Is it a Nudibranch? Is it a sea slug? No! It's a mesogastropod!

Right in the center of this photo you can see an ovular animal of beige/white colour. It is very small, up to 15mm and is most usually found on gorgonians Eunicella and Paramuricea spp. It's color depends on the color of the animal it is found on, from yellow to red or beige. However, the color changes on the mantle of the snail, the hard shell always remains a brilliant, glowing white. When Neosimnia picta is threatened, it retracts its mantle inside, exposing the outside shell (here visible as the white descending line in the middle of the animal). This mesogastropod is quite elusive, probably using pigments of the host gorgonian to change the color of the mantle, making it merge completely into the background. This photo is quite rare in that the snail was found on the substrate and not on the gorgonian! For its size, moving from one gorgonian to the other can be a long migration, but don't worry! It can move with surprising speed and reaches as far as 80 m! This animal was found on 35 meters in Kalamitsi, Chalkidiki.

Slipper lobster’s charm and defense.

While diving at the island of Lesvos with the diving team of the University of Aegean we meet a ghost net. Ghost nets are the remnant of fishermen nets that left or lost at the sea. Unfortunately those nets are still able to trap some animals like the Scorpaena sp., sea turtles and slipper lobsters. This is the common name of the specie of lobster Scyllarides latus. These lobsters have instead of antennas and claw some strange spoon-like tools that help it to unstick his prey from the rocks. It usually feed with limpets. It prefers to stay all day in a shaded cover or an opaque shelter to a transparent shelter of the same dimensions. Lobsters also demonstrated a significant preference for shelters with more than one opening and for those that were in a horizontal as opposed to vertical position according to misters E.Spanier and G. Almog-Shtayer. Its noctural behavior is due to that most of his predators like Balistes carolinensis and Epinephelus marginatus are diurnal. If it’s being attacked it demonstrates a “burst-and-coast” type of swimming found also in some negatively buoyant fast-swimming fish according to Ehud Spanier, Daniel Weihs and Galit Almog-Shtayer. These guys also inform the scientific society as they research on slipper lobster swimming that its acceleration range between 250 and 500 cmXs^-2. In the results of the same research we can learn the interesting “This intermittent fast swimming is assumed to be used by lobsters to escape, especially through the back opening of their diurnal shelter in case a predator is successful in penetrating it. It is of short duration and is suggested as an emergency means in which the animal invests considerable energy resources to reduce its exposure time in an open area until it reaches an alternative shelter”.

All the above make the young environmentalist Elena being charmed by the strange lobster. We meet him moveless in the fatal trap of the ghost net. At first I thought it was dead but the still bright full coloration alert me that it was still alive. I used carefully my diving knife to set it free without harm it. If you ever try to do something similar remember that it can also harm you if your hand hit by its large tail. This behaviour have give it at Greek the name “kolochtipa / κολοχτύπα”. Elena fast felled in love with the lobster and started kissing it! It thanked us by pose for some pics.
Slipper lobster are easy to be catch by spear fishing divers and that has lead to being an overfishing suffering specie.

The fish that fishes....Το ψάρι που ψαρεύει!

The biodiversity of fish shapes and forms reminds me of the
immense shapes and forms found in the rain-forest insects!
This month we offer for your viewing and icthyological pleasure
the magnificent Angler fish or Peskandritsa in Greek.
Another synomym is the Monk fish, with the females of the species
reaching the spectacular length of 2m, 40 kg!
To encounter even a small specimen is a fantastic experience,
firstly because of its mouth, which basically makes up most of
the body! The angler fish gets its name from a small fishing appendage
found on the top of the head, which originates
from one of the three modified dorsal spines.This fishing lure
attracts mostly small fish, however the angler fish with its
massive mouth can engulf fish as big as itself, and digest them easily in its expandable stomach! On the first photo we can clearly see the seaweed like
appendages, circling the mouth which can change color depending on the
environment, making this fish another master in camouflage, whether it is
lying on sand or rocky bottoms.
Another strange aspect of this animal is the use of its modified pelvic and pectoral fins as legs, which it uses to move around, along with a sudden burst of its tail.
On this video provided by our good friend Michalis, you can see this behavior on minute 2. The monk fish is highly commercial, however its status is not evalluated yet for the IUCN red list. It is always sold skinned and without a head, so basically
what you eat is the tail... not a lot from such a big fish, so it is best left alone
lurking on the sea bottom, fishing other small fish or even sea birds!

