Author Archives: Graham

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About Graham

I take photos when I'm out and about, recording life on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Silver hookfish

A silver hookfish lurks on a head of coral.
The silver hookfish is fairly common in coastal waters here. It spends much of its time slowly cruising shallow waters in search of prey, usually much larger fish than itself. On occasion, the silver hookfish will rest for an extended time on a patch of coral or rock as seen here. Sometimes they can even be seen leaping through the air like flying fish.

While humans aren’t their usual prey, curious or gullible people, lured by its glittering appearance, are sometimes snagged by one of the hookfish’s several barbs. This can be a painful experience, sometimes requiring medical treatment.

Silver hookfish are not recommended for human consumption, since they’re extremely tough and may contain concentrations of toxins, which can impair perceptivity.

Castaway?

A man harvests opihi off the coast of the Big Island of Hawaii.This lonesome individual, scrambling over a tiny islet, searching for food, appears to be the quintessential castaway. But he’s really collecting opihi and the islet is about a hundred-foot swim to the much larger Big Island.

On a different day with windier conditions, the swim wouldn’t be necessary since the surf could pick a person up and slam them against the cliff with no effort required on their part.

Square-spot goatfish

Square-spot goatfish swim in the waters off the Big Isalnd.
Square-spot goatfish are quite common and most easily distinguished by the square spot in the yellow stripe along their sides. However, the intensity of the square spot changes, darker during feeding, and fading (as with the fish in the photo) or disappearing altogether while resting or schooling. When the spot disappears, square-spot goatfish are hard to distinguish from yellowfin goatfish.

In my attempts to identify what I see in the water, I use John P. Hoover’s book The Ultimate Guide to Hawaiian Reef Fishes, Sea Turtles, Dolphins, Whales, and Seals. His website is hawaiisfishes.com.

Green anole with raised ridge

A green anole puffs out its dewlap and raises the ridge on its neck in a display or aggression.
I saw this anole on the lanai one day and thought at first it was something new to me. It was a very deep brown with pronounced markings and it had a raised ridge on the back of its neck that I’d never seen before. It was already pretty agitated, but my taking photos riled it even more, causing it to strut around and puff out its dewlap.

After watching it for a while, I thought it had a lot in common with the green anoles I see around here, and sure enough, its color started to fade and then shift to green.

I suspect what was happening is that it was trying to stake out a new territory and was moving in with the most impressive display it could muster. I’ve found out since that the raised ridge is one such display technique that green anoles have. I didn’t see it again. Probably it decided that it didn’t need a territory already crawling with paparazzi.