As has been the topic for many of my FiNS blogs I am studying the ecology of pygmy seahorses for my doctoral thesis. Raja Ampat, along with Wakatobi, has some of the highest densities and diversity of these tiny fish that I have seen. During our expedition through the four kings (the translation of Raja Ampat) I saw four species including Satomi’s pygmy seahorse which had until now eluded me! I was also ecstatic to see the red and white colour form of Denise’s pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus denise) that is restricted to this area. Satomi’s pygmy appears to be nocturnal and is highly active in the early evening after the sun has set. As a result great care should be taken when photographing them. Bright lights stress them considerably so lights should be mostly covered whilst viewing the animal. We used a red filter to reduce the intensity of the light, with good results.

All in all there is something for everyone in Raja Ampat. I have been back to reality for a couple of weeks now and I am still dreaming of the stunning dives and creatures we saw. I have posted more images on my website.

While I was there with fellow photographers Eric Cheng and Douglas Seifert, and videographer Julia Sumerling, we witnessed a sperm whale eating giant squid.

I posted some photos and a brief video explanation about the sperm whales on my blog.

On a separate day, I retrieved a 351cm segment of a giant squid feeding arm…essentially leftovers from a sperm whale’s meal…in the water. Obviously, this isn’t something that happens every day, so we took lots of photos and donated the segment to local researchers.

But, of course, we had some fun too. Here’s a video of Douglas performing the official measurement of the arm segment:

And this a general trip video I put together about Ogasawara (since I assume most people have no idea where it is). Be sure to play the video all the way to the end, so you can listen to the type of stuff I had to endure:

Note: All photos taken under permit.

This week has been a brilliant finale. My new group of six pygmies on the House Reef, which I have studied for just under three weeks, have yielded some interesting finds. The three males all gave birth at some point over the past week. Since I have been observing them for such a short time I was unable to know exactly the stage of the male’s pregnancy and therefore was uncertain when they would give birth. Luckily, now I have become something of a pygmy seahorse whisperer and was able to make an educated guess as to the day the males would give birth.

One evening the behaviour between one of the males and his mate was slightly different to usual. Ordinarily, only the male gets really into the pair’s courtship ritual but I noticed the female too was pretty excitable. This indicated to me the female had prepared some eggs, which she must begin to do several days before transferring them to the male. The purpose of the courtship ritual is to synchronise the pair’s reproductive systems. It is much better if they know the state of their partner’s cycle as this reduces the time wasted between broods. So, the female’s excitement indicated she was ready mate. From experience I knew when this was likely to be so got up bright and early the next day to try and witness the event.

We set off with time to spare but had a current against us to reach the gorgonian seafan where the group lived. Unfortunately this put us behind schedule and we missed the birth! Just as we arrived the male released the last of his brood and was flushing out his brood pouch with seawater. The male then swam about for the next twenty minutes, seemingly searching for his mate. They sleep together every night in the same protected area of the gorgonian and this is where the majority of social and reproductive behaviours are carried out. The female had left this area but after twenty minutes or so returned and the pair began courting.

The male was still visibly wrinkled with stretch marks but began courting his mate with fervour. Several times he inflated his brood pouch with seawater and flushed it out again. After quarter of an hour of these behaviours the pair rose up together from the gorgonian and intertwined their tails. They floated free from the gorgonian and held together their urino-genital openings (the technical term for the private bits of pygmies). This union lasted thirty seconds, during which time the belly of the female went from enlarged to wrinkled. The male conversely took on the eggs and swelled as they filled his brood pouch. I had witnessed pygmies mating once before but they kept the act to the seclusion of their protected sleeping area. The pair this week were real exhibitionists and put on an x-rated show for us! An amazing end to an eventful eight weeks of pygmy seahorse research!

Finally, but most importantly, as I wrap up my last blog I would like to thank Wakatobi Dive Resort for their invaluable support and enthusiasm in my project. Without their involvement this study could never have got off the ground. I have made many friends over the six months I’ve spent at the resort over the past two years but I look forward to visiting them and diving the amazing reefs again one day. Thanks also to everyone who has read and commented on my blog over the last eight weeks. Keep checking back I’ll be writing more blogs in the future! Now I will be working on writing up my studies. So hitting the books, but maybe fitting in a few dives too!

For more information or pictures please join my Facebook group ‘Pygmy Seahorse Fans’ , follow me on Twitter or check out my website for images.

With only two weeks remaining, I began a new chapter of work by starting to observe a group of six Denise’s pygmy seahorses on the House Reef. As I wrote my last blog I had just begun this task and now, a week later, am getting to know the group pretty well.

Luckily for me this sextet are on an exposed mini wall of the House Reef and a good ten-minute swim from the jetty. The currents on the House Reef do range between nonexistent (very rarely in my experience) and wild. This past week I have been subjected to a broad array of conditions but they have been just about manageable and the site is only 11 metres, so not too deep. Every evening this week I have been spending an hour with the group and observing their interactions.

