LLKZ16:
Great Video!!
I've never seen a Garibaldi throw a shell and a Brittle Star before.....lol
I've done it before, it's wild how large of an object a Male Garibaldi will remove from his nest. I've done it with an urchin (yea, I know "that's mean Mike!"), a rock, and a huge 4"+ live cone snail. With the cone snail the Garibaldi picked it up by the top, so it looked like the Garibaldi was using a giant snail megaphone!
If you find a solitary male Garibaldi gurarding an nest with no eggs and the nest is somewhat flat (they are mostly vertical nests from my experience). Then find anything laying around within a reasonable size and lay it on the nest. Then back off a few feet.
Over a normal reef the Male Garibaldi will take the object really far away from his nest, no matter if it is a dead shell or a living creature. The Garibadli makes sure it "never" gets back to his nest
This one on the rigs seemed to know that tossing stuff off the edge gets it far away, weird that the first Brittlestar he took into the rigs, he swam almost 20 feet I think and tossed it down the center of the rig. Then the rest he swam toward me and the closer edge.
I didn't mean to drop the brittlestars on his nest, just the shell. I didn't see them when I tossed the dead mussle in.
Another Garibaldi trick is use a mirror. I have never tried it, but hear they go crazy directly at the mirror. I wonder if filming thru a one way mirror would work?
...Thank you everyone for your nice comments. I had lots of fun diving the rigs and just as much fun editing it.
- MikeT
