clownfish (Amphiprion nigripes) breeding pairs spawned a total of ten times, whilst we saw only a single spawning from our Clark’s Clownfish (Amphiprion clarkii).
The long-term aim of this project is to breed ornamental fish for export, to reduce the global impacts of harvesting them from wild reefs. Once we are successfully breeding in large numbers, the next stage is to ‘grow out’ our juveniles in larger facilities housed on nearby inhabited islands, thereby training up local staff and providing a much-needed source of sustainable income for the community.
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Seahorses
Our adult seahorses did not spawn this month, but our juveniles are feeding well and we’ve observed them changing colours recently. They are known to do this for various reasons – sometimes to blend in with their environment (like an octopus or more famously the chameleon), other times as part of their courtship behaviour. You can read more about this phenomenon at WWM – Coloration in Hippocampus, part 1 and part 2.
Whale Shark Juvenile
Four different species of shark were observed by the dive team at Kuda Huraa this month, including the largest fish in the sea – the whale shark. We were very lucky to catch sight of this young juvenile, which was just 1.5m in length, and even luckier to be able to photograph it! To observe a whale shark of this size anywhere in the world is very rare, and almost nothing is known about the behaviour and migration routes of juveniles.
Whale shark juvenile (1.5m) – rare sighting (at Gaamadhoo, N.Male atoll, Maldives)
