Megafauna Monitoring Initiative (MMI) - November 2019

This month we encountered;

80 x White Tip Reef Shark (Triaenodon obesus)

31 x Black Tip Reef Shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus)

29 x Grey Reef Shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos)

1 x Zebra Shark (Stegostoma fasciatum)

186 x Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas)

13 x Hawksbill Turtle (Eretmochelys imbricate)

8 x Bluespoted Ribbontail Ray (Taeniura lymma)

3 x Coral Sea Maskray (Neotrygon kuhlii)

2 x Whitespotted Eagle Ray (Aetobatus ocellatus)

1 x Marbled Ray (Taeniurops meyeni)

4 x Narrow-barred Spanish Mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson)

13 x Humphead Wrasse (Cheilinus undulates)

9 x Great Barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda)

26 x Brown Marbled Grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus )

So how does this compare to our other months?

This months MMI presented our highest number of White Tip Reef Shark (T. obesus), Grey Reef Shark (C. amblyrhynchos), Green Turtle (C. mydas), Humphead Wrasse (C. undulates) and Brown Marbled Grouper (E. fuscoguttatus ) to date with 80, 29, 186, 13 and 26 sightings respectively.

We observed our lowest number of Narrow Barred Spanish Mackerel (S. commerson) to date with just 4 sightings, and an absence of Tawny Nurse Shark (N. ferrugineus), Tahitian Stingray (P. fai), and Bumphead Parrotfish (B. muricatum) this month.

All other species were observed infrequently and similarly to other months with between 3 and 31 sightings. The rarest species for us to encounter were the Zebra Shark (S. fasciatum) and Marbled Ray (T. meyeni) that were observed just once.

Join us again next month and see what we encountered throughout December!

Vinaka