Category Archives: oceans

Facts about Saylor Eyeballs

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Sailor’s eyeballs are giant single-celled algae found in the Indo-Pacific down to 20 meters depth. They have other common names, such as bubble algae and sea pearl algae.

You will find Saylor Eyeballs everywhere in Indonesia. When you are diving around the Gili Islands, you will find them at Halik Reef, Sunset Reef, Hans Reef and Sharkpoint. You will find them in all diffent sizes.

These algae look rather like huge marbles, reaching up to 5 centimeters in diameter, and grow on coral and rocky reefs, attaching to the substrate by hair-like filaments called rhizoids.

Young plants are translucent with a bluish sheen, while older ones become encrusted, for example by coralline red seaweeds.

Sailor’s eyeballs undergo an interesting process of vegetative or asexual reproduction. Daughter cells grow inside the parent, which dies and breaks down, releasing the new plants

For more information: http://www.oceans5dive.com

Facts about Whalesharks

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The gentle giants of our oceans and seas has got to be whale sharks.

The biggest ever whale shark reached an enormous 13 meters in length, and these amazing creatures are not only the biggest sharks we have in the whole world, they are biggest fish of any kind.

The reputed maximum length of the fearsome great white shark only reached 7 meters, a dwarf in comparison.

Not unlike humans, whale sharks have a lifespan of 70 years on average, and they spend their days gently swimming about in the warm and tropical oceans of the world, mouth open to filter feed from the plankton and microscopic organisms that float in our ocean’s waters.

Whale sharks are unperturbed by human activity, and even allow divers to hitch a ride.

Their teeth are the size of match heads, and while no doubt their jaws could be powerful, they have never shown any aggression towards humans. Their teeth play no role in eating, as plankton does not need to be chewed.

Scientists are still learning about this amazing creature.

In 1996, a pregnant whale shark that was caught was found to be carrying 300 pups (the correct terminology for shark babies), and newly born pups measure up to 0.5 meters long.

Not much is known yet about gestation length, but it is believed that female whale sharks do not reach sexual maturity until they are 30 years old. This is the age they have to be before they can mate and reproduce.

Originating 60 million years ago, the whale shark has evolved little in that time. They, or their ancestors, must have been compatriots of the feared megalodon shark.

Whale sharks are to be found in numbers in the warmer oceans of the world and they are largely pelagic, meaning they are ocean going and prefer the deep waters of the open oceans. They tend to travel alone.

Several times a year they congregate together in certain spots (known as aggregating) where plankton is plentiful.

Those areas where whale shark aggregation occurs are all within a 30° north or south latitude from the equator.

So great a loss in numbers have they suffered, that whale sharks are now listed as vulnerable in the IUCN red list of endangered species.

Measures have been started to be put in place by some countries, to protect the whale shark from annihilation.

The Philippines, India and Taiwan have all banned the fishing, selling, importing and exporting of whale sharks for commercial purposes.

However, the law does not seem to be effective because the hunting and killing of whale sharks still goes on today, especially in Taiwan and the Philippines.

Smallest fish in the world

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Scientists have discovered a fish living in forest swamps on the Indonesian island of Sumatra that is only 7.9mm long.

The species of fish belongs to the carp family and is called Paedocypris progenetica . It is the world’s smallest vertebrate or backboned animal.

Living in acid

The tiny, see-through Paedocypris fish have the appearance of larvae and have a reduced head skeleton, which leaves the brain unprotected by bone.

They live in dark tea-coloured waters with an acidity of pH3, which is at least 100 times more acidic than rainwater.

‘This is one of the strangest fish that I’ve seen in my whole career’, said Ralf Britz, zoologist at the Natural History Museum.

‘It’s tiny, it lives in acid and it has these bizarre grasping fins. I hope we’ll have time to find out more about them before their habitat disappears completely.’

Threatened swamps

The swamps were once thought to harbour very few animals, but recent research has revealed that they are highly diverse and home to many species that occur nowhere else.

In 1997 the peat swamps were damaged by large forest fires and they are still threatened by logging, urbanisation and agriculture. Several populations of Paedocypris have already been lost.

Fish discovery

The new fish was discovered by fish experts Maurice Kottelat (from Switzerland) and Tan Heok Hui from the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research in Singapore. They were working with their colleagues from Indonesia and with Kai-Erik Witte from the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Ralf Britz, at the Natural History Museum , helped analyse its skeleton and the complex structure of the pelvic fin.

Previous smallest

The previous record for smallest vertebrate was held by an 8mm species of Indo Pacific goby. The UK’s smallest fish is the marine Guillet’s goby, Lebetus guilleti , reaching 24mm in length.

Top 10 Most Endangerd Fish: Number 9

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Beluga Sturgeon

While the beluga sturgeon is popular for its fillets, its eggs, known as “true caviar,” are regarded as a delicacy. Native to the Caspian Sea, these ancient fish can grow to 15 feet in length, weigh more than a ton and live to be 100 years old. Due to the popularity of their eggs, they’re heavily overfished — typically with gill nets. This particularly problematic because this species that doesn’t reach sexual maturity until 20 or 25 years of age. In addition to fishing pressures, beluga sturgeon suffer from habitat reduction, having lost 90 percent of their historic spawning grounds over the past several decades. Because of these pressures, the IUCN classified the beluga sturgeon as endangered, and the population is expected to continue its decline.

