SHARKWATER

Friday, February 27, 2009

Psychedelic Frogfish!

This is awesome, and the timing couldn't be better. News today of the discovery of a new kind of frogfish, called the psychedelic frogfish (good picture here):
A brightly-coloured fish which bounces along the seabed has been hailed as a new species by scientists - who have dubbed it "psychedelica".
Best of all is where they found it:
...the fish was spotted by scuba divers off the island of Ambon in eastern Indonesia.
As it turns out, that's exactly where we're headed next week. Our dive cruise through Raja Ampat starts at Ambon. I guess I shall have to demand that they show us this new fish!

But really, as the AP article points out (quoting Mark Erdman from Conservation International):
"It also speaks to the tremendous diversity in this region and to fact that there are still a lot of unknowns here — in Indonesia and in the Coral Triangle in general."
That is why we go to these places. Cool stuff!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How delightfully freaky!