There's a holiday for everything—pancakes, dragons, and lots and lots of animals. You might think that the Aquarium can't recognize the more terrestrial animals. But you'd be wrong. For National Pig Day, we honored the hogfish and porkfish in the Giant Ocean Tank!
In this video you can spot several types of hogfishes and the porkfish. Hogfishes are in the wrasse family, three species are featured in our tank. Spotfin hogfish are red and yellow and Spanish hogfish are purple and yellow. Both species act as cleaner fish as juveniles, snacking on larger fish's dead skin and ectoparasites. There are also several large hogfish that are pinkish in color. The largest in the tank is a super male and the smaller hogs are females in the harem. This species is hermaphroditic, meaning that the largest female can turn into a male if the super male dies or moves to another reef.
You can spot the porkfish by their striking yellow and black colors. This species of fish is in the grunt family. Grunts get their name because they make a grunting sound when their grinding teeth deep in their throats are amplified by their swim bladder.
Hope you had a Happy National Pig Day — Aquarium style!
Celebrating other holidays at the Aquarium:
Giant Ocean Tank Divers Blog
Showing posts with label hogfish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hogfish. Show all posts
11/27/14
Feasting, Underwater
Thanksgiving is a time of traditions—turkey, football, family, you know the drill. Here in the Dive Department we have our own traditions. One that's taken root over the years is the holiday blog post. So in honor of all the feasting across the country, we give you feasting in the Giant Ocean Tank.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
6/28/13
19: Bahamas 2013 | Drift Diving
2013 Bahamas Expedition | Round Three
About a year and a half ago, this trip's blogger became an intern diver in the Giant Ocean Tank at the New England Aquarium. Luigi loved being at the Aquarium so much that he became a volunteer diver after his internship was over. He also joins Aquarium divers to help collect fish, under special permits, so that visitors in Boston can appreciate the splendor of a healthy Caribbean reef.
Luigi joined the dive team on a recent trip to the Bahamas to collect animals for the new exhibit.
Hello again! Today will be our fifth day of diving here in the Bimini Islands. When we woke up this morning we were a little disappointed to see that it was pretty windy out and the water was really choppy. Luckily a little cold weather wasn't enough to stop our awesome team of divers from going out and collecting fish for the Giant Ocean Tank!
Though the visibility wasn't going to be great no matter where we went this morning, we decided that the conditions would be best back in the area of Frank and Johns (the same site we dove yesterday). When we first jumped in there was somewhat of a surface current, but as we descended down to about 40 feet of water, the conditions were perfect for catching some fish. On our first dive, we saw two really cool large hogfish! On our second dive that we decided to do at Frank and John's, we saw a large great barracuda and collected a lot of little chromis fish!
Our third and final dive of today was a new one for me. We decided to take the R/V Coral Reef II over to an area called Dollar Harbor. It was here that we did a drift dive. Basically a drift dive is a dive where you go with a group of divers and there is no need to navigate. One of the divers holds a reel attached to a dive flag, and you just drift along in the current. The captain of the boat gave us all a time (40 minutes) for when we needed to surface. We would surface wherever we were and the captain would meet us on a little Zodiac boat.
We would then take off all of our SCUBA gear in the water, hand it up to the captain, jump into the little boat, then get a ride back to the Coral Reef II.
Not needing to navigate made the dive very relaxing, and it was an extremely productive collecting dive. Though we didn't collect any of these guys on this dive, we saw lots of big and colorful sea stars!
About a year and a half ago, this trip's blogger became an intern diver in the Giant Ocean Tank at the New England Aquarium. Luigi loved being at the Aquarium so much that he became a volunteer diver after his internship was over. He also joins Aquarium divers to help collect fish, under special permits, so that visitors in Boston can appreciate the splendor of a healthy Caribbean reef.
Luigi joined the dive team on a recent trip to the Bahamas to collect animals for the new exhibit.
