Can You Name This Fish?

Gray Angelfish, Blue-Striped Grunt

    I could win any Jeopardy category on Bahamas reef fish. Blue stripes over yellow with a dark tail - What is a Blue-striped Grunt? Horizontal yellow stripes with black spot by the tail - What is a Juvenile Tomtate? My head is spinning with fish names and descriptions. Stoplight Parrotfish, Queen Angelfish, Blue Tang, Foureye Butterflyfish, Lionfish, and Nurse Shark are a few that I saw today. We dove on four different patch reefs today to practice. A patch reef looks like a patch of dark water. The reef is rounded with fish hiding in every nook and cranny.

Lionfish

    We headed out in a motor boat to the reef sites. The head scientist Alistair counted every type that he saw and tested us when we got out of the water. The wind gusted up to 20 knots and kicked up lots of chop. It was easy to get a mouthful of sea water. I missed the White Margate on the first reef, but I found all of my assigned fish on the second patch.
     It was exciting to see a lionfish. The lionfish looked menacing when it puffed out its spines. Lila, a research intern, dove with us to look for the lionfish. She is part of a project studying the impact of the lionfish on the reefs in the Bahamas. The scientists will survey the reefs to get initial data. Then they will remove the lionfish from half of the reefs. The final fish survey will show whether there is a difference between the reefs.
     Tomorrow we will complete our first data survey. Alistair is counting on us to count and estimate size accurately. I need to study!

Hiding Spotlight Parrotfish

Lobster