Marine Life Society of
South Australia Inc.
Newsletter
June 2009
No. 366
Next Meeting
The June meeting of the Marine Life Society
will be held at the Glenelg Marine & Scuba upstairs training
room (the old Adventure Blue clubrooms) on the Patawalonga frontage at 8.00pm
on Tuesday 16th June. Please enter via the stairs at the side of the building.
If you cannot find us on the night then phone me on
0407395566 and I will give you directions.
This will also be the 33rd anniversary of the
Marine Life Society in one form or another, another milestone.
Our speaker will be Wayne Rumball who will be
giving an illustrated talk on his Southern Surveyor trip
CONTENTS
AGM Results
MLSSA Letter re O’Sullivan Beach sand dumping
Dragonets (Steve
Reynolds)
BIRGUS LATRO (The Coconut
Crab) (Steve Reynolds)
Paul Macdonald’s Pictures (Philip Hall)
A sample of the
pics by Paul in the last article.
Following the excellent talk on Seals by Simon
Goldsworthy which I feel people who were
not there really missed a talk that could very easily be the most interesting
and well delivered we have ever had we enjoyed a shared supper and drinks.
We then held the 2009 Annual General Meeting. As you can
see from the election results below we must either be doing everything right or
there is a distinct lack of willingness by members to take over various
positions within the Society.
Our Patron, Scoresby Shepherd delivered a well received
address to the meeting and made a suggestion that we consider producing an
amusing book on some of the stranger and more weird creatures and their
habits/lifestyles in our local waters using the Photo Index as a picture
resource. The Committee will discuss this in more detail at their next meeting.
AGM Results
Committee positions
POSITION NAME
President Philip
Hall
Secretary Neville
Skinner
Treasurer Phill
McPeake
Committee David
Muirhead
Committee Chris
Hall
Non Executive Positions
Position Name
Auditor Phil
John
Conservation Council Scoresby Shepherd
Chris
Hall
Editor Philip
Hall
Librarian Steve
Reynolds
Photo Index Officer Steve Reynolds
Reefwatch Representatives Steve Reynolds
Neville Skinner
SDF Representatives Neville Skinner
Steve
Reynolds
Social Officer As needed
Website Managers Ralph Richardson
Danny
Gibbins
Following the article by Helen Crawford
published in the May Newsletter the Committee decided that a letter of support
should be written to the various parties listed in Helen’s letter. This letter
is presented below.
Hon Jay Weatherill MP, 4th
May 2009
Minister for Environment
and Conservation,
Dept for Environment and
Heritage,
GPO Box 1047,
ADELAIDE, SA 5001
Email: minister.weatherill@saugov.sa.gov.au
Dear Sir,
Our Society supports Helen
Crawford’s letter, dated Tuesday 14th April 2009, to yourself,
as Minister for Environment and Conservation, re her concern about the dredging
of the O’Sullivan Beach Boat Launching facility.
We understand that as a
result of recent dredging in the vicinity of O’Sullivans Beach boat harbour, a
significantly large volume of dirty sand has been dumped directly on top of a
pristine living reef at O’Sullivan Beach. What was previously a permanent rock
pool has been completely filled with sand from this dredging of the nearby boat
launching marina.
The inner channels of the
coastal reef have been filled, to a depth of metres in some places, all the way
up to Port Stanvac. The large amount of sand that has filled the intertidal and
shallow sub-tidal zone (including complete filling of the previous permanent
rock pool), is now continuing its drift over the reef as tidal and wave action
carries it out further each day.
Such a situation should
never have been allowed to occur. We request an explanation as to how it was
allowed to occur. It must surely be in breach of current environmental
legislation.
Would you please look in
to the matter and do whatever you can to rectify the problems?
It is essential that such
an incident never be allowed to happen again.
Thanking you.
Yours sincerely
Neville Skinner pp Philip
Hall,
President
Marine Life Society of
South Australia
Cc:
Hon Patrick Conlon MP, Minister for Transport,
Infrastructure and Energy,
GPO Box 2969, ADELAIDE SA 5001.
Adrian Pederick MP, Shadow Minister for River Murray, Sustainability
& Climate Change, Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, 20 Mannum Road, Murray
Bridge SA 5253.
