Happy Easter from NAD Lembeh

Happy Easter 2017 to all of you! Instead of the Easter Rabbit with white, fluffy ears, we’ve had a little tarsier visiting us. Not sure if he was hiding eggs though?
Tarsiers are small primates, about 10 to 15 cm in size which only live on some islands in Southeast Asia. The enormous eyeballs give the Tarsier a quite unique look: they can be up to 16 mm in diameter and help them hunt for prey and watch out for predators. During the day, Tarsiers rest clinging onto tree branches whereas at night time, they use their powerful hind legs and tail to leap to another branch and catch insects or smaller vertebrates.

NAD Lembeh Resort Koi Pond

Introducing Sonja (or the new Serge)

It’s time to introduce myself properly, so far most of you only know me as “the new Serge”. My name is Sonja, I’m from Germany and decided to move to South East Asia in 2010 to become a dive instructor. Back then, you would always find me diving with a simple point and shoot camera – therefore, it wasn’t very surprising that I finally completed my underwater videography course in 2012.

Back In Lembeh!

After leaving in mid-May to spend some time quality time with the big pelagics in Mexico, Costa Rica, and the U.S., I’m back to stay for a while at NAD. After embarking on my open-ended trip to Indonesia last August, I spent eight of the past twelve months split between Read more…

Fluorescence and bioluminescence

When I arrived in Lembeh this time it was just after Christmas. However, I was up for another Christmas treat. Simon here from NAD had ordered a bunch of cool stuff from Nightsea, strobe filters, filters for the lens and a cool pair of yellow spectacles, which waited for me here.  I have now tried this system during my stay and will in this blog give a short overview over what I learned from shooting it. But first of all I want to give a brief explanation over what fluorescence is, and why we can find it in nature. BTW, the complete system is available for rent here in NAD if you wish to try it out.

Fluorescent hard coral

Fluorescent hard coral


First of all, fluorescence is often confused with bio-luminescence. Bio-luminescence is found in more and more animals, and in a number of mushrooms as well. Well-known examples are those of plankton giving of light when disturbed, deep-water organisms with light organs, mushrooms glowing in the forests, fire flies and for northern areas glowworms. Bio-luminescence is the emitting of light involving a chemical reaction. Very generally, the light emitting substance is a protein called luciferin, which emits light through a chemical reaction catalyzed and oxidized by an enzyme, called luciferase. Thus, a chemical provides the energy fueling bio-luminescence, using oxygen in the process.
Bioluminescing mushrooms

Bio-luminescing mushrooms


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