Palmerston parrotfishes
We left Palmerston Atoll last night about 8pm. The Palmerston community were very generous with their time to show us around the island, and they offered us some delicious parrotfish fillets.
A parrotfish in Palmerston lagoon.
This is the main fishery on the island as they supply these fillets frozen to resorts and markets at Aitutaki and Rarotonga. But the opportunity to export these fillets only happens a few times a year when the supply ship comes through. The parrotfish at Aitutaki and Rarotonga contain ciguatera toxin, yet the Palmerston parrotfishes do not contain this toxin.
Preliminary results
Preliminary results of our research indicate that we have recorded over 100 species of fishes alone, and many of these species have not previously been confirmed to occur here. This is a great result after only one and a half days of sampling.
A conspicuous absence of some top predators
Interestingly we have sighted very few sharks around the reef, but we did sight 30-40 small black-tip reef sharks hovering edge of the drop-off, where the reef bottom rapidly descends from 20 m to over 100 m.
We have also noted the absence and rarity of tropical snappers and groupers. In many of the tropical reefs that I have observed, these are among the most conspicuous top predators.
The view from Palmerston lagoon, Palmerston Island.
Steaming towards Beveridge Reef
Today has been a less busy day where we have caught up on our data entry, repairs to equipment, and we have caught up on some sleep. We are steaming towards Beveridge Reef, which is south east of Niue. This is an isolated and uninhabited reef and we will be among the first, if not the first, marine scientists to survey the reef.
We’ll be busy tomorrow as we will have only the day to undertake our work before we steam towards Niue.