Mitch Williams MP, Shadow Minister for Water Security, Environment
& Conservation, Energy Security and Infrastructure, 30 Ormerod Street,
Naracoorte SA 5271.
Mark Parnell MLC, Greens member of the South Australian Legislative Council, Parliament
House, North Terrace, Adelaide SA 5000.
David Winderlich MLC, Leader Australian Democrats (SA), Parliament House, Adelaide SA 5000.
Lorraine Rosenberg, Mayor/Chairperson Onkaparinga Council, PO Box 1, Noarlunga Centre SA,
5168.
Helen Fulcher, Chief Executive of SA Environment Protection Authority, GPO Box 2607,
Adelaide 5001 SA.
Peter Pfennig, Principal Environment
Protection Officer, Marine Science and Sustainability Division, Environment
Protection Authority, GPO Box 2607, Adelaide SA
5001.
by Steve Reynolds
Alexius Sutandio
recently told me that when he went diving at the end of the Port Noarlunga
jetty on 19th March 2009, he spotted a pair of fish under the jetty on the
corner. These two fish were the same as one that he had seen two years earlier
when diving near the anchor at Port Noarlunga reef, but he hadn’t been able to
get a good photo of the fish. This time, however, he was able to get some good
shots of the pair under the jetty.
Alexius sent two photos to me in the hope that I
could ID the species for him. Here is one of them: -
Painted stinkfish, Eocallionymus
papilio (taken by Alexius Sutandio)
Alexius said
that he thought that the two fish looked a lot like mandarin fish and I had a
pretty good idea what he was talking about.
“The colour (is)
almost the same with the sand (camouflage). The body shape and the style when
(swimming) looks like mandarin fish but has different pattern (and) body
colour”, Alexius said in his own inimitable style
He asked me if I
knew anything about these fish. “They're a dragonet”, I told him, “a painted stinkfish, Eocallionymus
papilio. They're very nice photos of a beautiful
little fish. See page 341 of "Coastal Fishes of
south-eastern Australia"*.”
* (By Rudie H
Kuiter)
Alexius came
back to me saying, “Yes, this fish a little bit smaller, I think, if I compare
it with a mandarin fish. But still beautiful, although the colour and pattern
is not good, (un)like mandarin fish.”
To search for
the scientific name for mandarin fish, I visited
http://www.fishbase.org . I soon discovered
that there are actually many fish species with ‘mandarin’ and ‘mandarin fish’
in their common name (that’s why we need scientific names for fish species) but
I pretty well knew what I was looking for.
At
http://www.fishbase.org/summary/SpeciesSummary.phpid=12644
I found details regarding Synchiropus splendidus, the Mandarinfish.
This photo of the Mandarinfish was featured on the
web page.
Synchiropus splendidus, Mandarinfish
(Photographer:
Randall J.E.)
(Source: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=12644)
This was pretty
well what I was looking for, but there was a similar looking fish called Synchiropus picturatus,
the Picturesque dragonet. I found details regarding Synchiropus picturatus
at
http://www.fishbase.org/summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=12740.
This photo of the Picturesque dragonet was featured on
the web page.
Synchiropus picturatus, Picturesque dragonet
(Photographer:
Randall J.E.)
(Source: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=12740)
It seems, from these web pages, that mandarin fish
are dragonets themselves (Family Callionymidae), just like our painted stinkfish, Eocallionymus
papilio. Details regarding painted stinkfish, Eocallionymus
papilio, were found at
http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/speciesSummary.php?ID=14436&genusname=Eocallionymus&speciesname=papilio
. No photograph was available, however, so I submitted this photo of Alexius’s:
-
Painted stinkfish, Eocallionymus
papilio (taken by Alexius Sutandio)
“Coastal Fishes
of South-eastern Australia” by Rudie H Kuiter describes five species of
dragonet.
“World Atlas of
Marine Fishes”, also by Kuiter, along with Helmut Debelius, gives the
scientific name for the Picturesque dragonet as
Pterosynchiropus picturatus
and for the Mandarinfish as Pterosynchiropus splendidus.
