This entry was posted on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 10:24 pm and is filed under About, Adventure Cruises, Information, Sites, Snorkeling, Snuba. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Photo Courtesy R. Patzner, fishbase.org
With Halloween fast approaching today’s posting is on a most unusual fish, the half-naked hatchetfish. In keeping with the theme of weirdness, this creepy little fish comes from the depths around the Hawaiian Islands, but the species is also seen elsewhere in the world. According to Dr. Randall these fish are in all oceans of the world in the subtropics and tropic seas. He also notes that the adults make marked vertical migrations, that is, rise from the depths and travel quite deep. The hatchetfish feed primarily on copepods and small fish. These fish are also sexually dimorphic, that is, females are slightly larger than the males.
The average snorkeler and diver probably will not get even a glimpse of this highly unusual half-naked hatchetfish who enjoy depths of 150 to 2400 meters (492 - 7874 feet)! But isn’t it fun to know these wonderfully bizarre fish exist out there? Bookmark, or subscribe to this blog site and check back for more postings this week on the weird, and wonderfully unusual marine life around the Hawaiian Islands. Happy Halloween!
