On a recent dive on Blackbeard’s Treasure Hole, the site we would like to see set up as a very small ”Marine Protected Area” ( link http://oceanfoxcottonbay.com/blog/needed-marine-…-for-eleuthera/ ) we encountered a rather friendly Smooth Trunk Fish, which is a species of boxfish. Beautiful creatures with a rather awkward shape, especially for a fish. It does not look like a box at all, rather an angular body triangular in shape with a narrow top and wide flat base.
A generally solitary fish, but sometimes moves in small groups. The fish has a pointed snout with protuberant lips encircling or creating a small mouth. Average size is about 8″ but can be as large as 19″.
The tail is shaped like a brush with the general back ground color being dark with a pattern of small white spots, often in hexagonal groups, producing a honeycomb like appearance in the middle of the body. The snout, bottom and the area around the pectoral fins are dark with few spots along with very dark eyes.
The fish uses its protuberant lips to expel jets of water to “excavate” or disturb the bottom in search of molluscs, worms, crustaceans and sponges. With good buoyancy control, you can just hang in the water and observe the feeding until you are ready to move on or the fish is tired of being watched and swims off.
After watching the Smooth Trunk fish for a while, it got either curious or irritated, and swam right up to the camera, looked into the lens and went back to looking for food.
The Smooth Trunk Fish, one of many enjoyable species found on Blackbeard’s Treasure Hole. The reef has 19 different species of coral along with numerous tropical fish and other marine creatures. Coral reefs, like this one, deliver ecosystem services to tourism, fisheries and provide shoreline protection. Coral reefs are fragile ecosystems which are sensitive to water temperature and are under threat from climate change, oceanic acidification and overuse of reef resources (i.e. over fishing).
,,,”Ocean Fox Cotton Bay diving……..passionate about preserving our marine environment”
