My Best Sipadan Underwater Photos

September 10th, 2010

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Posted on Nov 18 in Diving, Diving in Sipadan, Malaysia Exploration, Sipadanby ShelynPrint

It’s indeed very sad. I only have 3 photos that I seriously feel proud to show off. And 3 of them are actually the same object.

Now that I feel a bit embarrassed to boast about my photos. But who cares, I earnestly love them.

The photo below is of a pair of Clown Anemonefish (Amphiprion ocellaris) with their host anemone (probably Heteractis magnifica). To the untrained eye the anemone looks like a plant, but is actually an animal that hosts unicellular algae within its tentacles and oral disc. A portion of the sugars produced by these algae during photosynthesis are consumed by the host anemone. The shallow waters of a coral reef are ideal settings for this complex relationship between algae, anemone, and anemonefish, provided the water is clear and free of pollution, allowing sunlight to reach the anemone.

Common (Ocellaris) clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) in their Magnificent sea anemone.

I didn’t expect this quality at all. I guess it might be the anemone fish is more photogenic, nothing about my skill :-p

Anyway, since I am posting anemone photo, might as well explain a bit about sea anemone.

There are known to be 28 different species of anemonefish, and over 1000 different species of sea anemone, although only 10 species of sea anemone are known to host anemonefish. They are relatively small fish, never more than a few inches in length.

Anemonefish have a special symbiotic relationship with sea anemones. Normally, the nematocysts (stinging cells) of an anemone’s tentacles would discharge when the fish brushed against the tentacles, paralyzing the fish. But anemonefish appear to be at home among the tentacles, even hiding among them as predators approach.

There are many theories concerning the mechanism that makes this possible, but the most widely held view is that the anemonefish has a special biochemical makeup to its mucus layer that somehow provides protection from the deadly stinging cells (to the fish, but only an irritant to human skin).

~ Description source from http://www.divegallery.com/clowngal.htm ~

Anemones are very common under the sea, I saw them in most of the dive sites and I didn’t really bother to snap any photo of them. The 3 pictures above are the only anemone pictures that I took and I didn’t expect them to be so good quality. I was so excited the moment I saw the photos and I was like… FINALLY… after worn out of viewing all the crappy photos that I took.

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Entry Details: This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 11:18 am, by Shelyn, and is filed under Diving, Diving in Sipadan, Malaysia Exploration, Sipadan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Print This!

2 Comments

shloke says:

November 19, 2008 at 2:55 am

Wah! Lots of scientific facts there! Good job! I wonder if Nemo is around the vicinity

By the way, thanks for dropping some comments on my blog. I stumbled upon this traveler blog – very impressive. A Singaporean traveling around the world. Feel free to check out his blog. I get my inspiration from that blog:

http://travel-and-photography.blogspot.com/

cheers!
mylo
ELC says:

December 26, 2009 at 5:25 pm

A thoughtful insight and ideas I will use on my blog. You’ve obviously spent some time on this. Well done!