We are hovering over the shallow bottom of the black volcanic sand on the Atlantis House Reef. It is February, on a gorgeous sunny day, and our dive guide points out a half coconut husk lying face down on the bottom; we carefully approach as he flips the coconut husk using his pointer stick. Hundreds of tiny, semi transparent whitish eggs are inserted in between the husk cracks.
Diving with the great whites off the coast of South Africa definitely produced adrenalin in levels I have never experienced, but diving around tiny venomous critters puts a cognitive twist on this thrill. “Should I be fearing you, you tiny little thing?” you find yourself asking the first Blue Ring Octopus (Hapalochlaena lunulata) you meet: 12-20cm in length, it is lethal to men, carrying enough venom to kill 26 adult humans by causing respiratory depression and paralysis. If you didn’t know anything of it, you’d just go about your dive, but knowing it, and seeing how fast these tiny ones move, does create that nice thrilling rush in your body.
Collectively speaking, the world’s approximately 600 species of octopuses, squids, cuttlefishes and nautiluses are known as cephalopods. Types of mollusks, the members of this class are considered to be the most intelligent of all invertebrates, and when you watch them “do their thing”, it is hard to argue against that assessment.
From a distance they are sometimes mistaken for moray eels. But unlike morays, they are not fishes, and they often boldly swim up to divers. And once they are upon us, they often give what feels like a rather intense inspection before they move along.
Some diver chase mantas, some chase whales. But all will agree that a once in a lifetime experience is seeing a male Seahorse (Hippocampus) give birth.
A true feminist, in mating, pregnancy and birth, it is the male who carries most of the burden. Seahorse mating dance begins with the male opening and closing his pouch to show off its emptiness to the female, signaling to her he is ‘free’ for breeding action. This action also inserts salt water into his pouch, which in turn activates his sperm to be able to fertilize the female’s eggs. They then place their pouches against each other and the female inserts her eggs to the male’s pouch (how romantic). Pregnancy lasts between 9-40 days, depending on the specie, with as many as 2000 offsprings!
