Once, twice, third time a lady….. The Psychedelic Frogfish is here again

 

It’s blog time again. The new season has started, and it’s started with a bang!!!!

On the 23rd September, two years ago, to the day, we were fortunate enough to find the first Psychedelic Frogfish to be seen in Ambon for 4 years. It was an amazing find and wonderful to finally see this rarest of underwater critters. It was a small-ish juvenile.

Then in February this year we found another. This one was in Baguala Bay, in front of our resort, and was the first time one had been seen out of Ambon Bay.

And now we are all in a state of real excitement, as another larger specimen has been found in Ambon Bay, and this time it’s a lady J How do we know this, well, she has eggs….(click any small thumbnail image below to see full size)

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The first video is of my first encounter with this lovely lady.

 

And this second one features her eggs, where you can clearly see them, including an eye and her rapid movements to help clean and aerate her babies. At the end of the video you can see, in slow motion, how she seems to be ejecting small bits if debris that have worked their way into the egg mass.

As with some other frogfish, the Psychedelic Frogfish keeps its eggs on the outside of its body, towards the back. She then bends her pectoral and tails find over and around to form a pouch to protect them, and she can then wiggle her body and fins to keep them aerated. It is always a wonderful feeling, finding any rare fish with eggs, but when it’s the Psychedelic Frogfish is exceptionally special.

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So seeing the female Psychedelic was on the 2-year anniversary of our first sighting which is pretty amazing. And then today, the day after, Alan found another Psychedelic!! It’s smaller than the female, so we are hoping/thinking that’s it’s probably the male.

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And it now seems a third has been seen, though we haven’t seen it yet. It is clear, as expected, that the patterns on the Frogfish are unique and you can easily identify different individuals.

Of course our lucky guests are in 7th heaven. The diving anyway now is fantastic, with loads of other frogfish, Harlequin Shrimp, Mototi and Hairy Octopus, several Rhinopias, Flamboyant Cuttlefish, Tiger Shrimp, Bumblebee Shrimp, tons of Ornate and Robust Ghost Pipefish, many nudis and much much more, which will be the subject of the next blog