Mellow Yellow

A Yellow-lipped sea krait (Laticauda colubrina, family ELAPIDAE) poked prodded and slithered its way across and under shallow corals off Gaya island. Reserving its deadly venom for small fishes and invertebrates, it ignored me. It's was my first ever sighting of this species and if my air supply wasn't borderline, I'd have given it more of my attention. The day was the 4th of April 2009, a day with enough else of interest to report that I'm sorry I can't dawdle:

It ended with my first sighting of the elusive but iconic and brightly coloured Dragonet Synchiropus splendidus soon before finally surfacing; it began with a first sighting of the weird and camouflaged Flathead Platycephalus indicus (save for flashes of bright yellow in its tail when disturbed). In between I counted another 6 new species for my TARP Fishes list (now sitting at 423; the TARP collaborative list will then read 548 confirmed + 4 probables when I update it): Gobies Amblygobius nocturnus, Cryptocentrus caeruleomaculatus, Mahidolia mystacina, and the astonishingly beautiful Cryptocentrus leptocephalus; Blenny Salarius guttatus; lastly (with a rather poor photo) a juvenile specimen of Wrasse Halichoeres podostigma.

As well as some improved pictures for several old fish friends, some new colour phase fishes also presented themselves for inspection: the juvenile Boxfish Ostracion cubicus and the Dottyback Pseudochromis fuscus (both bright yellow); also a juvenile of Scolopsis margaritifera sporting its second set of colours (along with the first, they mimic different poison-fanged members of the Blenny genus Meiacanthus only one of which I have seen meaning the other is probably around somewhere in the Park yet to be discovered).

Incidentally, since posting information about my last dive in February, I have been able to identify a fish from back then which had been vexing me: Glassfish Ambassis miops.