Tag Archives: Surgeonfish

Trumpetfish and yellow tangs

This week’s Friendly Friday challenge theme is ‘Sea Creatures.’ See more responses here.

I go snorkeling two or three times a week and feel fortunate to see a great variety of sea creatures while I’m out. Some of these can be quite unusual or exotic. I recently saw my first titan scorpionfish, and threadfin jack juveniles are weird and wonderful. And then there was my one and only encounter with a pyrosoma.

But for this challenge, I’ve opted to go with some fish I see most times I get in the water. Yellow tangs are probably the most noticeable reef fish around. Bright yellow, they putter around in the shallows, and are easily visible in the water and from shore. Trumpetfish look nothing like yellow tang, but often take on a yellow color and blend in with shoals of yellow tang in the hopes of surprising small fish, which are their main prey.

In these photos, a trumpetfish is doing just that. While it might seem like it would be pretty obvious that the long trumpetfish is quite different from the rest of the shoal, when seen from the front, which is the business end of the trumpetfish, the distinction isn’t so great. And if the trumpetfish can get close enough, it will suck its prey in and devour it.

Cleaner wrasse and whitebar surgeonfish

A cleaner wrasse performs its service on a whitebar surgeonfish. Cleaner wrasse establish stations where other fish can visit to be cleaned of mucus and parasites.

When I’m snorkeling, I enjoy visiting these stations to see what’s going on and which fish are availing themselves of the services offered. Some of these fish are predators who, in other circumstances, might be expected to make a meal of a cleaner wrasse. But because of the beneficial service they offer, cleaner wrasse get a free pass with predators.

Goldring surgeonfish

This goldring surgeonfish is so named because of the colorful ring around its eyes. This one came up to take a look at me. I like how it looks like it’s casting a giant shadow, but that’s actually a different fish (another goldring surgeonfish I think) passing behind it.

Pacific trumpetfish and yellow tang

trumpetfish and yellow tang

Pacific trumpetfish have the ability to change their coloration according to their surroundings. In this case, the trumpetfish has turned yellow to blend in with a shoal of yellow tang, one of the most common fish on the reef.

So why bother with this subterfuge? Trumpetfish are predators, feeding mostly on small fish and some crustaceans. Appearing to be one of the crowd allows it to sneak up on unsuspecting prey. And while the very different shape of the trumpetfish might make it seem like it’s prey would be sure to spot it, from the front, which is where the prey is going to be, trumpetfish are very hard to spot.

How long is a zebra moray eel?

Zebra Moray Eel

Zebra moray eels are one of the easiest eels to identify, their circular stripes differentiating them from any other eel. They feed mostly on crabs, which they crush with their blunt teeth.

These eels can grow to five feet in length, but are usually smaller. This one though is probably about as large as they get. The yellow tang near its head could be as long as six or seven inches, while the saddle wrasse at its tail tops out at ten inches. That would make this eel somewhere between four and five feet long. It’s certainly the biggest zebra moray that I’ve seen.

Most of a white-spotted surgeonfish

White-spotted Surgeonfish

This white-spotted surgeonfish is one that I see regularly when I’m snorkeling. It’s quite distinctive as something has taken a chomp or two out of its back. It’s not unusual to see fish like this, with chunks missing here and there, but if they survive the encounter, they seem to fare as well as the other fish. This one though seems, perhaps understandably, to be more skittish than most.