Nighttime in the ocean is a whole new ballgame. This slide show has photos from two night dives with Tres Pelicanos at Paradise Reef.
Some creatures sleep during the day so they can work the nightshift. Others are active day and night, but may display different behaviors at night.
For example, it’s much easier to photograph balloonfish (Slides #1 & #12) and porcupinefish (#4) at night. My ID Guru hypothesizes that this might be a result of poorer vision at night — makes sense to me.
Slide #2 is a teenager spotted moray. He was smaller that normal and his markings were not as defined as on an adult. I’d never seen one before with such muted markings.
I had been thinking that southern stingrays photographed differently at night. I now realize that it isn’t just the photography lighting (#7). Their skin changes — the color becomes smoother, as if they had applied make up for the evening — a bit of foundation and powder — but no rouge.
I was optimistic that I had captured some spiny lobster sex, but no. My ID guru explained it was most likely just male aggression. The front lobster was not into it.
Slide #9 shows something I had never seen before. There were several worms in the water column with the larger being 4-5 feet long. My ID guru reached out to a worm expert, but no word back yet from the expert.
On the second night I found a balloonfish (#11) doing something I had never seen before. He was spinning around and around. I thought at first that he did’t like my focus light, so I stopped lighting him — but he continued spinning. Divemaster Jorge Canche figured it out. Balloonfish have wide-set eyes with wide angle vision. This balloonfish had, sadly, lost an eye.
You never know what you are going to see underwater, particularly at night.
MJ
