Mandarinfish Mating

A Loving Couple

On the search for a mate

   Mission accomplished! Ever since first seeing a photo of a rare fish called a mandarinfish, (Synchiropus splendidus), I have wanted to see one for myself. I had high hopes for seeing them in Lembeh, Indonesia last year but both Heidi and I came down with sickness that kept us from scheduling a mandarin dive. That just made me double my efforts at my next dive destination, the Philippines. I wasn't sure where in the Philippines these fish could be seen but I committed myself to the mission.

 First a little about the mandarinfish and why it is such a rare fish to encounter. It lives in tropical waters in the Pacific, and is a bottom dweller spending most of its time hiding in rubble or coral. One might think that their bright colors would make them easy to spot but their small size, about 6 centimeters, makes it tougher still. The best time to find and take a photo of these timid fish is right after sunset. This is when the larger males chase after smaller females culminating in a slow trance-like rise off the bottom, and then a simultaneous jet of sperm and eggs followed by a dashing plunge back into the safety of the rubble.

  So I knew when to see them, and I found out that they can be found in both Puerto Galera and Malapascua, now the trick was trying to get a photo. This is the hard part. Becoming good at underwater photography is mostly learning how to take photos in dim lighting conditions, since light is absorbed fairly quickly by water. And this is in the middle of the day. As the sun is setting the lighting conditions get very difficult unless you have a good flashlight for your camera to focus with. Providing your own light makes taking underwater pictures at night very rewarding, but the problem faced with these mandarinfish is that they are timid, and shyer still when you shine a light on them. So the divemaster bring a weak yellow light that is less likely to spook the fish, but he doesn't shine it on them until they start rising up in their mating ritual. Which means I have at most 3 seconds to get a focus lock and snap a picture before the fish disappear. It took some practice but by my second mandarin dive here in Malapascua I was ready.

Puerto Galera mandarinfish

It is only fitting that one of the most beautiful fish in the ocean is also one of the hardest to photograph. It just makes the final experience more rewarding. These are a few pictures that I managed from Puerto Galera and Malapascua Island here in the Philippines.