Dumaguete Loving

[ssra30]

Glad to hear the giant black frogfish is still there. I assume it is the one at El Dorado House reef. He was kind of dark green when I was there last November but I was told that his color chagnes quite a bit over time. El Dorado has a deal with local fisherman so whenever they catch anything unusual in their nets, they would bring it to El Dorado as El Dorado is willing to pay quite a bit for some specimen. The giant frog fish was one such transaction with local fisherman. I was told that it was initially white but slowly changed color since it was released at the house reef. I don't know if it is true or even know if frog fish can change color but that was the story.

 

[reefwreck]

Glad to hear the giant black frogfish is still there. I assume it is the one at El Dorado House reef. He was kind of dark green when I was there last November but I was told that his color chagnes quite a bit over time. El Dorado has a deal with local fisherman so whenever they catch anything unusual in their nets, they would bring it to El Dorado as El Dorado is willing to pay quite a bit for some specimen. The giant frog fish was one such transaction with local fisherman. I was told that it was initially white but slowly changed color since it was released at the house reef. I don't know if it is true or even know if frog fish can change color but that was the story.

Interesting story about the Giant Frogfish at the El Dorado housereef. When I was there, he was indeed black. I too tried to photograph him, but he came out looking like a black hole, sucking in all the light !
At the time, I was concerned he was going to be trapped, as he was stationed right up against a local fish trap.

Marpacifica, I believe it was Jasmijne who told me the Mandarinfish photo rules. She seemed concerned that a strobe flash would discourage them from performing their dance, hence the "only at the apex" rule.

Yes, my avatar is my only lousy shot of the Mandarinfish. It only looks half decent at that small size !

BTW, you can check out some of my other Dumaguete images by clicking on my gallery listed below.

Cheers.

 

[marpacifica]

I heard the same story that El Dorado pays local fishermen to stock their house reef. Makes economic sense to both parties -- the fisherman gets more money than he would have had he just sold the fish at market, and the resort gets more guests after the word gets out that there's a lot of neat things to see at their house reef.

My fish ID books all say that the frogfish can change colors in a manner of a few days to several weeks. There were two giant frogfish during my most recent visit, both black (holes). They were even hard to see with my own eyes because their background was some black tires and they blended in perfectly.

Now that I think of it, Jasmijn did mention that rule during my first visit last year, but I dove with Glenn and Verni this time around (Jasmijn was teaching an OW course and her last day at Atlantis was Monday) and they didn't mention that rule. And nice photos in your link! You just added some more to my obsession with Dumaguete, thank you very much!