“Mini me” tompot blennies out and about on my reef!

Since the baby tompot blennies have settled out of the plankton, three noticeable things have happened. First, they have taken on camouflage colours and now match up with their background quite well. Next, they have a bright blue ‘eye’ spot on the front of their dorsal fin which they can flick up; does it make them look bigger and scare away other fish? Lastly, their head tentacles are developing well and they look like ‘mini me’ tompots as they explore my reef.

Mini-me, 30mm long baby tompot blenny!
Mini me, 30mm long baby tompot blenny!

They are only 20 – 45mm long at this time of the year (depending on whether they hatched from their eggs early or late in the summer) but they are just large enough to be spotted and photographed by Paul and Teresa. What always surprises them is how these youngsters are very bold and like to show off in front of the camera! Wouldn’t you expect little fish like these to be much more timid and hide in the small crevices away from marauding predators?

Take a look at my blog from last year 30th September 2015 http://www.bennytheblenny.com/blog/?m=201509  to see a video of two very small tompot blennies play fighting.

 

Benny the Blenny’s babies (juvenile fish) 2cm long are settling back on the reef

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You’ve seen how my amazing my babies were swimming around in the plankton. The ones that managed to avoid being eaten and found enough plankton to eat have grown to around 2 cm long and have now settled back on the reef.  The researchers are not sure how they find a good home reef. It may just be luck or something to do with them being able to recognise the smell of the area they hatched from. Some coral reef fish know which reef is home from the sound the waves make!

When my babies first settle they are quite colourless, but soon take on camouflage colours to help them match their surroundings. You can see that their head tentacles have started growing and their pectoral fins are just visible with some black pigment.

Thank you to the National Marine Aquarium Plymouth for their help in getting this photo. The NMA is an excellent place to see tompot blennies like Benny the Blenny and lots of other UK marine life.

 

Flying about in the plankton, a baby tompot blenny!

Tompot larva NMA 190816 2

 

Hey, this shows what my tompot blenny babies look like when they have left home, having hatched from those eggs that I’ve been guarding. Swimming among the plankton in the open sea, they are very sleek with gorgeous big eyes and are between 4 and 20 mm long.

When they first hatch they eat very small plant (phyto-) plankton and animal (zoo-) plankton, the youngsters grow quickly and are then able to eat larger plankton. Bigger fish larvae and jellyfish in the plankton are a real danger and my babies have to make smart evasive moves if they see they are about to be grabbed!

If you would like to find out more about plankton visit:

www.lifeadrift.info

This photo was made possible by the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth so many thanks to them. Paul, my underwater photographer, would never be able to spot and photograph one of my babies in the wild!

 

The stunning view has now become green gloop!

Phyto-plankton bloom
Green gloop – phytoplankton bloom

AKA the phytoplankton (plant plankton) bloom, it’s as if the green curtains have come down! You can see in the photo below that when the sea is calm, I normally have a fantastic view from my crevice home, but it’s now like green fog (see the photo above)! It’s because the phytoplankton (millions of tiny plants living in the sea) have been growing and multiplying madly! Like the plants in your garden, they need the right conditions to grow. The seawater has now got a little warmer, there is enough light (the days are longer) for lots of photosynthesis and the right amount of nutrients are there so they go wild! These conditions happen every year in the spring, around the first week of May near Plymouth, and less dramatically in the autumn. My view might be spoilt but there is a big up-side to this phytoplankton bloom; lots of food for the zooplankton (animal plankton) to eat and then lots of them for other animals to eat! This all means that there will be plenty of food for my babies that are about to hatch from their eggs. See blog 27/08/2015. They will spend several weeks drifting with the plankton, eating the smaller zooplankton at first then moving onto the larger zooplankton as they grow up a bit.

 

When the green fog is here I have to use my sense of smell to find food as I can’t see very much! Hopefully it will all clear in the next couple of weeks and the divers will be able to come back to see how I’m getting on.

 

For more information about plankton take a look at http://www.lifeadrift.info

The view out of my window – a few weeks ago

The view from my crevice home, the large fish is a balloon wrasse.
The view from my crevice home, the large fish is a ballan wrasse.

For the first few weeks that I was looking after my growing raft of eggs, the view from my crevice home was stunning. I could see all the snakelocks anemones and thongweed gently swaying in the swell and several ballan wrasse (like the large fish in the photo) cruising around looking for crabs.

A thoughtful Dad

Tompot blenny RL 1207 133

I’m thinking about my babies (tompot blenny larvae) swimming, eating and developing in the plankton, I hope they are OK.

It reminded me of this excellent video called ‘The Power of Plankton’ from SAHFOS* which promotes the importance of plankton – the amazing drifting part of my underwater world.

Did you know that the PLANT PLANKTON (phytoplankton) PRODUCES almost 50% of the WORLD’S OXYGEN? That’s one of the reasons why caring for our seas is so important!

By watching the video I also learnt that my babies are classed as MEROPLANKTON, along with the eggs, larvae and juveniles of many different types of fish. This also includes the young stages of other marine animals such as barnacles, crabs, starfish and sea anemones.

You can watch this video and learn all about these things for yourself here: wtru.st

Many thanks to SAHFOS *Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science www.sahfos.ac.uk for producing ‘The Power of the Plankton’ video.

Benny the Blenny’s babies have left home!

This video shows what my babies look like when they have left home, having just hatched from those eggs that I’ve been guarding. Swimming among the plankton in the open sea, they are very sleek with gorgeous big eyes and are between 5-10 mm long.

By eating very small plant (phyto-) plankton and animal (zoo-) plankton, the youngsters grow quickly and are then able to eat larger plankton. Bigger fish larvae and jellyfish in the plankton are a real danger and my babies have to make smart evasive moves if they feel they are about to be grabbed!

If you would like to find out more about plankton visit
www.lifeadrift.info

Thank you to the National Marine Aquarium Plymouth for their help in obtaining this video.

 

If you’d like to see the video again or look at more of Paul Naylor’s videos on Vimeo click  vimeo.com