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In the past year we have witnessed many wonders of the sea and felt many sorrows from its continual demise.
We want to start the new year with a celebration of life a new way a new life
and exorcise the negativity and abuse we impose on the environment and ourselves.
Real change in the world can start only from within, deep within!
I made this video from pictures of dives made in 2010, memories that last a lifetime

Sandy bottom delights

This time we were looking for sea horses but instead we found rays, many many rays!
The sandy bottom realm sounds quite boring, divers stay well away of it, but the sandy bottom hosts an array of very interesting and beautiful inhabitants. Today we present the skate/ray Raja radula,one of the most common rays of the Mediterranean,with some evidence towards its endemism in the area, as the specimens found off the Atlantic could have been misidentified with other similar species, not very hard to do with these rays.
This ray is completely harmless to humans, it has no thorn, like the sting rays and no electricity like the torpedo rays, however the skin around the tail is quite rough, hence its common name, rough ray.
This fish inhabits shallow water until the depths of 300 meters,and this particular specimen was photographed in Stratoni at the depth of 10 meters.All in all, on a 50 minute dive, we spotted 4 animals laying on the sandy sea bottom.
They prefer to eat any type of bottom animals, making Stratoni a haven of food for them!
They are oviparous, laying oblong egg capsules with stiff pointy horns on the ends (mermaid purses). About 80-154 eggs are laid by an individual in a year. Because of insufficient data on their populations it is listed as Data Deficient on the IUCN Red List.

Triggerfish journeys

Photo by Vasilis Mentogiannis

After all these years of diving, travelling and exploring the seas of the world, this was the year I said with the most certainty that even if I only dive here,in Greece, for the rest of my life and nowhere else, I will be happy and content!
Dive Greece Baby!
The beauty of our sea is not only very well hidden and currently very fragile but also it is very little acknowledged. One example, is a completely exotic animal the Triggerfish, which usually lives in tropical seas. The Grey triggerfish (Γουρονόψαρο η Βαλιστής) is a resident of the East and West Atlantic, all the way down to Argentina with rarer occurrences in the East Mediterranean.

Balistidae is a family containing 40 species but only Balistes carolinensis (synonym Ballistes capriscus)can be found in Greece. As a family, these fish are most extraordinary, with colorful lines and spots, especially in their Indopacific range. Their name, triggerfish, comes from the locking mechanism of their anterior dorsal fin, which is composed of 3 spines that fit inside a groove, while only 2 work as a trigger. When the first, (anterior) spine is locked in place by erection of the short second spine, then it can only be unlocked by depressing the second, “trigger” spine.

Another peculiarity of the triggerfish, is their aggressive behavior against other fish in small aquaria, or divers when they approach a nest of eggs. At this point, it is advisable to swim away from the nest and not over it, as their territory is conical reaching to the surface. If you add the aggressive behavior of these fish, along with their strong, fused teeth, you have one vicious, unnecessary bite! Some strong attacks have been mentioned from bigger, more tropical species, but for the Grey triggerfish this has not been reported.
Balistes carolinensis prefer to eat small crustaceans and mollusks from the benthos. Their skin is very tough and leathery.
It seems that this particular individual is a juvenile, because the tips of its caudal fin are not elongated yet। As an adult it can reach the size of 60cm! Their reproductive season is in the summer, when spawn is placed inside a crater on the sand, and is guarded by the female (male in the tropics), a sure sign you should swim around and not over the nest!
The color of the Grey triggerfish is mostly grey with brilliant fluorescent turquoise dots on upper half of body and median fins, and irregular short lines ventrally. There may also be three faint irregular broad dark bars on body and a narrow pale transverse band on the chin.

This particular beauty was hanging out under the traditional fishing boat (kaiki) Agios Nikolaos, the boat that broke the embargo to Gaza in the summer of 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gRscVeNbDo&feature=related.
The second expedition took place this year with tragic consequences....



The boat was anchored next to the Isle of Modi in the NE Peloponnese, but that is a whole different adventure soon to come on Medi Sea!
Until then, thank you Vasilis for capturing the elusive fish!

the third, the unknown the luckiest.

While swimming at Chorto bay in the Pagasitic gulf, I had the chance to check the marine life that lives associated with the Aplysina aerophoba sponges. I wasn’t alone, as this tiny fish had the same interests with me. It is the third, the smallest and the most unknown common fish species of the genus Serranus in the Eastern Meditteranean Sea.

Scientists of Ichthyology give it the humble name Serranus hepatus. I don’t think that this defame matters the fish, as its famous cousins are famous because fishermen catch them with hooks. It doesn’t feel unhappy of this because it knows that it’s better being an insignificant swimmer, than fried and famous. You can differentiate it from the Serranus cabrilla by the big black spot on its dorsal fin.

More information about our friend can be found in studies made by Abdoulaye Wague (in Greek click here) and Murat Bilecenoglu (in English and Turkish click here) .