Hunting Trumpetfish

Blogged by Simon on November 26, 2009 9:46am | Last updated by Simon on August 14, 2010 5:51am | Category: Underwater Photography | Get a Print Get a Print |

Trumpetfish (Aulostomus chinensis)If you ever watched a BBC documentary, such as Blue Planet, you might have seen scenes of a feeding frenzy or two. Fish circling around in huge balls, predators going in from all directions, bigger predators going after the smaller predators, it’s like a Hollywod action movie, just in the ocean.

In the 200 odd dives I have made so far, i was lucky enough to be witness two or three such feeding frenzies myself. One not to be missed, involved a pack of 30 reef sharks, and another one on a much smaller but not less interesting scale happened on my first dive at Table Coral City in Wakatobi. It was an absolute spectacle to watch, not just because there where so many species of fish around, but because it allowed you to observe them at they do what they do best – prey.

First off was a huge school of small, unidentified blue fish. Their number was in the thousands and everyone was going after them. The blueys, let’s call them that, were absolutely terrified and swimming for their lives in all directions as fast as they could. Waves upon waves of them would attempt to hide between the coral (Acropora sp.) you can see at the bottom. This is where the Trumpetfish (Aulostomus chinensis) came in. I had always wondered about the odd shape of the trumpetfish until this day. It is obviously a very fast and streamlined fish, but I had no idea they hunt “upside down” until I’ve seen them doing exactly that at Table Coral City. Apparently trumpetfish usually hunt alone, so i consider myself extremely lucky to have gotten several of them in front of my lens at once. While the blueys were going for cover inbetween the coral, the Trumpetfish were picking on them with lightning fast attacks from above, and of course they are perfectly shaped for this maneuver! All of this was closely observed by Blue Jacks above the Trumpetfish, and mixed up by a Coral Grouper that attacked from below every minute or so. I just sat there, right in the middle, and watched the entire show for half an hour – amazing.

On the technical side, this photo was taken with the 10-24mm lens at 24mm with f/13 for 1/60s, ISO 200. I adjusted color temperature and saturation in Aperture to compensate for my flash which was getting really weak towards the end of the dive as I had drained the battery from too many photos taken. I used the foliage filter in Color Efex Pro to enhance the yellow trumpetfish and added some selective brightness to the coral structure at the bottom right.

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  1. Feeding Frenzy : Simonsaysscuba – Simon's Underwater Photography Blog
    on January 11th, 2010
    1

    [...] the shallows at Table Coral City, Wakatobi. I had previously posted about this dive and the huntingtrumpetfish that are part of it (some of which can be seen in the background).Subject distance about 50cm, [...]

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