Photo of the Week: November 02, 2009

Hi Gang!

Lucky me! I am Indonesia with Captain Steve and wife Jan aboard a new liveaboard named Dive Damai. To date, the diving has been absolutely magical. We are in the Indo-Pacific region commonly referred to as the Coral Triangle, an area lauded as being the epicenter of marine biodiversity. No doubt about it, the variety of species is astounding. On every dive we see creatures that leave us scratching our heads and dropping our jaws.

One family of fishes that has had our attention from the get go has been the ghostpipefishes. The six members (debated number) of this Indo-West Pacific family of fishes (family Solenostomidae) are to be distinguished from the 320 species of pipefishes (family Syngnathidae). The most obvious difference is that the ghostpipefishes have much larger fins, including ventral fins. In pipefishes and their close relatives, the seahorses, the males carry and protect the fertilized eggs. However, that is not the case with ghostpipefishes as the females incubate the eggs while carrying them in the “pouch” that is formed between her large ventral fins.

With color varying from near black to brilliant hues of red, yellow and orange highlighting various body features, the ornate ghostpipefish (Solenostomus paradoxus) can be a showstopper. Like other pipefishes ornate ghostpipefish also show great variability in terms of the size and number of dermal appendages. Their appearance also varies over the lifetime of an individual fish and from specimen to specimen, a fact that often causes new divers to think they are seeing more than one species. But no matter what the particular traits of a given fish are, if the fish is an ornate ghostpipefish, it will be a specimen worth stopping to look at and photograph.

As is the case with other pipefishes, ornate ghostpipefish often hang in a vertical, or near-vertical, orientation, and they often appear to be motionless. They feed on a variety of small shrimp-like crustaceans that are floating in the water column, sitting on the bottom, or that live on other organisms such as crinoids and gorgonian sea fans, thus it is no surprise that when encountered, ornate ghostpipefishes are often seen hiding around crinoids and sea fans where their shape and coloration helps them blend in.

Adults commonly swim in pairs with the female being the larger of the two. Adult females are roughly five inches long, while the males are noticeably smaller reaching full size at a length of approximately 3.5 inches.

Despite the fact that they are slow swimmers that are very easy to approach, photographing ornate ghostpipefish presents a considerable challenge because it is often difficult to get just the right angle so that the fish is essentially parallel to the sensor (or film plane) in your camera. If the fish is not parallel to your sensor it is hard to get both the head (eye) and the tail in focus. I have found that some specimens “suck up” light while others reflect a lot of the light emitted by a strobe. As a result, I find my histogram to be an invaluable tool to help me determine if I got a proper exposure.

In addition, while ghostpipefish don’t usually swim away, they do have a tendency to turn away making it difficult to get the exact pose you want with fins flared and the fish parallel to your sensor.  

During our ten day trip we saw quite a few ornate ghostpipefish, but the fish that is featured in this week’s POTW was the most vibrant of the fish that I encountered. Fortunately I was able to get the pose I was looking for with this colorful, female.

I hope you enjoy the shot, and that someday you can join Captain Steve- and me- on another Indonesian diving adventure.

See you next week!
Marty