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The brass section of the reef
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Posted - Friday, August 03, 2012 11:36 AM EDT
Tim Grollimund
A trumpetfish blends with the background. (Photo by Tim Grollimund)
When you are on the reef, do you ever feel like the entire range of your vision is a well-orchestrated, finely tuned symphony of behaviors splashed with vibrant color that flows endlessly around the planet? I do. So snicker at me if you’d like, I’m okay with that.
Today I will introduce you the brass section of this symphony. My affinity for trumpets and cornets goes back to my school days when I was a player — in the band. I was a lousy third chair cornet player. I quit when I got into high school and the marching band had to practice at 7 a.m. That did it for me. One football season of early morning practice and wearing those ridiculous puffy hats every Friday night signaled my demise in the music world. Just wasn’t meant to be. Glad I stuck with baseball.
When I see a trumpetfish on the reef, I have a lot of respect. They are all first chair, or they would not survive. Snapper Ledge has more trumpets per square foot of reef than any place I have ever seen. Maybe we should rename it Doc Severinsen Reef. Or at least Herb Albert Alley. For those of you with ages that begin with a number less than 5, you probably won’t relate to those names. But the band plays on, and the brass section on our reef seems to be quite strong.
Trumpet fish are part of the Syngnathiformes family. Don’t fret, I can’t pronounce it either. It’s actually quite a large group. Cousins include seahorses, pipefish, sea dragons, shrimpfish and sea moths. Bony exteriors and small tube-like mouths are characteristics of syngnathids. Like seahorses, trumpetfish males carry the eggs. A great summary page is here:http://www.fusedjaw.com/biology/meet-the-strange-syngnathiformes/
The scientific name actually translates as “flute mouth,” which makes more sense to me than the trumpet or cornet appellations. Based on that, what would a trombone fish look like? Maybe its dorsal fin would slide back and forth as a defense mechanism or mating attraction.
They are capable of quick color changes. I have plenty of images of them in their normal brassy brown color, but the yellow and blue phases are spectacular when they choose to display them. I have seen the yellow phase more often than the blue phase. Camouflage for hunting is believed to be a main prompt for color changes. Trumpetfish hunt using two main techniques — ambush and shadow. Either method can be quite entertaining. When you see a trumpetfish head-down and vertically nestled in a gorgonian or sea whip, ambush mode is on. Watch long enough and you may see it pounce on prey swimming below.
The other method, shadowing, was recently studied by the CIEE Research Station Bonaire. Leslie Baehr of the University of Colorado spent two months snorkeling the shallow reefs and docks in Bonaire, chronicling the behavior of trumpetfish. Tough duty, but hey, for two months in Bonaire, I’d suffer through it, too.
They are very quick, and I have not been able to get an image of the pounce yet. Even getting an image with an open mouth is difficult. It’s hard to believe they can fit much of anything in there. Their diet consists mainly of chromis, tomtates, grunts, squirrelfish, goatfish and blennies.
Baehr found that trumpetfish in the yellow phase tend to hang around schools of grunts, and use the ambush technique rather than shadowing to hunt. For the larger brown phase participants, they rarely shadowed, but stayed close to the pilings and used the ambush technique.
Shadowing was most often used by the medium-sized brown and blue phase fish. Parrotfish were the preferred companions for shadowing. Although Baehr names several parrotfish species as “shadowees,” the midnight parrotfish was not on her list. I have seen that on our reefs more often than other species, and in all cases it was a large brown phase rather than the mid-sized animals. And last weekend I saw one shadowing a Nassau grouper, but could not get a quality shot.
It might be interesting to document feeding behavior on different reef configurations in addition to a confined area dominated by man-made structures. I’d love to do that here, but since I’m not a scientist, I don’t think I’d get the grant. See page 15 of the study at http://www.cieebonaire.org/downloads/Physisvolume2.pdf
As many trumpetfish as there are around, their cousins, the cornetfish, are uncommon to rare in these waters. I have only seen them below 50 feet. The REEF identification book notes they also hang out in the seagrass beds and patch reefs. On the Florida Museum of Natural History website I found a reference to cornetfish being natural predators of cleartail lionfish in the Red Sea. Wouldn’t it be nice if that was happening here?
In my most recent experience with cornetfish, I saw two on one dive. The first one had a small remora trying to attach itself, but I could not get close enough for a shot. Then out of nowhere a second, larger cornetfish appeared. He sat motionless and allowed me to get fairly close. I have never met one that was stationary. They have always been quite elusive and shy. It was at the end of the dive, so I could not stay long, but all the same I was very pleased with the encounter.
The next time you are on the reef, tune in to the brass section and be greatly entertained.
Tim Grollimund is a freelance photographer and PADI divemaster based in Key Largo. He can be reached at tim@timgimages.com or through his web site at www.timgimages.com. Tim is actively involved with the Coral Restoration Foundation and the Aquarius Foundation.