Underwater News

It has been more than thirty years since I started photographing the Mediterranean. It was 1983 and the Strait of Messina, the sea on whose shores I always lived, gave me the opportunity to learn about the biodiversity of the Mare Nostrum in a special way and thorough. Seized upon this great opportunity with the right awareness, I photographed and photographed enough to become, through time, quite expert in marine biology and ethology.
And, among all the forms of life I photographed, one still keeps me involved more in the shooting and careful observation.
) They are small fishes accustomed to live at great depths, hardly accessible to divers.
Nevertheless, in the Strait of Messina environmental conditions and ecosystems powered by the currents enable them to live also at modest depths, where it is easy to observe them while diving! I am talking about the spiny trumpet fish, or longspine snipefish (Macrorhamphosus scolopax), belonging to the family of macroramphosinae. Small and curious, with an elongated snout ahead, a little like seahorses, ending with a small mouth opening, they feed on small prey and often swim upside down. With a pink complexion on the back, fading on the sides tending to gray, they have a first dorsal fin with a protruding and sharp second ray, whose inner edge is serrated.
A real spine, damnation of the fishermen who regularly wound themselves while cleaning up the nets where, sometimes, these fish stumble.
Although the animal can rarely reach 18 cm in length, the specimens usually encountered are long on average between 6 and 8 cm. Their habit is to live in shoals of several individuals, sometimes really a lot. I will try to make the idea of what happens when you dive and then, at some point, you find yourself in front of a school of spiny trumpet fish.

The show is unique.
Suddenly they appear like ghosts, perfectly merged with the surrounding environment, small and frenetic. At the beginning, you catch a glimpse of them only because betrayed by their cheerful swimming. Once detected, you stop and hope they do not escape.
Yes, because the longspine snipefish are not always open to the approach. On sandy and muddy bottoms, where they usually move, they seek a reference: a small wreck, a rock, an abandoned net.
This makes them feel safer and allows you to attempt a more lasting contact. If you are in the presence of a school stationing near these sort of oasis in the sand, you will have much more chance to remain together with these fish, at least for a while.
During daylight hours, we will have a magnificent view of the school in motion, shifting continuously left and right, up and down, without respite, stopping occasionally for a few moments of hesitation. Studying the movements of these fish let us understand how to photograph them, paying attention to the angle of our flash due to their liveries highly reflective.
By night, the spiny trumpetfish?s behavior is completely different: they form small groups stopping near the bottom or sometimes they are also scattered, as confused, quite annoyed by the light beam messing up the environment hidden in the dark. Approaching an individual fish photographing the details while moving is a patient work, which takes time and concentration.
Photographically, it will be more convenient to concentrate on pictures of larger groups during the day, using of course a wide-angle lens to the minimum shooting distance while at night it will be more logical to use a macro lens and take pictures of the single fish up close, in the details, possibly trying to get close-ups.
Photographic research, as always, invites us to the study of the species and the analysis of its behavior, thus becoming an instrument of knowledge. In the Mediterranean, this research is sometimes complicated, both for the difficult shooting conditions and for the harsh climate, which in winter forces to operate in the cold and in the dark! Nevertheless, the rewards for those who can observe with passion are remarkable.
That of the spiny trumpet fish is a unique situation, typical of the Strait since it is not easy to bump into these fish in other places.
During night dives, instead, I was lucky: very few times, I was present during the mating of the longspine snipefish.
The dives characterized by this important event were no more than two or three. I almost seemed to understand that there are some winter nights where these fish go wild and mate.
The mating magical night is just unforgettable, and the only evidence I have is a single photograph, unique because I was able to freeze the moment only once, seizing upon one of the few seconds available when the two fish join.
Out of the blue, two individuals in the context of a small group get close and cling to each other with the back of their body, near the anal fins. The mating takes a few seconds and soon after, detaching, the fish shake and emit simultaneously one a small curled cord of eggs, and the other the semen to fertilize them.
Very similar to the co-genus scolopax, Macroramphosus gracilis or snipefish, unlike the first has a more slender body and compressed at the sides, with large and circular eye.
The beak-shaped snout is quite pointy, with a small-incised mouth facing upwards.
The second spiny ray of the dorsal fin does not exceed the caudal peduncle and has a slightly serrated edge facing down. The tail is truncate with a slightly hollow margin.
The color of the back is golden rose to become silver on the belly. Not more than 3 cm in length, exceptionally reaches 5 cm, so its size is well below the spiny trumpetfish, with which it shares the habitat typically pelagic and the depth.
The snipefish also feeds on small planktonic animals and seems to be present only in the Strait of Messina. Encountering this fish underwater is very rare: I seldom have but have no picture of it. I always thought a lot about this, but I never understood why it is so hard to see the snipefish underwater, while it is easier to encounter its beached corpses. Therefore, I assume that probably is because of the depth at which they usually stay.

Word and pictures by Francesco Turano