Islandbound

On a recent dive I came across a trio of seasnakes engaged in mating. The two males were much much briter than the larger female who I believe was probably in the process of shedding due to scale color and the milky eye color. What was interesting was the behaviour of one of the males. He drove off the other suitor despite both being wrapped around the female by positioning his body against the female and pushing the other male off. The 2nd male in the typical sluggish seasnake way moved around the female but couldnt rewrap his body against hers and eventually left.

The reason I am posting was the following activity by the dominant male snake was a behavior I have never seen before despite diving with these animals for years. The male rewrapped his body along the upper portion of her torso and while attempting to engage in coitus he began to tap her head fairly hard. The effect was to keep her head down in the rocks. I can only assume this was a dominance action and kept her head down and prevented her from swimming away.

As I reviewed the picture series last night I saw from this photo that the male is not only butting her head but has his fangs either in her skin or pressed against her head.

Just wanted to share!

I was on a dive yesterday and was able to drift onto a couple of stingrays having sex. The entire event was a first for me and a great experience. The rays danced vertically through the water along the bottom while 4 or 5 more rays swam a perimeter around the couple and me. Eventually the dance stopped and the rays settled to the bottom at 96 feet and stayed their for 4 or 5 minutes.


The rays were spinning and fluttering in the water...


I am pretty sure the male is on top here...



Just about to hit the bottom. The male is holding the female with his mouth in this photo...

On Friday my wife found a very long (almost 5ft) spinal cord (I believe).  Does anyone have an idea what it is?  The rib bones were up to 20 inches long.

While I was looking at a coral this shark swam right next to me, sorry for the photo cutting his tail off (and this was with a FE lens too...) Is this a wobegon shark and does anyone have a resource for what the typical living range is for them? This picture is from yesterday (22nd) from the Keramas Islands near Okinawa Japan.