The last day of winter, but here on the island spring is already with us. The bees are furiously busy with the clover in our paddock and the lavender hedge, while the tips of the frangipani trees are pushing out new leaves.
Glorious sunshine and winds from the southwest for a couple of days this week meant I was battling against it while swimming at the weekend!
A beautiful banded snake eel, Leiuranus semicinctus, popped into view on Saturday (top image). I haven’t seen any of these, apart from one dead one a few weeks ago, over winter, so it was wonderful to see this handsome fellow the other day.
Banded snake eel - Leiuranus semicinctus
I often get asked if these are sea snakes and if they are dangerous. They are in fact, as their name suggests, eels, and I find them to be very docile and will generally swim away or dive incredibly fast into the sand when approached too closely.
We have a few different snake eels: spotted, banded and convict. I’ve included photos of all three here so you can see the difference. It has been suggested to me that we may have a couple of different subspecies of these – which are, as yet, undescribed – because a couple look a little different. This isn’t something I know much about, but it would be exciting beyond belief if we did have some unique ones here.
Below are images of the three different types of snake eels found in Norfolk Island’s lagoons.
A convict snake eel, Norfolk Island
One thing I love to watch is the bluestreak cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus, hard at work. You often see fish queueing up for a once-over from this little guy. This morning it looked like they were all getting in early for a spring clean! I’ve included a few photos of this busy beaver cleaning some yellowstripe goatfish, Mulloidichthys flavolineatus (left) and a Coral Sea gregory, Stegastes gascoynei (right).
