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Seahorses in the harbor of Gili Air, Gili Islands, Lombok

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The harbor of Gili Air is a really exciting dive spot. It one of the best muck diving spots around the Gili Islands. One of the main attractions are the 4 different kind of seahorses. You will find them straight in the front of Oceans 5 dive resort.

Seahorses are truly unique, and not just because of their unusual equine shape. Unlike most other fish, they are monogamous and mate for life. Rarer still, they are among the only animal species on Earth in which the male bears the unborn young.

Found in shallow tropical and temperate waters throughout the world, these upright-swimming relatives of the pipefish can range in size from 0.6 inches (1.5 centimeters) to 14 inches (35 centimeters) long.

Male seahorses are equipped with a brood pouch on their ventral, or front-facing, side. When mating, the female deposits her eggs into his pouch, and the male fertilizes them internally. He carries the eggs in his pouch until they hatch, then releases fully formed, miniature seahorses into the water.

Because of their body shape, seahorses are rather inept swimmers and can easily die of exhaustion when caught in storm-roiled seas. They propel themselves by using a small fin on their back that flutters up to 35 times per second. Even smaller pectoral fins located near the back of the head are used for steering.

They anchor themselves with their prehensile tails to sea grasses and corals, using their elongated snouts to suck in plankton and small crustaceans that drift by. Voracious eaters, they graze continually and can consume 3,000 or more brine shrimp per day.

Population data for most of the world’s 35 seahorse species is sparse. However, worldwide coastal habitat depletion, pollution, and rampant harvesting, mainly for use in Asian traditional medicine, have made several species vulnerable to extinction.

Flounders around the Gili Islands

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Sometimes if Oceans 5 is diving around the dive site Hans Reef, North of Gili Air, Lombok, the divers come back on the boat and the have seen someting moving in the sand but they dont know what they have seen. Most likely they have seen a Flounder. Flounders are hard to see and specially when you dont expected them, or you dont have a lot of experience.

The flounder is a species of flatfish that is found in the coastal waters of the northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Flounder are found hiding on the ocean floor at depths from shallow coral reefs to the deepest trench on Earth.

There are five different species of flounder found in the oceans, and only one of these flounder species (the Japanese flounder) is found in the Northern Pacific Ocean. The summer flounder, the winter flounder and the southern flounder are all found in the western Atlantic Ocean, while the European flounder is found in the colder waters around Northern Europe.

All five flounder species are very similar in appearance but can vary quite dramatically in size. Flounder can vary from 5 to 25 inches in size depending on the species, but all flounder species have a rounded, flattened body shape with a medium-sized flat tail fin.

The colours and markings of the flounder are dependant on the flounder species, although all five flounder species have adapted to life in the sand on the sea floor and they are often coloured to be camouflaged into their silty surroundings.

Flounder are carnivorous and highly predatory animals. The flounder hides on the sand on the sea floor waiting for potential prey, which the flounder ambushes once it has been spotted. Flounder prey on a variety of bottom-dwelling marine species including small fish, shrimp and crabs.

Due to the secretive nature and good camouflage of the flounder, it rarely spotted by predators. Large fish, sharks, eels, humans, and marine mammals all prey on the flounder when it can be spotted.

Rather than laying her eggs onto an inanimate object or the leaf of a plant, female flounders release them into the water at the time time as the male flounders release their sperm (this form of fertilisation is known as spawning). Once the eggs have been fertilised, the flounder fry begin emerging from them in just a couple of weeks.