50 
THE CORAL TRIANGLE: HEARST BIODIVERSITY EXPEDITION 
incredible and visable ehange in 
water densities at the thermo- 
eline/helioeline (ealled a 
Sehlieren) at about 4 feet when a 
lone diver appeared from deeper 
below us, swimming oddly. Fear¬ 
ing something had gone wrong 
the three of us made our way 
over to him. His hands were out 
in front of him and he seemed to 
be holding something in them. 
As we got eloser we saw that the 
diver was one of the ineredible 
loeal dive guides (seriously, 
these guys ean find almost any¬ 
thing under water). Peri Palera- 
eio. In Peri’s hand was some sort 
of eel. Not really knowing what 
was going on, but knowing it was 
important, we opened one of the 
large eollecting bags we were 
earrying and carefully helped get 
the eel into the bag and sealed it 
shut. Peri was exeited, and quick¬ 
ly returned to the depths to rejoin 
the group he was diving with. Beeause the eel was important enough to be eaught by hand and 
brought up from deeper water, we quiekly got the animal onto the boat to make sure we didn’t lose 
it. 
Figure 11: The newly described Peri’s Snake Eel. 
Back at Club Ocellaris, as everyone oohhd and aahhd over the bueket eontaining the eel, the 
baekstory unfolded. As it turns out, this was a suspeeted new speeies of Snake Eel that had been 
seen on a previous trip, and had actually been seen earlier in the expedition, but eluded eolleetion. 
Peri had spotted it, grabbed and and knew that we had a eolleetion bag big enough to put it in. Dr. 
John McCosker and Dr. Gerald Allen named the fish Peri’s Snake Eel, Myrichthys paleracio, in 
honor of Peri for this feat of SCUBA and iethyologieal dexterity. 
What About the Fishes? 
The areas we visited on the trip had corals reefs in great shape — healthy and growing with 
almost no signs of bleaehing, whieh is very exeiting given the steps that the Philippines has taken 
to proteet those animals. The fish populations in the area were a more eomplieated story. While the 
small fishes were swimming thiek and diverse, there was a notieeable laek of anything larger than 
a foot or so. The reason for this absenee was made elear when we dove on several of the protect¬ 
ed areas where food fishing is prohibited. Only in these areas did we see larger fish ineluding huge 
sehools of jaeks magnifieent above the reef scape and sharks lurking in eaves waiting for dusk. 
Currently, these protected areas are in plaee to drive eeo tourism, but it is hoped that the fiiture will 
see more of these fish safe havens, and that enough of them in close enough proximity to each other 
will not only boost the eeonomy of tourism, but will allow these larger animals a safe plaee to live 
and breed, and ultimately result in the sustainable harvest of food fish by loeal peoples. 
