OK guys, I need help here. I took a picture of something ugly enough to be my brother or sister. Can one of you guys ID it?? The picture was taken during a night dive at something special last June. I can not ID it, but I'm getting curious. More pictures will follow later.

Looks like a Scorpion Fish to me.. We saw some when we were down there... I'm pretty sure that's what it is..

Bob photographed a weird creature on that dive too, sort of resembling you, not your brother! j/k [Brit, that means just kidding, right?] He's at work but I'll get him to find it later and post it. I think it's the same thing! :-)

See email too.
Niki

Niki, Now that you mentioned it, it might be the same dive, we were not far apart and he hung out around the same spot as I did for a while. I just can not stand the fact I can not find the little thing anywhere in books. (no mail received... )

Brittany, I was thinking crocodile fish, but there is no dorsel fin... I'll have a look at the scorpion fish in the books.

Niki, It's there.

When we first saw the image we were puzzled. Not a typical scorpion fish... [Jake, want to move this to the Diving topic?]

That was the place to post it, you're right. Sorry Jake, but can (and will) you move this tread to the correct place??

So, Martin, you found it in the book? What is it?

Brittany, don't think it is a scorpion fish...no dorsal fin like Martin noted, and no sign of pectoral fins (unless this beautfiul creature has them tucked under the body) plus the "nodules" on the side are odd too...

a sleeping bandtail puffer?

It looks like a puffer to me. It's got spines, too, right?!

Bandtail puffer - page 383 in Humann's bk?

GMTA! Whoops - sorry Linda - duped ya! It reminded me of a sharpnosed puffer and I wound up on the same page. LOL

Cynde, I was trying to say the e-mail was there...

Linda, the book I looked at, had a picture where i saw pectoral fins on the bandtail puffer, but I'm not sure if there are any on the picture I took. I'll be looking into the books again later this evening and check the pictures again...

Tear along dotted line to open?

LOL Rusty! Ok, the milky white slime is a coating for sleeping? Bandtail Puffer PJ's???

Okay I spent a while looking and here's what I decided

1) A Mushroom? Scorpionfish - although it should have dark margins on the edges of the pectoral, soft dorsal, anal, and tail fins - I can see that on the tail fin but don't see it on the pectoral and I don't see an anal fin at all. The biggest plus to this being it in my mind is the length of slope between the eyes and the mouth. A negative to this being it is the mushroom scorpion is small 3" max (you didn't mention its size) - All in all I have to believe it's some kind of scorpion fish. Kind of odd that I can't find any scorpion fish that looks smooth as this one does though.

To some degree it also looks bit like a toad fish (perhaps an oyster toadfish) The big issue here is toad fish are rare in the Caribbean and the slope between the eyes and mouth is all wrong.

I know it's a "scorpion mushroom toad fish" TADA!

Cheers,
Alan

How about an octopus or a squid pretending to be a fish? It sure looks like a row of suckers along the bottom.

ooohhhh....Linnea, you may be on to something...I saw a special on the mimic octopus, but it is only located in the South Pacific...mutant puffer/scorpion/octopus???

you forgot to add toad/squid/crocodile to that list
LaDonna

oops, Alan, didn't mean to leave your theory out

Cute article and photo of a Bandtail in NC:

http://www.reef.org/member/forum/articles/puffer.htm

Really cute story, thanks for finding it, Rusty!

That sure looks like the ID...

Thanx Rusty, I think you guys ID-ed the correct one...

Count me in as another vote for bandtail puffer. Great job Linda and Rusty

Alan

looks like a scorpion to me...placement of eye, overall shape and size...i saw this one land on the "rock" so i know it was a scorpion...



???

;)

Hey. I saw a fishy like that with a big head, and it had spines too. Trev said if reminded him of a Bullhead. Didn't have the camera at the time. Sods law that is. Annie B.

Is it this guy sleeping?

I vote for bandtail puffer too...check out this photo...

Bandtail puffer

check out this one, when he's "puffed up!"

http://www.newsday.com/other/special/naturalworld/ny-nw-tropicalfishgallery,0,4575497.photogallery?index=8

another good link:

Bandtail Puffer

sponge, no "wings" on the bandtail puffer, such as the scorpionfish has. smoother texture too.. face it. you're outnumbered. ;-)

Niki, I think sponge will go down in flames before he admits it is a bandtail puffer

Hmm.. I'll have to change my vote to Bandtail Puffer as well. Sorry spongebob, I think you're the only one left...

I'll chime in here at the end and vote for the Bandtail also. We saw numerous Scorpion Fish in the Caymans years ago, and they were much rougher in texture.

Bandtail Puffer here too!

Sleeping with his pj's of course, which is what I should be doing right now.

Gosh! It's been so long. I've missed BT!

ok...maybe...the additional puffer pics do help;)

(i don't have the ID books)

;)

I'll go also for the bandtail puffer , always easy when checking the posts later....
Still it's funny those suckers under the body....

This pic is a checkered puffer. Maybe the sucker looking things are the toxic areas???

I think Bruce wins the prize!!

Not a checkered puffer. The website that image came from is a photographer's so not necesarily an expert on fish id.

I tried http://www.fishbase.org and found very similar pictures under the Bandtail. The Checkered does not have the very distinctive row of dark and light dots forming a band horizontally.

