Get psychedelic with Asian Diver “Colours of Asia” Edition
“Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.”
– Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931)
It is often said that pictures speak 1,000 words, and the images in the latest issue of Asian Diver certainly bear that out. Opening this tantalising, Technicolor exploration of the water, Richard Smith has captured a mind-blowing image of the often seen, but little-known, sea sapphires.
It is likely you have seen them, but mistaken them for floating fish scales. The crystal structure of the backs of these tiny copepods reflects light in the most amazing shades of blue, green or purple. Only the males shimmer, to attract the less shiny females, who live inside pelagic tunicates, known as salps. This shot, taken in Raja Ampat, shows six male sea sapphires sharing a salp with a non-descript female just visible at the top right.
What Bubbled
With pink mantas in Oz, new findings on the rise of the jellyfish, and an incredible offer of unlimited House Reef dives for readers with Scuba for Change in the Philippines, AD bubbles up the most interesting dive news round-up in the region.
Colour by Numbers
The numbers don’t lie: Prepare to have your mind blown with AD’s insane info about colour underwater! Like the fact that the goldfish is the only animal that can see in both infrared and ultra violet, or that scallops have 35 blue eyes, 14 species of whales and seals can not see blue light, or that one in two million lobsters in the Atlantic are blue!
Seafood Guide
WWF brings us some scary stats about the state of seafood, and the ways we can help halt the destruction. If we continue as we are, our oceans will be empty by 2048, but choosing sustainable seafood will go a long way to making sure your choices are kind to the ocean we love.
All Eyes on Mantis Shrimps
Man & Sea comes face to face with the mantis shrimp fishery in Borneo. Mantis shrimps are amazing creatures for all sorts of reasons, not least for the fact that their eyes contain 16 types of colour receptive cones (compared with a human’s measly three), which suggests they can see around 100,000 colours – 10 times more than we can!
In Borneo, fishermen will spend a whole day trying to catch a mantis shrimp to sell to nearby restaurants, in a day’s effort that earns them only about USD 1. Borneo From Below’s Aaron “Bertie” Gekoski brings you the full story.
Read all of this, and more, in the latest issue of Asian Diver! Get your copy here.