This little cutie is a Mandarin fish, he’s about the size of your little finger and lives on specific shallow inshore reefs in the Pacific. They are named after the robes of an Imperial Chinese Officer- or Mandarin. You may note he is one of the few marine fish with no scales, he is apparently protected by a mucous coated slimy skin.
They are very shy but at sundown dart out into the open to meet and mate within the dizzing space of a few minutes(!) They join together, rise up together for about a metre (see pic 4) before releasing sperm and a cloud of eggs & that’s it. Au revoir.
I was able to use the in-camera flash on the Powershot S100 to photograph them, it didn’t seem to disturb them but strobe lights would have been too much.
Photographed in Yap, Micronesia.
[IMG]Mandarin Fish 1 by Barbara Bett, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]Mandarin Fish 2 by Barbara Bett, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]Mandarin Fish 3 by Barbara Bett, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]Mandarin Fish 4 by Barbara Bett, on Flickr[/IMG]
They are very shy but at sundown dart out into the open to meet and mate within the dizzing space of a few minutes(!) They join together, rise up together for about a metre (see pic 4) before releasing sperm and a cloud of eggs & that’s it. Au revoir.
I was able to use the in-camera flash on the Powershot S100 to photograph them, it didn’t seem to disturb them but strobe lights would have been too much.
Photographed in Yap, Micronesia.
[IMG]Mandarin Fish 1 by Barbara Bett, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]Mandarin Fish 2 by Barbara Bett, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]Mandarin Fish 3 by Barbara Bett, on Flickr[/IMG]
[IMG]Mandarin Fish 4 by Barbara Bett, on Flickr[/IMG]
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