It also says
that there are about 15 genera of dragonets and around 125 species worldwide.
It goes on to say that they are mostly cryptic sand-dwellers that are easily
overlooked. They feed on tiny crustaceans that are sucked up with their small
but expandable mouth.
A number of
species live on reefs. Some species are spectacularly coloured. Males are
larger than females. The authors of “World Atlas of Marine Fishes” seem to be
just discussing mandarinfishes when they state,
“Males display during spawning times on dusk and an individual usually courts
several females and successfully spawns every evening for several consecutive
days”.
My thanks to both
Alexius Sutandio and “FishBase” for their photographs
of dragonets and mandarinfish.
BIRGUS LATRO (The Coconut Crab)
by Steve Reynolds
I recently received two photos of Birgus latro, a highly apomorphic*
hermit crab found in the tropical
Indian and Pacific oceans. The two photos came to me via the SA
Recreation Fishing Advisory Council. They had been sent in to SARFAC by Carol
(& John?) – surname(s) unknown.
* (According to the web page found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apomorph, “A characteristic that occurs only
in later descendants is called an apomorphy
(meaning “separate form”, also called a “derived” state) for that group”.
Birgus latro is said to be the biggest terrestrial arthropod in the world. Belonging to
the family Coenobitidae, it is the only species of
the genus Birgus.
“A Field Guide To Crustaceans of Australian Waters” by Diana Jones and Gary
Morgan says, “Coenobitids include the world’s largest
hermit crab, the robber or coconut crab Birgus
latro, which no longer requires a gastropod shell
for protection. Birgus lives on Indian Ocean
and Pacific Ocean island but is not found in
Australia”.
It is known mainly as
the coconut crab due to the use of its strong pincers to crack coconuts and eat
the contents.
The strong pincers of a
coconut crab
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_crab)
Although coconut crabs can climb trees, they only
eat coconuts that have already fallen to the ground.
As mentioned above, Birgus latro is also known as the robber crab because some
crabs steal shiny items from homes. Another name given to them is terrestrial hermit
crab, due to the use of shells by the young animals. There are; however, other
terrestrial hermit crabs which do not get rid of the shell even as adults.
These are the animals usually called "terrestrial hermit crab".
The coconut crab’s
body is divided into four regions; the cephalic lobe, forepart, trunk, and opisthosoma. These four regions can clearly be seen in a
photo on page 125 of “A Field Guide To Crustaceans of
Australian Waters”.
Coconut crab meat has been considered a local delicacy. According to
Wikipedia at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_crab,
“The coconut crab, Birgus latro, is the largest land-living arthropod in the
world, and is probably at the upper limit of how big terrestrial animals with
exoskeletons can become. The species inhabits the coastal forest regions of
many Indo-Pacific islands, although localized extinction has occurred where the
crab is sympatric* with man.”
* (According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympatric_speciation
, “Sympatric and sympatry are terms
from biogeography, referring to organisms whose ranges overlap or are even
identical, so that they occur together at least in some places. If these
organisms are closely related (e.g. sister species), such a distribution may be
the result of sympatric speciation. Sympatric speciation is the genetic
divergence of various populations (from a single parent species) inhabiting the
same geographic region, such that those populations become different species.”
The web page found at
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_sympatric_speciation
says that sympatric speciation is “When there is no physical barrier, a
new species arises within the home range on an existing species.”)
Generally nocturnal, coconut crabs remain hidden
during the day and emerge only on some nights to forage. The large coconut crab shown below,
however, is seeking food from a rubbish bin during the daytime.
Coconut crab seeking food from a rubbish bin
(Source: fisherwy.blogspot.com/2007/09/robber-crab.html)
The coconut crab also has a range of local names, for example, ‘ayuyu’ on Guam and ‘unga’ or ‘kaveu’ in the Cook Islands. On Guam, it is sometimes referred to as a ‘taotaomo'na
coconut crab’ because of the traditional belief that ancestral spirits can return in the form of animals such as the coconut crab.”
Paul Macdonald also continues to
appear in our local newspapers.
Article courtesy Yorke Peninsula
Country Times, Kadina, South Australia
