younis_menkara's Favorites

This is looking at the larger fish with orange speckling and often blue on the fins. They were similar to parore but had almost no striping, just a couple of fish had some very faint stripes. About 10-15cms. They were curious and came to the camera. When I offered food they took shellfish but rejected snapper scraps.

There were 30-50 in this rock pool for the whole 2 weeks we were there - the number varied but there were always some.

This is one of three observations from a single large, deep, rock pool. There were three species schooling together. I believe that they were juvenile Scorpis violacea (https://inaturalist.nz/observations/195999848) and Scorpis linoleata (https://inaturalist.nz/observations/195999849), both of which I have seen in the same rock pool in the past, and this time accompanied by young Girella cyanea, a new species for me that looks exactly like the illustration on page 1323 of The fishes of New Zealand.

All photos are underwater GoPro photos. Some are very heavily cropped, others less so.

Female, estimated to be 3.5 metres and 200-220 kgs.

Caught in ~90 metres of water on a live Kahawai (Arripis trutta). Unfortunately not released. Thankfully none went to waste, fed dozens of local families and leftover carcass was smoked.

Large aggregation in about 2m depth via snorkel. I estimate there were at least 70, and probably closer to 80-90.Most were mature adults but some older juveniles or immature younger ones were present peripheral to the main aggregation which formed a veritable mound of many individuals over many square metres of benthos.