MANDARINFISH

It wasn’t quite what we’d intended - to sit and watch others indulge in that which is usually kept private, but it’s precisely what we did. It was 6pm on Kapalai Island and we were attending a peep show of a very special nature. Every night, just after sunset, you can slide beneath the jetty and see droves of tiny mandarinfish creating babies.

Just a few centimetres big, mandarins live amongst the cracks and crevices of coral rubble. They only emerge under cover of darkness to feed or mate. Part of the dragonet family their latin name, Synchiropus Splendidus, hints at their extravagant skin colouring.

Getting to see them, even at dusk, is a real art. But if you know the technique, you can catch them on film before they scuttle back to safety. We sat patiently waiting for the light to fall to precisely the right level. Once it did, the players emerged and we could just see the males approaching the females. We’d wait until two little shadows rose up then quickly flash a dimmed torch beam onto them, hoping that the camera focused before the intrusion scared them off.

The girls were picky - not just any male would do. Sometimes one would swim upwards to kiss a suitor before returning to the main group. But other times, the man of her dreams would appear and she'd ascend resting on her partner’s pelvic fin. At their climax, a cloud of eggs and sperm would materialise in a white puff before they disappeared at the speed of light.

Twenty two minutes, 36 frames and a lot of mandarin kisses later, we exited the water grinning from ear to ear. We’d had as much fun as those little guys seemed to! Well, almost.

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