Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
HEALTH SPA
Pampering at the coral reef
Green sea turtles are no strangers to the camera, but a turtle relaxing at a health spa having her f l ipper s and shel l cleaned? Now that is unusual! Cameraman Roger Munns filmed green turtles off the coast of Borneo having parasites and dead skin removed from their bodies by a small fish called a bicolour blenny, before aptly named surgeonfish nibble at the algae on their shells. The turtles even queue up for their treatment. ‘Being first in the queue means having to fend off other customers though, and the one we filmed was having her flippers bitten by rival turtles,’ says Roger. ‘Green turtles have a reputation for being docile but they’re not so friendly when they want their shells cleaned!’
The turtle spa appears in the Blue Planet II episode dedicated to coral reefs, exploring life in these delicate living structures which are home to 25 per cent of all known marine species – though they cover just 0.1 per cent of the ocean’s surface area. Most depend on clean water, lots of sunlight and a sea temperature of 25-30°C, so they’re generally found in shallow waters in a narrow band either side of the Equator.
Dolphins on the reef have a health club too. They rub their bodies on sponges and corals known to have anti-bacterial properties, so the dolphins may be doing this to keep clean and well. Anti-viral, anti-cancer and anti- inf lammatory agents have already been isolated from sponges on Caribbean reefs. It’s extraordinary to think dolphins may have been exploiting the medicinal properties of corals long before we knew of them.
To record spectacular footage of manta rays feeding in Hanifaru Bay in the Maldives, the BBC team used ultra-HD drones. ‘The corals in the bay have formed a funnel- shaped lagoon about the size of a football field and the incoming tide concentrates huge clouds of plankton within the
lagoon,’ explains producer Jonathan Smith. ‘Despite their 3m wingspans the movement of the manta rays is almost balletic, some of them swooping in and looping-the-loop, scooping up plankton as they go. Others skim the seabed, swimming just millimetres above the sand. What’s really eyecatching is when a group of about 50 rays spiral up in what’s called “cyclone feeding”. As they spin they create a vortex, concentrating the food and then sucking it in with their gaping mouths. Cyclone feeding was filmed for the first time from the air while we were making this episode.’
The team scored another first when they filmed a coral trout and an octopus working together on the Great Barrier Reef. At first it looks like just another fish going about its business. But then the coral trout starts to perform headstands to attract the interest of the reef octopus, and when that doesn’t do the trick it turns pale in order to catch the octopus’s eye then wiggles about in front of him. It then points its body in the direction of a crevice in the coral where it believes a small fish is hiding. The reef octopus finally gets the message and uses its tentacles to flush out the fish – on this occasion it’s the trout that gets to eat it, but at other times it’s the octopus.
For scientists, the idea of a fish working in tandem with an octopus is remarkable. ‘It’s reaching across the vertebrate-invertebrate divide and shows one species encouraging another to hunt for the mutual benefit of the pair of them,’ says Jonathan.
Another clever fish was a saddleback clownfish filmed on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Looking just like the cute movie star Nemo, the fish is trying to move half a coconut shell across the ocean floor and finding it impossible because of its weight and awkwardness. First the shell moves in the wrong direction and then other clownfish take up residence inside, making our little hero’s task even harder. Finally he hits on a solution. He boots out the unwelcome guests, sits inside the shell and with some vigorous tail flicking he propels his precious find to precisely where he wants it. Of course there’s a serious reason for this peculiar behaviour. Clownfish – or anemone fish as they’re also known – need a suitable surface for their mate to lay their eggs on. The coconut shell proved to be just that and a far more practical solution than the empty plastic bottle he initially tried to bring back to the family home, which lies under the stinging tentacles of a large sea anemone that clownfish are immune to. ‘It was hard to focus on getting the shots we needed because the clownfish was so comical,’ says cameraman Roger Munns. ‘I admired his perseverance, although he really made hard work of it!’