The group consists of three males and three females, which are unusual in that each one is a completely different colour, like a collection of Jelly Belly beans. Usually I must spend a few days with a group before I can easily tell individuals apart by their subtle colour, size and sex differences but this group were easy straight off. The three males are smooth and red, smooth and yellow, and bumpy and red; the three females are smooth and red, bumpy and pink, and lastly smooth and yellow.

When I start studying a new group of pygmies I must measure them, sex them and as I mentioned, distinguish between individuals. I enlisted the help of dive centre manager Ben to help with the measuring since he has a steady hand to hold the ruler next to the animal whilst I take a picture. This is the least invasive method of measuring them, the alternative would be to take them off their gorgonian host but I don’t think pygmies would have the constitution to survive this! Unfortunately, the afternoon we went only one of the females was in an open part of the gorgonian coral, so we will be trying again another day before I leave.

Sexing a pygmy simply requires an extremely close-up image to be taken from underneath the abdomen of the animal. It would be easy of course if the animal didn’t measure less than 2 cm from the tip of the snout to the tip of the tail! After I finally get this image the sexes can be distinguished by the presence of a slit in males and a raised circular pore in females. I do feel a little like a peeping tom when I take these pictures it must be said!

So, my final week has just begun and I will be collecting as much data as possible on this group, conditions permitting. I am expecting some births and will be intrigued to find out which males and females are mating. The pair bonds don’t seem too strong at the moment so the pygmy soap opera will continue! Check my website, where I have been uploading new images and my blog where I also post updates.

Please help us to keep goliath groupers in the list of protected species by signing this petition organised by Wetpixel!

We have had some unusually strong currents on the House Reef, which I actually witnessed in action on a couple of occasions. Even after four months every day watching the behaviour of pygmies on the same gorgonian sea fan, I’ve never seen currents like this. The gorgonian looked as if it would break at any moment and was bent from a vertical to almost horizontal position. The poor pygmies were clinging on for dear life (as was I) and I was not entirely shocked that after several days of these conditions only one pygmy remained.

One pygmy seahorse is obviously not excellent for observing social interactions, so I began the search for a new group. I have certain criteria that must be met in a potential group. They must be easily accessible, not too deep, and at this point in my study, I am searching for different group sizes to see how behaviours change according to the number of individuals and pair bondings. Luckily Wakatobi’s House Reef has abundant pygmies and I found two suitable groups.

Just along from the jetty bar I found a pair of Denise’s pygmy seahorses (Hippocampus denise), and some way along the reef in the other direction a group of six Denise’s pygmies. I’ve already spent time observing a pair, so I have decided as of today to start with the sextet.

They are quite far along the reef, but I can’t pass up this opportunity to study such a large group. The currents have already died down a lot, so I hope to be able to get there without too much stress. I have only two weeks remaining here, so I will really have my work cut out for me gathering enough information in that time!

In other news, I made the shocking decision to put my wide-angle lens on for a dive. The reefs are so colourful and vibrant here it is sometimes quite frustrating that my macro lens stays firmly on my camera in case something important happens pygmy-wise.

I went for the morning to a site called Blade where I conducted some observations, then we stopped off at Magnifica for the second dive. I have dived this site often, and I knew the pygmies well enough to know they wouldn’t miss me for one dive!

I was lucky that there was a slight current running that encouraged the soft corals to open their polyps and show off their full splendour. The reefs really are a kaleidoscope of colour here, and Magnifica is one of my favourites.

So, keep your eyes peeled for the week 7 blog, when I hope to have some updates from the new gorgonian. Meanwhile, I have new images on my website and new ones are going up whenever possible.

The baby in the video is the 22nd calf we ID-ed in Tonga this season, which I named “Mei Mei”. The calf is female,

I’m in the process of going through all my photos and video clips from my five weeks in Tonga, confirming IDs and putting together a summary which I’m hoping to post soon.

While looking through images and video of Mei Mei, I realised that one calf encounter I had attributed to Mei Mei was actually a different mother and calf altogether, which means we had one more calf encounter than I originally thought!…bringing the total (for now) to 26 calfs we ID-ed, plus one more confirmed ID I received after leaving Tonga.

I took this video with a Sony HDR-XR500 and a Light and Motion housing and 90-degree Fathoms wide port that David from Scubacam kindly lent me.

It was cigars all around early in the week when I was lucky enough to be present at the birth of a new generation of Denise’s pygmy seahorses (Hippocampus denise). I had predicted the time and date of the birth based on the expected gestation period of the species (which I figured out a couple of years ago) and the timing of social activities in seahorses.

I entered the water at first light to catch the birth and was quickly rewarded in seeing the heavily pregnant male moving from the area where he and his mate sleep to a current-prone part of the gorgonian coral. He soon settled and began popping out babies, which are only a few millimetres in length but fully formed in every way.

The first “contraction” resulted in half a dozen babies being shot out from the brood pouch within his body cavity. During gestation, they are curled-up to allow many young to fit in the tiny brood pouch. Moments after birth, they unfurl and begin to swim.

The young are dark in colour to help camouflage them as they float off in the water column to a new gorgonian coral. After the arduous event the wrinkled and probably exhausted father returned to his mate and the pair conducted ten minutes of courtship dances to reaffirm their bond.

