Mike in the Wild

While the bays around Cabo San Lucas in Baja California, Mexico are currently welcoming spectacular humpback whales for their annual winter visits, the coral reefs in the area have a colorful array of tropical fish in residence year-round.  Two reefs easy to reach either from nearby beaches or by a short boat ride from Cabo's harbor are Santa Maria Cove and Chileno Bay.  I chose the latter means of transport to visit these Sea of Cortez gems, taking a fast Zodiac boat tour organized by my cruise ship's tour desk. Each site has calm, shallow waters and most importantly vibrant and healthy coral reefs.  With less than an hour at each reef, I wasn't expecting to see the abundant and vast array of fish I witnessed.   Having learned to identify a number of individual species in Maui, I was excited to see some new and unique specimens in the same families.  And thanks to that experience, I was able to distinguish surgeonfish from filefish, and to find a first t...

I've written before that no single fish epitomizes snorkeling on Hawaii's reefs more than the reef triggerfish.  This state fish of the Aloha State has an Hawaiian name that means triggerfish with a nose like a pig.   And it's almost impossible not to spot this animated resident each time you swim in the shallows.      I was excited last year to encounter one of its cousins for the first time, the lei triggerfish, which is almost identically sized and shaped but with plainer markings.  And on this year's return trip to Maui I was surprised to find a new member of the family, but one that is maybe flashier in appearance than the reef triggerfish.  It's the lagoon triggerfish, sometimes called the Picasso triggerfish.  With more stripes and vibrant colors, no wonder it's named after an artist. Triggerfish are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the families of fish that live on Hawaii's reefs; surgeonfish, butterflyfish, ...

No fish epitomizes snorkeling on Hawaii's reefs more than the reef triggerfish.  Both tenacious and colorful, it's an easily recognizable sea dweller that every swimmer and explorer encounters within moments of entering the surf and shallows.  It's also the official state fish of the Aloha State, with a Hawaiian name sometimes acknowledged as the longest word in the language.  Even if actually not so, the word is indeed longer than the fish! The family of fish is called humuhumu  in Hawaiian, and the reef triggerfish is specifically the humuhumunukunukuapua'a .  It's a fun word to learn to say, an easy act when you break it down into its simple and repeated parts:  hoo - moo - hoo - moo, noo - koo - noo - koo,  ah - poo - ah - ah .  It literally means, "triggerfish with a nose like a pig." The triggerfish is called as such because it can erect and lock its dorsal spine to hold itself tightly in a rocky crevice as a means of protection.  I...