On Saturday the 3rd of July, 2010, while everybody else was participating in the 1st annual underwater Olympics, held by Global Dive, I decided to sneak off and have a dive to make up for disappointing photographic results from the previous dive a week earlier.
The venue was Matheson Bay, Leigh. I hadn’t dived this site for a few months, so was keen to see what I could find.
I headed off from the shore to where there is a break in the rock wall that cuts across the bay, and slowly swam in a north easterly direction from there.
There was no current and the visibility was quite good for the area at about 6 metres.
I had my 60mm macro lens on and was slowly searching all the rocks, nooks and crannies, and kelp for anything small.
Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw what at first I thought was an unusual looking piece of kelp.
Upon looking more closely, I discovered that it was a fish.
It had its head pointing down and its mouth seemingly attached to a rock on the bottom and its upside-down body was just swaying about in the water in such a way that it looked like a piece of kelp, attached to the rock (see photo insert).
I assume this behavior was the fish attempting to camouflage itself.
I fired off a number of shots which didn’t disturb the fish in the slightest.
It had no inclination to move at all. I wasn’t particularly happy with any of the shots, so decided to spend a little more time with this fella.
I shooed it along a little and re-positioned myself for some better shots.
My settings for all of the photographs I took of this guy were ISO100, f8 at 1/60thsec with strobes set to ¼ power.
I probably spent another five minutes or so with this fish before continuing with the rest of this two hour dive.
My max depth on this dive was 5.5m, and I photographed this guy in between 4-5m.
I had a little trouble identifying this fish, but Malcolm Francis of NIWA knows his stuff, and upon seeing the photos was able to identify it for me.
It is a Banded weed-fish.
It is also known as the Orange clinid.
The Latin name is Ericentrus rubrus.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about it:
The orange clinid, Ericentrus rubrus, is a weedfish of the genus Ericentrus, found around New Zealand in rock pools and from low water to depths of about 15m, in reef areas. It is the only member of its genus.
The Encyclopedia of Life, says the following:
Occurs in rock pools and subtidal area down to 30 m.
Usually found living on brown algae (Carpophyllum and Cystophora). 
Feeds on small weed dwelling crustaceans.
It goes to show that there’s a lot of stuff to see not only at our more popular off-shore dive sites, but also around coastal New Zealand.
Great find Marty.
Well done with the shots.
Regards Andrew
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Thanks mate, just a bit of luck finding that really.
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