01 Mar, 2007

A school of parrotfish sleep under a big boulder, secreting slime as they slumber.

A school of parrotfish sleep under a big boulder, secreting slime as they slumber.

On my mission to find where the parrotfish sleep in the tidal pools at Chaka’s Rock, I go over the coral once again, looking specifically for sleeping fish. It doesn't take long to find a small convict surgeonfish dozing in front of a few coral heads; a good start, but I saw this last night so I wasn't overly excited.

Then I came across a pair of sea hares in some sort of vortex movement, almost like a dance.

They just went around and around for ages. Perhaps this is some sort of mating behaviour? It fascinates me the way they move around and graze like some sort of weird mammal.

After more looking around I came across a group of sea urchins. I noticed what seemed to be a gill of some sort, pumping water in and out of the carapace. I'd never seen this before.

Soon after leaving the urchins, I found a group of blue parrotfish sleeping in a sort of fish dormitory, tucked up under a big boulder, safe as houses.

If you look closely you'll see slime on parts of their bodies. This is the slime that the fish exude from their mouths when they sleep. It ends up covering their whole body and is largely transparent. Some say this has some protective function for fending off parasites while the fish sleeps.

One fish is almost lying on its side, and I found myself moving as quietly as possible so as not to disturb it. But the fish is disturbed, and moves across the cave.

You can see very clearly the mucus that it displaces as it does this. It’s quite satisfying finding these little gems of natural life ticking over right on my doorstep.

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