Lanternfish in shallow waters – and other sights to make a fish curator’s heart sing

Every dive on this expedition has been a good one. We’ve got great visibility and an incredibly rich marine environment to dive in.

This dive footage captures the fairly typical marine environment where we are – a sandy bottom with big pinnacles or boulders rising from the depths – and then a plethora of marine life. As in the earlier footage we shared you can see there are lots of boarfish and the demoiselles.

What’s really got me excited though is what we did last night – we set up lights off the back of the boat which attracts the fish. We were able to collect samples of lanternfish or myctophids which are typically found in depths of 200m. We were sitting in just 20m of water!

Lanternfish – attracted into shallow waters by a night light off the back of the boat

Each dive reminds we what an absolute privilege is to be here recording the marine life in this spectacular environment and it makes me more determined to share what we find and get everyone excited about protecting it.

Dr Tom Trnski

Auckland Museum

David Aguirre

Massey University

Libby Liggins

Massey University

Phil Ross

University of Waikato

Sam McCormack

University of Waikato

Andrew Pinniket

Our Big Blue Backyard

Brady Doak

Our Big Blue Backyard

Kina Scollay

Our Big Blue Backyard

Kyle Swann

Our Big Blue Backyard

Lindsey Davidson

Our Big Blue Backyard

Ross Funnell

Our Big Blue Backyard

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Braveheart

For 21 days home for the crew is the RV Braveheart. The 39 metre long vessel has visited the Kermadecs many times before as well as other parts of the Pacific & Southern Oceans.