Search for the Fabled Pigmies

Most divers carry around a mental list of the hidden treasures of the deep that they fervently wish will be magically revealed. For some, sharks such as hammerheads or the massive whale sharks, hold a particular allure. For others it is the majestic manta ray for which they will travel to remote corners of the earth such as Mozambique, or Komodo. Inwardly I occasionally scoff at the blatant machismo of divers as they go through their whole lists of fauna and location – “So where have you dived at? Sipidan? The Maldives? Palau? Red Sea? And how many whale sharks or mantas?”

Guides have their own mental checklist of the wildlife that they search for at any particular dive site and you can almost see them competing to get the most points – OK, so a grey reef shark is 4 points, a lionfish is 3 points, and a napoleon wrasse is also 3 points … hmmm, this must result from two points for danger, two for size, and one for colorfulness, thus the shark gets size and danger, the lionfish color and danger, and the wrasse is color plus size. The guides often pass by some of the more seemingly mundane creatures or corals which could leave some people spellbound for the majority of the dive, while furiously banging on their tank to get the clients to watch a lionfish, of which I have seen countless numbers of now – yes, they are still beautiful, but since the divemaster found one of the items on his checklist and since I have a camera in my hand I am thus obligated to leave behind the bizarre treasure that I was using as a test subject for my new macro lens, and then go snap off a shot to honor his find.

Perhaps it is the little boy within me that will watch an ant trail for hours, occasionally putting obstacles in its’ path, that is fascinated by the tiny treasures underwater. Occasionally people would come up close beside me as I snap off shot after shot, and boggle at what on earth I am interested in. Where is the scorpion fish or moray eel? They only partially understand when I explain that I am mesmerized by the fractal-like complexity and perfection of branching corals and the infinite diversity of so many other unexplained wonders – to me seeing this magnificence and richness is a strong statement that life began here in the oceans.

On the top of my personal microscopic (the subjects, not the length) checklist is the fabled pigmy seahorse, for which I have searched innumerable gorgonian fans at depth until nitrogen accumulation was putting me into the decompression zone. Thus with great hopes but expectations of disappointment, I embarked on a dive a Lembeh Straits, supposedly a macro capitol of the world. Geographically a narrow channel between an island and the mainland of northern Sulawesi, in the Indonesian archipelago, Lembeh is a classic muck-scape of black sand and goop that churns particulates into the water when you move your fins, thus reducing visibility to the point that unexpected and bizarre creatures suddenly manifest out of the gloom. Each dive became more strange and taxed the imagination at understanding what on earth I was actually looking at – like, which end is that creature’s head, and oh my gosh, THAT’s the mouth.

Frog Fish:


On the last dive before leaving beloved Indonesia, where I have spent the last four months, we found a large purple gorgonian fan branching off of an overhanging cliff wall down at about 25 meters. The clever dive master beckoned me over, and with his pointer calmly indicated a couple points, here, there, and there. With a small spark of excitement flaring up within me, I looked closer and it came into focus – the fabled pigmy! When it rains, it pours too, right? Patiently the divemaster counted 12 tiny purple critters clinging to the fan in a colony. I was boggled by the completeness of their disguise – the pigmies are the same color as the fan and even had evolved to have the same characteristic bumps. The photographer within me was ecstatic to find two in very close proximity, and the little ant-playing boy felt only minimal compunctions against gently coaxing them to sit upright and pose for the camera. Can I actually photograph something that is only 2 mm tall? Well, here goes, and I proceeded to take about 50 shots, knowing that only 3 or 4 would come out right, and thankfully the patient little pigmies endured the insanely bright flashing for your and my viewing pleasure.