Ok - last night, we were going through our Reef Books trying to identify a worm/prawn? we found yesterday. Never did have success at that, but while I was looking at pictures, I thought to myself, Man, it sure would be cool if I could find a Flying Gunnard.... Son of a gun, if one wasn't right in front of me when I went swimming this morning! He was amazing! According to the Fish ID book I have, they're supposed to be very shy, but this guy was out all by himself on nothing but a sandy bottom, and I swam directly over top of him for a good 10 minutes or so. He seemed totally unconcerned that I was there. He was big too - probably about 2 feet long. It was so much fun to watch him pick stuff up off the bottom and turn it over - they have spines at the bottom of their pectoral fins that they use almost like hands. He kept his "wings" closed most of the time, but when he found something to go after in the sand, he would flare them and twirl, just like a flamenco dancer. And WOW! What amazing color! They have an iridescent blue fringe around the perimeter of the wing, and when the morning light hit it, it looked like pure neon. Made my day!!
I went out this morning to do a long distance swim and I didn't feel like lugging my camera with me, so this isn't my picture, but one I found on the internet. Looks just like the one I saw though!
2 comments:
oh wow that thing looks a little freaky!
yeah - I know! I almost back-peddled when I first saw it - it looks mildly mutated at first glance, or at least like it might want to stick a sharp pointy spine through me - but he didn't seem the least bit interested in leaving the bottom, and I was about 12 feet or so above him. I was seriously diggin watching him scrounge for food though. Neat critter.
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