Jig-a-jigjig of the Baby Sweetlips




May 2007. My first dive in Anilao, Batangas for the last leg of our research expedition last summer got me a video of this baby Plectorhincus chaetodonoides, a kind of sweetlips (you know they're sweetlips because they have very big lips :P). They look very different when they grow up, yellow with black spots like a leopard, but when they're young, they look as if they're wearing this spotted dress and swim as if they're dancing like crazy! One theory is that they try to imitate the poisonous flatworm so that they won't get eaten. I think they're just amusing haha.

Comments

  1. josrique garciaOctober 6, 2007 at 12:48 PM

    hey how do you get the color right...did you get a new camera?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jeneen GarciaOctober 7, 2007 at 7:39 AM

    nope. unless you want to buy me a new one ;) hope to talk to you again soon, jo :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jemi AquinoOctober 12, 2007 at 12:55 AM

    can you imagine someone calling you sweetlips?
    wouldn't know if it was a compliment or an insult.
    though it kinda sounds cutie.
    the creature looks like a wad of colourful toilet paper, one with a mind of its own.

    hehehe,
    jemi

    ReplyDelete

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