After all this excitement early in the week, I was devastated on returning to the gorgonian a couple of days later to find the coral significantly disfigured due to unusually strong currents. Worse, the female of the pair was missing!

I had returned to observe the pair’s daily courtship rituals, which occur at the same time every day, but the male was clearly missing his mate. He waited some time in the area of the gorgonian coral where they engaged in their courtship ritual each day, but soon seemed to realise his mate wasn’t coming.

He then set out in search of her, swimming all around the gorgonian, stopping to look on the other side of the coral. Eventually he returned to the same spot where the couple slept each night, but alas, the female was not there. Without the protection of a gorgonian coral, a bright pink pygmy seahorse would be easy prey, and unfortunately, there are no other potential hosts within tens of metres of this group.

So I’m sad that this week’s update reads a little like a Greek tragedy, but at least a new generation of pygmies is now out populating new corals. Aside from pygmies, I found a couple of stunning nudibranchs that I’ve never seen before (that doesn’t actually happen very often), a group of eight eagle rays passed very close to me (but of course no pictures since my wide-angle lens rarely gets a workout when I’m doing pygmy work!) and I’m green with envy that the guests of the resort’s liveaboard, the Pelagian, had a close encounter with a tiger shark!

If you would like to follow more up to the moment snapshots of my daily activities, I am on Twitter with the user name Rich_Underwater and I have created a FaceBook group dedicated to my little friends called ‘Pygmy Seahorse Fans’.

She had also been landing on dead parts of the coral and tended to stick to the mucus and would take several minutes of thrashing about to free herself. Well, she still doesn’t seem to have picked up much common sense and continues to have an adventurous spirit!

She should actually take more care since her mate, I call “Number One”, will give birth tomorrow morning, and she has started to swell with eggs in preparation for transferring them after he gives birth. I should mention that there has been some discussion among the guests as to assigning names to the pygmies currently known as one, two, four and five! There are two males and two females and I could use some ideas!

The gorgonian coral that the group lives on is quite large and old and is starting to show signs of wear and tear. Unfortunately Denise’s and Bargibant’s pygmy seahorses both require a gorgonian coral host on which to live. A pygmy without a gorgonian coral is not a happy little fish.

In fact these two species can’t survive without a gorgonian host. Gorgonian corals are susceptible to poor water conditions and disease, and these are both becoming more prevalent as we continue to change the environment. Hopefully this doesn’t herald the beginning of more pictures such as the one here of pygmies on dead branches of coral.

Apart from pygmies this week, we had an encounter with dozens of pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins on the way to the dive site Blade. They rode the bow of the boat and passed very close for quite some time as we crossed between the Sawa and Kaledupa reef systems.

Another exciting big fish encounter was a huge marlin at Turkey Beach, the site adjacent to the House Reef. As well as these experiences, I had close encounters with a mobula ray (a small relative of mantas), black tip reef shark and plenty of green and hawksbill turtles. In fact both species of turtle have begun nesting on the resort’s beach, and the eggs are being protected against poaching, since turtle eggs are a local delicacy.

I look forward to the coming week, when I hope to be present at the birth of the next generation of pygmy seahorses. The second male has only just become pregnant and will continue to expand in girth over the week. I will report in a week’s time how the birth went and the continuing pregnancy. Meanwhile I have posted more images on my website and more will go up as events unfold.

My studies have been going well, and I have completed nearly 20 hours of observations on my group of Denise’s pygmy seahorses (Hippocampus denise) living on the House Reef. Both pairs have given birth, and one pair has mated again since my last blog. One of the females has been giving me cause for concern due to her habit of sitting on sections of her gorgonian coral host that are dead and covered in mucus. This mucus sticks to her head, body and tail and prevents her from moving around easily. Often the mucus will adhere her to the gorgonian, and only after several minutes thrashing about is she able to free herself. Each time, I am nervous she will attract the attention of a passing fish!

My evening presentations have been particularly busy this trip, and after a full house one evening, I presented my pygmy talk again the next night for those that missed it the day before. As well as explaining about my research, I also take the opportunity to emphasise how delicate pygmy seahorses are, and that great care should be taken when photographing them.

Reaching less than 2cm in length and restricted to their gorgonian coral, pygmies have little opportunity to escape overzealous photographers. Taking great care not to touch any part of the delicate gorgonian coral, avoiding the use of bright lights, limiting the number of shots taken, and looking out for stress-related behaviours exhibited by pygmies are all important.

When stressed, pygmies will turn their back to a photographer, which will result in bad images and is indicative of a stressed animal. Due to their extremely small size, excessive stress can even kill them, and so under no circumstances should a pygmy be touched in anyway. Unfortunately I have seen some awful guiding in other areas of Indonesia where guides will bend back the gorgonian in search of pygmies and use pointers to move pygmies to a “better” position for photography.

It is imperative that divers explain to their guides the damage they are causing and hopefully break this habit. What is required in order to get nice images of pygmies and other marine organisms is patience and an unobtrusive approach.

I have been able to upload many new images to my website so have a look at some of the amazing creatures we have been seeing recently!