Mudskippers: Gobies that leave the Ocean

Dive, Dive, Eat, Dive, Dive, Eat, Download Photos, Sleep … The Lembeh Dive Day mainly consists of Diving. Because People that come to Lembeh mainly want two things: Critters & Photos. But there is also some really cool Non-Diving Critters to be seen. Besides Tarsiers, Insects, Birds and others there are even Fish to be seen on Land – and that not more than 10 meters off our restaurant! Little Mudskippers are jumping around along the waterline on the two beaches of our little bay. These little fishes belong to the family of the gobies and are able to leave the water, breathe through their skin and skip around on their pectoral fins. This makes them look rather like miniature Seals than like fish and they are very amusing to observe. They basicly just lay along the waterline to ocasionally get re-moisted by waves – because their skin can only breathe when it’s wet. To change position they skip on their pectoral fins … or if in danger they can also leap half a meter high with their body muscles.
The male Mudskippers are also displaying and threatening each other (which then reminds more of walrusses than of seals …). It was this great spectacle that we actually wanted to capture on photo and film. So we spend one afternoon laying on a piece of wood (to not lay in the wet sand), the lens on a bean bag and waited. And waited. And waited. And nothing happened. I always wondered why the people on Lembeh call the Mudskipper “Ikan Tambio” which translates to “Prositute Fish” … but after some time laying in the sand waiting for somethin to happen your back starts to hurt … and then somehow you’ll think that they really deserve a name like that. So for now there are no great behaviour shots but … still a very cool fish and we’ll keep trying to capture something more special.