Observation of the Week 2016-10-23

Marine invertebrates seen by dougperrine off of Hawaii are our Observations of the Week!

Noted underwater photographer Doug Perrine recently posted quite a few pictures taken during a “blackwater dive” off the Kona coast of Hawaii this month, and they are absolutely stunning, so I thought I’d feature all of them this week.

“These dives date back to a National Geographic magazine assignment given to staff photographer Bill Curtsinger to document the vertical migration of plankton off of Kona, Hawaii, where volcanic mountains plunge deeply into the sea, resulting in water depths of thousands of meters just a few kilometers offshore,” Doug tells me. “Curtsinger hired a local diver / budding underwater photographer named Christopher Newbert as his assistant, and the two of them spent countless hours offshore, initially using a plexiglass cage photographing the myriad bizarre creatures that migrate to the surface at night.”

Soon, most of the dive companies in Hawaii began to offer these dives, and for experienced divers they’ve become quite popular, since divers almost always see animals they’ve never come across before. “People often compare doing one of these dives to taking a trip to outer space. (Or innerspace. One guide says, "it’s like the ‘60s, but without the hangover"),” says Doug. “I love seeing and photographing bizarre animals that I’ve never seen before (or, in some cases, that nobody has ever seen before).” For instance, the Tremoctopus gracilis pictured above is carrying the broken-off tentacles of a Portuguese Man o’ War, which it uses for defense. And, well, I’ll let The Oatmeal tell you about the amazingness of Mantis shrimps, like the larval one below, which Doug photographed.

“Since very few people are able to see marine wildlife in person, my job is to expose them to the beauty of these animals, help them to understand some of the science surrounding them (i.e. act as a translator for the scientists doing the actual research) and hopefully get them to care about, and want to protect, marine wildlife,” says Doug. “I use iNaturalist as a way to share my photographs with scientists researching those subjects, and to enlist their help in getting my subjects identified. Most of my professional experience is with charismatic megafauna, so I know my marine mammals, sharks, and sea turtles pretty well, but plankton is way outside my realm of expertise...it means so much more to me if I can find out what they are, and what they’re doing.”

- by Tony Iwane


- Doug’s photos are represented by www.SeaPics.com, and you can also check out his photoshelter gallery.

- Sweet, sweet blackwater dive footage off of Kona.

- Doug wrote an article about blackwater diving for CNN, and here it is.

- More about amazing Mantis shrimps.

Posted on August 5, 2020 03:59 AM by hannahsun99 hannahsun99

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