After a number of dive trips to the Red Sea and Asia, now is the time to visit Bonaire. I really look forward to being able to allocate diving time to subjects of my own interest rather than of a whole dive groups interest, which is the common dive plan on most other locations I have visited. One of my main interests is partner gobies or shrimp gobies and their behaviour. As far as I understand, there is one "real" shrimp goby on Bonaire, the orange spotted goby. It is really hard to find any information on the distribution of this goby on Bonaire. Does anyone know of any dive site on Bonaire where this goby is common?

Regards

Bent C

hey bent
this is my first post also.
your best bet for orangespotted gobies
are the rubble and sand areas of yellow submarine and something special. sand at bari reef possible also
matt

From the Humann book this is the Goby that works with the snapping shrimp who digs and maintains the burrow and the goby warns of danger with tail movements telling the shrimp to retreat into the burrow.

I have seen this symbiotic relationship but can't place where.

Matt and Bent welcome to BT.

Bent now that is an unfortunate name for a diver.

Hi Brian

That is correct. In most of Asia and in the Red sea, this goby-shrimp relationship can be seen almost everywhere there is a reasonable amount of sand and coral rubble, often in very shallow areas. However, it is kind of hard to spot them initially. The first time I saw them was when I asked a dive master if he please could point out a pair for me on any of a weeks dives? He looked at me kind of like "What????" and continued during the week to point out literally hundreds of pairs. It turned out that they were everywhere, and this was an area I had been diving in quite some times without seeing the gobies and shrimp. The trick of finding them is to look for the burrow, which often is quite easy to find, and then go on to search for the animals them selves.

I agree, my name could certainly be more appropriate for a diver. During the last 4-5 years I have worked professionally with diving, running some coral reef ecology tours in the Red Sea. As I am not a native English speaker, the horrified looks on the customers faces when I presented my self during the first day of the course with "I´m Bent and I am going to be responsible for your week here on board" initially took me by surprise! So now I am very careful with the phrasing, that is "My name is Bent" instead! Works much better.

I have seen them in Indonesia and other places and I am sure in Bonaire as well. I would ask the DM's we did a course with Karen pearson (was at Carib Inn last year) and she had us looking at symbiotic relationships and I sure that was one we found.

It would be a funny scene after a dive saying to the DM "Hi I'm Bent, what we do next".

Also welcome to BT Matt and Bent. If you want rubble then dive Eden Beach, just premo rubble and lots and lots of bleenies and shrimp. I think I have seen gobies hanging out in shrimp holes there. This is the only place I have seen snapping shrimp.

Thanks guys for the suggestions. It sounds as if they are not that rare at Bonaire. I wasn´t able to find any specific info while googling, so I was afraid that they weren´t present in the area.

I have a couple of pictures of the interaction (different goby and probably different shrimp) from my early Red Sea UW-photography days, http://www.pbase.com/borneobent/image/53315022. I am now looking forward to have more or less unlimited time in Bonaire with the animals.

Ok...I've seen this down south in the shallows on the way out to the first reef. According to my log book, Invisibles and Alice in Wonderland for certain. I tend to really focus on the sand going out and coming back and have found it by finding the shrimp and waiting patiently. They are there.