MikeJacobs
Guest
Last week I found a lizard fish with what looked like a metalic "bumper" where their wide mouths usually are. The closer I got (they spook easily) the stranger it looked.
Finally I saw a little mouth on the "bumper" and realized that the lizard had just taken a fairly large doctor (or surgeon) by the tail and was slowly suffocating it in his own mouth. What I was seeing as a "bumper" was the metalic blue "face" of the thin doctor fish.
Cool! This is the first fish-eating-fish event I've actually seen, though I see predators chasing lunch all the time.
So, I began to pay attention to them a little more and brought some frozen shrimp with me to get a closer look. The lizard fish was not interested in the shrimp, but the dozen or so mulletts that followed me for a taste were.
I dropped a shrimp into the surge just in front of the lizzard. It sat motionless as the shrimp drifted into and past its wide head. The mullett swarmed the shrimp and BAM, the next thing I saw the lizzard was in a different place and had a mullett tail sticking out of his mouth. I was watching it, but I didn't actually see it move.
Their camoflage, ability to lie motionless in surge, and speed make them a resiliant reef fish. I'd bet they could find a meal anyplace.
Finally I saw a little mouth on the "bumper" and realized that the lizard had just taken a fairly large doctor (or surgeon) by the tail and was slowly suffocating it in his own mouth. What I was seeing as a "bumper" was the metalic blue "face" of the thin doctor fish.
Cool! This is the first fish-eating-fish event I've actually seen, though I see predators chasing lunch all the time.
So, I began to pay attention to them a little more and brought some frozen shrimp with me to get a closer look. The lizard fish was not interested in the shrimp, but the dozen or so mulletts that followed me for a taste were.
I dropped a shrimp into the surge just in front of the lizzard. It sat motionless as the shrimp drifted into and past its wide head. The mullett swarmed the shrimp and BAM, the next thing I saw the lizzard was in a different place and had a mullett tail sticking out of his mouth. I was watching it, but I didn't actually see it move.
Their camoflage, ability to lie motionless in surge, and speed make them a resiliant reef fish. I'd bet they could find a meal anyplace.