Hello again! Today will be our fifth day of diving here in the Bimini Islands. When we woke up this morning we were a little disappointed to see that it was pretty windy out and the water was really choppy. Luckily a little cold weather wasn't enough to stop our awesome team of divers from going out and collecting fish for the Giant Ocean Tank!
Though the visibility wasn't going to be great no matter where we went this morning, we decided that the conditions would be best back in the area of Frank and Johns (the same site we dove yesterday). When we first jumped in there was somewhat of a surface current, but as we descended down to about 40 feet of water, the conditions were perfect for catching some fish. On our first dive, we saw two really cool large hogfish! On our second dive that we decided to do at Frank and John's, we saw a large great barracuda and collected a lot of little chromis fish!
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| Brown chromis |
Our third and final dive of today was a new one for me. We decided to take the R/V Coral Reef II over to an area called Dollar Harbor. It was here that we did a drift dive. Basically a drift dive is a dive where you go with a group of divers and there is no need to navigate. One of the divers holds a reel attached to a dive flag, and you just drift along in the current. The captain of the boat gave us all a time (40 minutes) for when we needed to surface. We would surface wherever we were and the captain would meet us on a little Zodiac boat.
 |
| Getting the Zodiac ready to launch |
We would then take off all of our SCUBA gear in the water, hand it up to the captain, jump into the little boat, then get a ride back to the Coral Reef II.
Not needing to navigate made the dive very relaxing, and it was an extremely productive collecting dive. Though we didn't collect any of these guys on this dive, we saw lots of big and colorful sea stars!
5/2/13
3: Bahamas 2013 | Seining and Sapona
Genevieve is a former intern from the dive department. She joined Aquarium divers in the Bahamas to help collect fish, under special permits, so that visitors in Boston can appreciate the splendor of a healthy Caribbean reef. After a top-to-bottom transformation, the Giant Ocean Tank is expected to reopen in early summer with more than twice the number of fish than last fall.
Needlefish are one of the most inquired-about fish in the GOT. They reside in schools directly on the surface. These fragile fish have long, pointed beaks, hence the name needlefish. These fish are too sensitive to be handled in the vinyl nets and live closer to the shore, so instead of diving to catch the desired fifty needles, the group does a beach seine.
In the afternoon, the group dove the Sapona, a shipwreck off the coast of Bimini. This shallow dive sight is home to countless species and individuals, making it a prime spot for the Aquarium collecting trips. Highlights of the Sapona include hogfish and varied species of parrotfish.
Hogfish are massive wrasses, that create a harem on the reef. This means that there is always a large “super male”, who mates with all of the females. If the super male dies, a female actually changes gender to take his role.
Parrotfish vary in size and the different color schemes and patterns of each species make them a key target on the collecting trips since they're easy to spot in the Giant Ocean Tank.
By showing visitors the beauty of a healthy Caribbean reef, we hope to inspire people to do what they can to protect these reefs and marine habitats around the world. Thanks to Mark Rosenstein for sharing his beautiful pictures!
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| Needlefish | Photo: Mark Rosenstein |
Needlefish are one of the most inquired-about fish in the GOT. They reside in schools directly on the surface. These fragile fish have long, pointed beaks, hence the name needlefish. These fish are too sensitive to be handled in the vinyl nets and live closer to the shore, so instead of diving to catch the desired fifty needles, the group does a beach seine.
 |
| Needlefish | Photo: Mark Rosenstein |
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| Hogfish | Photo: Mark Rosenstein |
Hogfish are massive wrasses, that create a harem on the reef. This means that there is always a large “super male”, who mates with all of the females. If the super male dies, a female actually changes gender to take his role.
 |
| Queen parrotfish | Photo: Mark Rosenstein |
Parrotfish vary in size and the different color schemes and patterns of each species make them a key target on the collecting trips since they're easy to spot in the Giant Ocean Tank.
By showing visitors the beauty of a healthy Caribbean reef, we hope to inspire people to do what they can to protect these reefs and marine habitats around the world. Thanks to Mark Rosenstein for sharing his beautiful pictures!
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