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a guitarfish, a creature where the lines between stingray and shark has been blurred
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date: 24/3/2009
Author:Nick Brennan
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Weather: Sunny | Air Temp: 27.4°C | Wind: SE 20/25 knots | Water Temp: 25°C | Water Visibility: ~10 m | Sea State: Chop
Today the manta rays were back … Our morning divers were fortunate to see one of these graceful giants at Light house bommie today. It swooped onto a cleaning station to be serviced by a small armada of fish before cruising back off out of visibility. The divers also came across a guitarfish, which is a creature where the lines between stingray and shark has been blurred and it sort of takes on both body plans. It was quite a large one too and was an interesting discovery for the divers. Looking closer at the reef one diver spotted a brightly coloured mantis shrimp was foraging through the stag horn coral. It capped off an amazing morning in the water.
The Glass bottom boats came across a very large male loggerhead turtle. Guests were interested to know how the guide could tell it was a male. It’s easy! Males have tails! He was quite happy to be approached by the guests and for most of them it was their first experience with a turtle which made it absolutely thrilling. Guests were also fascinated by the big eyed trevally which was schooling in a giant tornado over a patch of sand just off second reef.
In the evening guests came to the dangerous marine creatures presentation in the education centre. They enjoyed the great pictures taken by our staff and learnt about some of the fascinating organisms found here at Lady Elliot. After hearing about cone shells during the presentation one man brought out a beautiful court cone shell that he had found during the day. It was perfectly in tact and was an amazing specimen. With the guide they looked through a species identification book and learnt that this cone shell is one of the most dangerous and it is very rare to find making the discovery all the more spectacular.
After a big day of learning everybody was exhausted and hit the hay after a beautiful day on our coral cay.
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Manta - Nick Brennan
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