Megafauna Monitoring Initiative (MMI) – December 2019

This month we encountered;

77 x White Tip Reef Shark (Triaenodon obesus)

24 x Black Tip Reef Shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus)

15 x Grey Reef Shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos)

55 x Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas)

13 x Hawksbill Turtle (Eretmochelys imbricate)

2 x Bluespoted Ribbontail Ray (Taeniura lymma)

2 x Coral Sea Maskray (Neotrygon kuhlii)

3 x Whitespotted Eagle Ray (Aetobatus ocellatus)

1 x Narrow-barred Spanish Mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson)

6 x Humphead Wrasse (Cheilinus undulates)

14 x Brown Marbled Grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus )

5 x Bumphead Parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum)

So how does this compare to our other months? With a slow season upon us combined with unfavorable weather conditions, unfortunately a third of the days throughout December were non-dive days. Consequently, we would have expected our species sightings to be our lowest to date for all species, however surprisingly this was not the case. During the December MMI, the team observed relatively consistent numbers of individuals respective to other months for all species with the exception of the Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas), Blue Spotted Ribbontail Ray (Taeniura lymma), Narrow-barred Spanish Mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson), and Great Barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda) that had their lowest occurrences to date with 55, 2, 1, and 0 sightings respectively. Species that were absent from sightings throughout December other than the Great Barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda) included the Zebra Shark (Stegostoma fasciatum), Tawny Nurse Shark (Nebrius ferrugineus), Marbled Ray (Taeniurops meyeni), and Tahitian Stingray (Pateobatis fai). Join us again next month and see what we encountered throughout January! Vinaka