Dive Into Your Imagination

These flourescent orange fish, Garibaldi, live off the west coast of North America. Garibaldi are California's marine state fish. They are one of the largest members of the damselfish family growing up to nearly one foot long. By damselfish standards, they live a long time too, up to 25 years! The territorial male damselfish spends his life growing an algae nest to attract female Garibaldis. Garibaldi fish feed on shrimp, crabs and plankton in the water column. In order to grow an algae nest, he must defend his territory from herbivores, the vegetarians of the sea. Herbivores like to eat algae!

If the male can grow a great big nest, he will begin clucking to attract females. He wants a female Garibaldi to come and lay eggs in his algae nest. He hovers over his nest and clucks. Even though he is a small fish, you can hear him underwater clucking. Sound travels 4 times quicker than it does on land! Once the male Garibaldi can attract a female to lay her eggs, he will fertilize them.

The yellow you see in the photograph to the left is Garibaldi eggs. For nearly three weeks these eggs will grow and develop. The male guards the nest from other fish that like to eat eggs! Does that sound strange? You eat chicken eggs for breakfast...some fish like to eat fish eggs! The Garibaldi hatch and become plankton in the water column. They spend the first phase of their lives eating and growing while trying not to get eaten! It is a fish eat fish world under the sea!

As our population grows and we continue to expand along our coasts, we need to be aware of the run off we create, potentially dumping straight into the ocean. Everything we do on land affects the ocean.

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