Understanding, enjoying and caring for our oceans
Whilst diving at the old Rapid Bay Jetty on 25th October I saw the first decent aggregation of the Great Spider Crab, Leptomithrax gaimardii that I’ve seen for some years now. There were probably more than 200 crabs seen by us today, and there would have been more outside our […]
Canopy algae are a major component of Blue Carbon fixation. Whilst diving at The Bluff (Rosetta Head) on 27th October 2022, I found this Western Pacific Purple Sea Urchin, Heliocidaris erythrogramma: – I have posted it on iNaturalist, along with the following details, at https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/140727962 . Overall, I saw relatively […]
This is an old low, resolution slide scan of an adult tubemouth, Siphonognathus argyrophanes, likely being cleaned by some pencil weed whiting among the Posidonia under the eastern arm of the T-section of the old outer Rapid Bay jetty in around October 1992: – (The photo is suggestive but not […]
This large sponge in the Darwin Art Gallery and Museum reminds me of how prawn trawling decimated our SA gulfs soft bottom habitats and meadows: – I also think about Smith Bay (on Kangaroo Island) and the huge old green coral colony* there, the survival of which has uncanny shades […]
I see similarities between the recent and seemingly quite rapidly escalating decline in Port River dolphin numbers and the continuing extinction trend in the bushland birds of Adelaide and the Mount Lofty Ranges. Ornithologists have been saying for decades that the many smaller, specialised birds (such as robins, flycatchers, tree-creepers […]
I wanted to do a shallow sub-tidal snorkel at the cliff base at Carrickalinga. I was able to do a shore entry via a walking track from the North Bay car park. This location has been part of a Green Sanctuary Zone in the Carrickalinga Cliffs MPA since 2014. (Personal […]
Dear Sir/Madam/Staff Concerned, I, as Secretary of the Marine Life Society of South Australia Inc. (hereafter MLSSA Inc) ,with the President and Committee’s unanimous support, do hereby provide our position statement concerning KIPT’s Smith Bay K.I proposal for a deep water port facility. MLSSA Inc, as the only incorporated not-for-profit […]
This photo was taken at Rapid Bay between the old and new jetties: The fish in the background, behind the adult Castelnau’s (aka Pretty polly) wrasse, is an older, juvenile Bridled leatherjacket. The leatherjacket is over a seagrass meadow, predominantly Amphibolis (aka ‘wireweed’). The Bridled leatherjacket is one of our […]
This photo of the Normanville SLSC was taken from the “Syngnathid Hotspot” site: – Normanville SLSC (Taken by David Muirhead) ‘Syngnathid Hotspot’ (colloquial term only) is that area of shallow sand and seagrass directly off of the Normanville SLSC (roughly a hectare in total area and max depth is 5m […]
I recently collected a small congolli that I found effectively ‘belly up’. The small congolli effectively ‘belly up’ (Taken by David Muirhead) Actually, it was lying on its side, on the shallow bottom towards one sandy rubbly bank of the moderately briskly outflowing but very narrow rivulet. The small congolli lying on its side, […]