To add to what Linda has already said... The checkered Puffer is rare or absent on coral reefs and the pectoral fins (at least in the pcitures I can find) are very obvious (usually brown/olive but distinctive from the rest of it's body) In the picture Martin posted you almost can't see any pectoral fins and I think that's because the Bandtails pectoral fins are basically clear.

I'm sticking with the Bandtail. LOL This is fun.

Alan

Alan, I could post some more stuff, I think the response here is great (as always... )

Alan, Martin...I agree...Martin, post more UBSC's (Unidentified Bonaire Swimming Critters)...stimulate our lazy brains!

Oh, it's a bandtail all right. I was just showing the suckers on the other species. Since they are cousins, they may have the same type of pectorals. Maybe they use those things for finding prey in the sand. Or, maybe I shouldn't assume (we all know where that'll get you)

My yearly post of this mystery - taken 2 1/2 years ago and still one of the oddest images I have seen on the Bonaire web cams.

Good one Alan, I remember that one...OK, I have no idea...at first I thought maybe and egg stream of some sort???

Easy. Salp chain, must be breeding time for them.

yep, that was the consensous before Linnea. Just never had seen one in person or even a picture like that before.

Tonight, Bob will send me his photo of the (same?) bandtail puffer to post.

Hi Alan, by the way, long time no see. I knew it was decided that it was a chain of something breeding, but salp isn't in my current vocabulary.... :-)

Hi Niki et al,

I still check in at least daily. Kind of been lurking, you know the "better to remain silent and look foolish then to open your mouth and remove all doubt" ;-) Just kidding, great people here and over on the "chat" board. Always enjoy the discussions here.

Alan

salp chain? link please

Picture and short description

video of one

Lots of pictures

Alan

Doh - got my descriptions mixed up (see - remove foolish doubt)LOL It's a start anyway. A search of "salp chain" in yahoo will give you a bunch of links.

LOL Alan, I know what you mean exactly! :-) Oh, well.

OH! Great links, especially the video!! What an interesting phenomenon!! It is bigger than I thought!

Thanks Alan, I was just too lazy (and busy) to do the search. I couldn't get the video to work I saw some of these (much smaller) on a trip to Catalina last October. They were all over the place in the water and we were trying to figure out what they were! Now I have another mystery solved!

Salps are pretty common in New England waters in the fall. They come in right about the same time the water starts clearing up a bit. Dunno if the two phenomena are related...

Faith

Faith, interesting, last October the water was really really clear...

Thread moved from the WebCams topic, where it definitely did not belong...

Thanks Jake, and now for Bob's contribution:

Martin, I've got a feeling it's the same fish from the same night, because the markings on the snout are so similar, and the spacing of the black bands... Neat! :-)

I agree, Niki. Now you can also see that there are no suckers, but just white 'spots'

Jake, my appologies for placing it in the wrong section.

Niki, It must have been the same fish. Bob was about 15-25 meters away, and he did stop at that spot as well. The thing I remembered best was starting in the first group with Cecil as my buddy and ending up (with a dead battery in my dive light) next to you as a buddy. And you started in the second group... Strange....

Martin you didn't keep up with the guide. Ellen our guide was a kicking that night, we almost ended up in town. I'd show you my picture of that fish but my psychic abilities are not up to being photographed (it was on the lost stick).

Niki, great pic. I can see the "transparent" pectoral fins on yours...very kewl gang!

Cecil, "always stay with the slowest of the group" isn't that a basic rule in diving???

Then you should have been with Niki and maybe you would have seen the octopus.

And he would have provided the camera!

Martin, I also remember well your appearance later in the dive, a surprise shadow at my port side, your light only staying on for a half a second at a time. The moonlight and the twinkling phosphorescence lighting your way! And Benny freezing his a** but bravely diving until I said enough!

I want to go back!

Me too... Let's just do it...

Niki,

Someone was cold before you??!? Or were you just braver?? :–)

Glen, someone was cold almost before the dive... But, I must admit, he didn't complain and finished the dive...

Glen, you haven't been diving with me since I upgraded to 7mil full suit and hood. ! :-) I can dive in comfort with nary a shiver! Next June you can see for yourself!

Sounds good, Niki. both.

Mimicry.

Actually Cynde, there is a species of mimic octopus in the Caribbean.

Bud

Bud, really? Do you know what part of the Caribbean? The show on Discovery that had this mimic octopus off the coasts of Sulawesi and Bali in Indonesia , this guy spent almost 2 months trying to find it. Only locals had actually seen it, and on the last couple of days of his trip they actually found it. I had thought they said that it was the only place to find one. Nice to know there are others out there!

Here is a good link to the story about it:
Mimic Octopus.

Hi,
I would suggest what you have photographed is a Strippled Clingfish (Gobiesox Punctulatus). P.709 Fishes of the Bahamas 1970 by Bohlke and Chaplin. This of course depends on the size. They grow to about 2.5 inches. Let me have your thoughts...

Hi all, the picture on the top of this page should indeed be a bandtail puffer. It looks a lot like the checkered puffer too, but if you look at the differences on page 383 and 384 of Paul Human's book, you'll see that the bandtail has two bands on his tail, while the tail of the checkered is one color. On the photo it's difficult to see, but he has two bands. The second picture on the page though, is 'just a' scorpionfish. I believe all the others are bandtails as well. Don't know about the mystery picture. I've seen jellyfish in that shape, but not that big!!! (luckily).