Making Friends
I was looking through more photos from my recent trip to North Sulawesi, and came across this, which I had completely forgotten about!
A few minutes into a dive at the Sahaung II dive site in Bangka, I felt a strange sensation on one my legs, sort of a repetitive nibbling feeling. Of course, since I generally don’t like having my leg (or any other part of me) nibbled while I’m diving, I looked down and found this remora (Echeneis naucrates) firmly attached to me.
Remoras are highly specialised fish which use a modified dorsal fin to stick themselves onto larger animals, hitching a free ride and picking up food scraps.
My immediate reaction was to look around for a large fish, shark or marine mammal that the remora might have been with before finding me, but I didn’t see anything. I figured it was no harm letting the remora tag along for a while, until it decided to move on.
Throughout the entire 70+ minutes of the dive, my little friend literally stuck with me, moving up and down my body, occasionally venturing a few metres away, but always coming back. As I came up for the safety stop, I took a few pictures of my piscine pal, who followed me all the way up to the surface, and probably would’ve gotten on the boat with me if it could have.
Hope my little friend found a new buddy to hang out with after I so callously abandoned him.
20 Oct 06 23:30
Hey Tony,
I had the very same experience some years ago, in Singapore waters of all places! And my immediate reaction was the same as well…where’s the big guy this little guy abandoned?!? Had a hard time trying to shake the remora off.
Have fun diving in Izu!
AL
21 Oct 06 11:19
Hey Ai Lin,
Yeah, I looked all over, but didn’t see anything that could’ve possibly been its host before me. Can’t imagine how such a big remora could’ve gotten lost. Was fun having it tag along for the dive. Just hope it managed to find another suitable host (not another diver!) to hang around with.
22 Oct 06 08:46
Woh~~ This sounds exactly like what happened to me in Singapore when we were at Lazarus a couple of weeks ago!! We were wondering where the little fella came from (But with Singapore waters being what it is, that’s not so surprising….), and why it seemed to only like hanging around me…
Though in my case, instead of chasing it away, my friend was trying to stop me from moving about so he could get a good photo of it. ^-^ Here are some of the photos of our Singaporean remora on my friend’s blog! http://underwaterlover.blogspot.com/
22 Oct 06 09:12
Cool! Sounds like Singapore remoras are friendly fish. Any more out there?
I’ve actually had this happen a few times before in other places, but this is the first time I took the trouble to get a photo.
23 Oct 06 07:58
There was also one following the guys who were diving in berms when I was in Tioman… One of the DMs got nipped ard the knee too!
23 Oct 06 08:07
Hmmm, you seem to have a talent for attracting these little guys! Actually, it seems like this happens quite a bit…a lot of “homeless” remoras