New Caledonia, South Pacific, End of September 2022
Out on the blue lagoon, we love spending time watching the natural scenes surrounded, above and beneath the salty ocean surface...
Underwater, there is an endless variety of marine life to observe and it is always so interesting to see the many different behaviours, which so often are about finding food and not to be eaten...
Feather Starfish are a common sight in the lagoon, these special creatures are passive suspension feeders, filtering plankton from the surrounding sea water with their feather-like arms…
... meanwhile the spotted eagle rays use their flattened snout to dig into the sandy bottom. Oftentimes their prey is buried in the sand, which the rays dislodge and capture.
This species of eagle ray has a specialised v-shaped tooth structure helping it to crush mollusks' hard shells, they also like to feed on crustaceans, such as crabs and shrimps, as well as small fish.
The cute and tiny green chromis forms large feeding aggregations above branching corals, where they feed on plankton, algae, and crustaceans, as well as finding a valuable home and shelter.
Sea kraits are semiaquatic, spending time both on land and in the sea.
They hunt underwater, where we see them actively looking for
food among the corals. These venomous, but nonaggressive, creatures are
known to feed on moray eels, conger eels, squid, crabs, and fish.
The trumpet fish on the other hand stalks its prey by hovering almost motionlessly, often in a vertical, head-down position, waiting for its prey to get closer... It too like small fish and crustaceans.
Once close enough, it rapidly dart in, capturing the prey by suddenly expanding its tube-like mouth, which generates a suction strong enough to draw in their prey.
Big or small, underwater or on land, so much there is to observe, learn from and get fascinated about in wonderful nature!
