TRACC Borneo Volunteers: #mating

26.5.16

Creature Feature - Mating Mandarin Fish

Photo by Basil Bohn

Three bright and iridescent mandarin fish play ring around the rosy in the playground of the TRACC crate reef. These three apparently painted ladies gather each night in a pre-spawning mating ritual in which they display their gleaming blue and orange patterns to a potential mate. Coyly they circle between the holes and loops created by the crates and flutter their fins in a rapid and flirtatious manner.

This ritual is preformed each evening in the fading light of the setting sun. Three to five females will gather in the same place to wait for the male to arrive. If the male arrives and is large enough to please the ladies, a pair will join together, bellies touching, dorsal fins a-fluttering, and circle upwards to release their sperm and eggs in a tango of a spawning dance.

Shy of bright light, and shy of open spaces, the crevices and holes in the crate reef, give us eager divers a perfect viewing platform. A chance to see the prettiest of fish preform the prettiest of mating rituals and view the ocean stage from the comfort of the house reef and house seats.

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More Marine conservation projects

Reef conservation would not be possible without generous financial support from

GEF /SGP for Malaysia who are helping our community activities and coralreefcare.com who generously provided materials to build the new reefs.

If visits to Tracc are not possible then please help with financial support and follow their projects on Facebook.

11.4.16

Mating Rituals of the Many Armed Mollusca - The Day Octopus

Photo Basil Bohn

15 meters down below the TRACC jetty a coquettish female day octopus waits. She is curled into the crevice of a tire with wide doe eyes and domed head peaking above the tire rim. About 4 meters away her male counterpart shyly waits by a patch of coral, peaking his head towards her in a cautious manner, seemingly unsure of how to approach his waiting mate. His caution is justified; sometimes his bigger stronger hungrier counterpart will consume her mate in a cannibalistic fashion. Yet, soon his courage blooms and he sidles towards the tire and his halfway hidden mate in a distinguished waltz. As he dances over he flashes the fanciest of his colors in swaying patterns of black tie octopus attire. Upon arrival, he seemingly scopes out the scene - perhaps he is assessing the potential danger of his promiscuous urges? He crafts his body into the physiology of a pyramid and peeks over the rim, as if asking if he is allowed to enter the domain of his soon to be mate, before gliding over the barrier of the tire to cautiously position himself opposite of her, equally hidden in the tires empty inner crevice.

This manly day octopus is semi-prepared for the potential danger of his procreative urge, he is equipped with an extra long reproductive arm called the hectocotylus complete with sperm packet attached to the tip. Once, twice, three times, in a gesture of gentlemanly grace he cautiously offers his hectocotylus and then withdraws. Still, his mate waits upon his advances, sometimes in a flirtatious or perhaps predatory manner she gently sways and shows the inside of her tentacle arms.

In a final chivalrous procreant gesture and gift, he rolls his hectocotylus around the inside of the empty tire tube to touch his female equivalent. To complete the act he must carefully and cautiously insert this tentacle into the most intimate of places in his mate – through the siphon behind her eyes and into the ovaries located at the tip or her head. It appears as an intimate hand holding between two mollusced lovers shyly meeting for the first time. Yet, this seemingly intimate gesture is tarnished by the knowledge that this specialized reproductive arm; the hectocotylus is a means of evolutionary self-defense. The sex life of a male octopus is fraught with danger; get too close to a lady lover and maybe you’ll get eaten.

More Marine conservation projects

Reef conservation would not be possible without generous financial support from

GEF /SGP for Malaysia who are helping our community activities and coralreefcare.com who generously provided materials to build the new reefs.

If visits to Tracc are not possible then please help with financial support and follow their projects on Facebook.