Gill Nets

Gill nets are nets that sit like a fence on the ocean floor. When a fish that is tcoo big to swim through the net tries to swim back out, it gets caught by the gills.

For more information:

http://www.oceans5dive.com

Top 10 Most endangered fish: Number 10

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Altantic Halibut

Found in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Atlantic halibut is the largest of the flat fish species.

Boasting a 50-year lifespan, it can reach a length of 9 feet and weigh up to 1,000 pounds. But because this slow-growing fish doesn’t become sexually mature until it’s 10 to 14 years old, it’s particularly susceptible to overfishing. While Atlantic halibut are normally caught with hooks-and-lines, they’re often caught as bycatch in bottom trawl fisheries. The IUCN classifies them as endangered, and their numbers are not expected recover in the near future. This has prompted the United States to ban Atlantic halibut fishing in its coastal waters.

Facts about Garden Eels

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Garden Eel (Heteroconger hassi)

Every diver usually remembers their first garden eel encounter. You are swimming near the edge of the reef, over the sandy bottom like Hans Reef Gili Air, Gili Islands, and you see a grassy area at the limit of your vision. As you move closer to the grass, it begins to shrink and eventually disappear! It turns out it is not vegetation at all, but garden eels! These animals use their rigid tail-tip to dig a burrow in the sand. They exude lots of mucus from the skin that helps cement the sand grains together so the burrow walls become stable. If danger approaches, they withdraw into their burrows, but when the potential threat disappears, the garden eels reappear.

They stretch out from their refuges to snag zooplankton (tiny animals like animal larvae, tiny crustaceans and eggs of various reef animals) that are pushed past in the current.

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Facts about Unicorn Tangs

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Interesting Facts About Unicorn Tangs

Unicorn tangs or Naso unicornis are members of the family Acanthuridae commonly refer to as surgeonfish. There are 80 species in 6 different genera in this family. All have one distinguishing characteristic. They have sharp blades at the base of their tails (caudal peduncle) on both sides of their bodies that are used in self-defense. Seventeen of the 80 species are unicornfish. Here we will be elaborating on the unicorn tang. They are endemic to the Indo-Pacific from Indonesia and Christmas Island westward to the Andaman Sea, south to the eastern coast of Africa and east to the Hawaiian Islands. When you are diving around the Gili Islands you will find the everywhere.

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Facts about Goatfish

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Goatfish (Mullidae)

Goatfish are common in all tropical and warm temperate seas, like around the Gili Islands, Lombok, Indonesia, forming an integral component of the reef fish community throughout the Indo Pacific region. Their distincive appearance includes a slender shape, relatively elongate, pointed snout, a small. slightly ventral, protrusible mouth with maxilla partially hidden under the preorbital, finely ctenoid, moderately large scales, two well separated dorsal fins ans a pair of barbels or chin “whiskers”.

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Reef Clean Up Gili Air with Oceans 5

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Yesterday Oceans 5 dive resort organized another reef clean up. Instructor Phil, Divemaster Yvonne and Divemaster Trainee Budi took care of 7 other divers who wanted to help.

The clean up started at 16.00. At that time the preparation started with preparing the bags, the gloves and all the equipment. At 16.30 Divemaster Yvonne gave a dive briefing about how everyone should take the rubbish away, the bottom time, the max depth and buddy teams.

The first divers came after 44 minutes out of th water. They had 3 bags full of rubbish. After this each buddy team and the result was shocking……

After we had last time 15 bags of rubbish now the divers collected another 12 bags of rubbish! It looks a little bit better in the front of Oceans 5 dive resort, but still a lot of work has to be done.

For further information about the reef clean ups: info@oceans5dive.com

Facts about Parrotfish

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When you are diving around the Gili Island you will spot them on every dive site. Some people loves them other one say this one of the most ugly fish in the sea. We are talking about the Parrotfish.

This herbivorous fish uses its strong beak-like mouthparts to scrape algae and other plant matter from the surface of the coral. This maintains the health of the reef by keeping algae in check, which could otherwise overwhelm the delicate reef ecosystem.

An unusual feature of parrotfishes is that they are able to change sex, with females becoming fully functional males. In a population, parrotfish start off as either females or males (known as primary males). Females may at some point in their life become male (secondary males). Populations that have these two types of males are called ‘diandrous’, meaning ‘two-males’. A terminal phase male defends a territory and a harem of females. If the male should die, the most dominant female will become the dominant male, her ovaries becoming functional male testes.

The parrotfish occurs in the western Atlantic, from Florida, Bermuda and the Bahamas to Argentina and the Gili Islands Indonesia.

Associated with coral reefs at depths of 3 to 25 metres. At night, parrotfish retreat into crevices. Juveniles tend to occur in mangroves adjacent to the reef. The mangroves act as important nursery areas and provide food-rich and predator free safe-havens for the growing young.