conwaykw's Favorites

Date and location correct.
Scuba dive @ 'Syngnathid Hotspot' ,the area of sand and seagrass, with some low relief reef, directly out from Normanville SLSC's clubrooms (which FWIW didn't exist when I first began photographing Syngnathids ,grass clingfish etc at this site via shallow scuba dives from shore, many solo, some with a buddy, late last century).

Subject only partly visible but the bright eyes are obvious. Which makes me suspect these 'grass clingfish' are host cleaners of certain larger demersal bony fish taxa that often share the habitat type- seagrass and bare sand ( e.g. Silverbelly, some weed whitings, some leatherjackets). But I have no proof.

[NB:Not a resubmission,I've checked]

Another few very old low res slide scans of one fish on Scaberia weed via solo scuba dive from shore at 'hotspot' directly off Normanville SLSC.
[Date needs dive log review asac by me later,but location correct]

[Date very approximate, and this being a hotch-potch of 'hotspot' pics- all from shallow solo shore dives,and all as low resolution home scans of slide transparencies- probably some were taken on different dates. But my logs are beside me now, so the big day approaches You faithful few will be beside yourselves,no doubt ! Time to breath in,breath out...]
All pics are of small cling-fishes or kin such as shore-eels.Such 'grass cling-fish' can be seasonally common during summer into autumn here, albeit inconsistently from day to day and year to year. I am fairly sure several taxa are represented in this submission, but please don't allow me to ramble on about what I mean by that..it might embarrass me ...!!
NB:I will try to imbue some order, with a focus on provision of accurate dates for individual images, asa practicable.

[Date is approximate but correct one is in my logs for later review]
Old low resolution slide scans of two tiny clingfish (or kin e.g. shore-eels) on Posidonia blades.Easier to locate AND photograph when they adopt tail-up pose, but whether that's somehow related to reproduction or is evidence of host cleaner status(offering parasite removal to inshore pipefish,for example,because the cohabitation by Stigmatopora spp. pipefish and these sorts of 'grass clingfish' within cm of each other on the same tiny Posidonia grass outlier plants at this 'syngnathid hotspot' is a striking feature of the place during the warm season) remains unclear.(I lean towards the cleaner host option but am big-time biased when it comes to the whole topic of temperate cleaner fishes in Southern Oz!)

Grass clingfish,one of the two more common sorts at this 'hotspot' shallow shore dive site in the past,seasonally and erratically depending on local catchment status and mean rainfall pa etc.Via scuba.Poor focus,not a good photo at all.But these little green fish of seagrass outliers have been harder to find in each warm season,both when I took this pic and later, following the wettest year on record in Southern Oz for many decades,which occurred in 2015-6,and extended in many coastal areas of SA into early 2017.Of course,much of Oz is now dry,with below average rainfall.Should be a better dive season locally come spring summer autumn than it was for past 2 years or so,which were the worst for bad inshore water clarity,nutrient excess and 'sudden freshwater dump' decimation of sea-grass meadows, and denuding of rock reef algal canopies ,that I can recall in my local SA diving lifetime. The local reefs beaches and meadows had not fully recovered from several almost as unseasonally wet weather phases within the previous 1-2 decades,which bodes ill for next generation of SA divers.And all local beaches have less sand than in anyone's living memory(excepting nearer metro Adelaide where active replenishment via truck and slurry pipes is occurring,at some considerable but necessary expense to taxpayers).