Bizarre fishes Trumpetfish and slender snipefish

Trumpetfish and Snipefishes

When I started having the first direct approaches with marine life, in the stretch of sea between Calabria and Sicily, I used to hang out at the coasts where the fishermen landed returning from their work. I watched inquisitive the disembarking operations but, above all, I lingered while fishermen were cleaning the gill nets, which I found very interesting. Observing all that they removed from the nets, I was trying to identify the different species of fish and sea invertebrates, collecting everything that was thrown to the ground, like useless fishes, starfishes, shells and pieces of corals of various types. Once home, by consulting my first books about the sea, I tried to trace back to the animals’ scientific data and…filling my parents’ house with a smell nothing short of nauseating!

I will never forget, despite the passing of years, those little “unnecessary” and, among other things, very annoying fishes called trumpet fishes. They were small, they were many and, when they ran up against the nets, it was crazy. Removing those strange fishes from the tangle of a net, meant spending hours fighting with the quills of which they are equipped, that often ended up stuck in the hands of the poor workers…

The longspine snipefish, Macrorhamphosus scolopax, belongs to the order of Syngnathiformes. It has a curious shape: its mouth proboscis-shaped has a small opening at the end, made to feed on small prey. With a reddish color on the back, shading on the sides tending to pink, it swims tilted upside down; I have to say in a rather unusual way for a fish. Despite living at quite high depths (200-300 m), often it climbs up to 40-50 m overnight. The waters of the Strait of Messina make exception to this rule. There the snipefishes come up almost close to the surface under cover of darkness, while during the day, thanks to a special game of currents, they can be found between 20 and 50 meters deep quite frequently, even if only in very specific and narrow-confined places.

The main feature of the trumpet fish is the first dorsal fin, consisting of a second highly developed spine very sharp, whose inner edge is saw-toothed. A real stinger, damnation of the fishermen who are injured regularly while cleaning the nets. A terrible needle with certainly a very precise function, probably defensive. I remember that once I saw a golden grouper resting on his stomach on the bottom, as if it was suffering, almost bent to one side. Getting closer, I discovered that the grouper had tried to swallow a trumpetfish, but grabbing it from behind. Result: the stinger of the first dorsal fin remained stuck on the grouper’s palate, who could not swallow its prey. At the same time, the snipefish could not take the sea route, held by its own sting that, on the one hand had saved it, but on the other kept it restrained in the jaws of the predator. I waited a bit to see the evolution of the situation, but things did not change quickly and I did not see the ending. However, the grouper was there trying to help the trumpetfish getting away, shaking its head, and eventually things would work out for the best… Going back to the physical characteristics of the fish, besides the stinger we notice a small and truncated tail fin, and a dorsal and anal fin quite similar. Although the animal can reach 18 cm in length, the specimens that are usually seen are long on average between 7 and 10 cm.

Trumpetfish and Snipefishes

To learn more about the habits of this funny little fish I will tell you some of my experiences in the stretch of sea where it is easier to meet them, not right in between Scylla and Charybdis, but rather between Reggio and Messina. This is to emphasize that the trumpet fish actually can be found only around Reggio and Messina and, only in certain cases, to the southern limits of the Straits (on the Calabrian side between St. Gregory and Punta Pellaro), although in the past many articles, appeared in specialized magazines about diving tourism, incorrectly also reported their sighting in the sea of Scylla, to the north of the strait. One of the most evocative scenery that the sea of the city of Reggio has offered me, and still offers (although lately in much more modest way), is right this: all these little silver and pink fishes, swimming frantically on the seabed’s debris slopes in front of the beach promenade, sometimes near the bottom, touching the tufts of the many spirographs, sometimes hovering in midwater, in evolutions that only occasionally you can observe closely, because of a certain diffidence of the school towards men diving during daylight hours. At night the behavior of the longspine snipefish is completely different: they form small groups laying out near the bottom, and sometimes they are also scattered here and there, as confused, even quite disturbed by the beam of light perturbing the environment hidden in the dark. Shedding some light on a group of a few specimen, I see them starting to swim now to one direction, now to another, as adrift, suddenly caught by frantic swimming or, sometimes, seemingly pausing “reflexive”. In that way I had several opportunities to observe them, photograph them and get very close to individual fish. Approaching a single specimen, photographing the details while it moves, remains very difficult, although not impossible as by day. Nevertheless, with the sun, I found a place where you can approach a remarkable school of fish in continuous rhythmic evolutions. It is located between two clusters of rocks, placed between 35 and 45 meters deep, in front of the mouth of a stream almost on the southern edge of the Strait. We are at Fiumarella di Pellaro, a magical and congenial place to the life of these fish, even though I do not know the causes of this large concentration in a small area. The exceptional images of dense clouds of tiny trumpet fish were made over the years in these waters, where only the shelter and security offered by the walls of the rock bastions gave me the opportunity to shoot playing hide and seek.

During very few night dives, instead, I had the good fortune to assist to the coupling of the snipefishes. There were no more than two or three dives characterized by this important event, and I seemed almost to understand that there are some winter nights when these fish go wild and mate. The magical night of the coupling is just unforgettable, and the only testimony is a single photograph, unique because only once I managed to freeze the moment, grabbing on the fly one of the few seconds available when the two fishes are joined. Out of the blue, you see two specimens in the context of a small group who get close and cling to one another with the back of the body, near the anal fins. The mating lasts a few seconds and soon after, at the time of detachment, you see both fishes shaking and simultaneously emitting the first a small curled cord of eggs, and the other the semen that will fecundate it, or so it seems… I do not remember what I felt when I saw such a scene, but I am convinced that the observation and documentation of such events in the wild is not so common. Pleased to share with the readers my emotions, I propose between the lines that unique image that shows the two sexually active trumpetfishes in that fantastic underwater world, wrapped in darkness, on the seabed of that mythical channel separating Sicily from Calabria.

School of Trumpetfish and Snipefishes

Very similar to the co-genus scolopax, Macrorhamphosus gracilis or slender snipefish, unlike the first has a more slender body and compressed at the sides, with large and circular eye. The beak-shaped snout is quite pointy, with a small, incised mouth facing upwards. The second spiny ray of the dorsal fin does not exceed the caudal peduncle and has a slightly serrated edge facing down. The tail is truncate with a slightly concave margin. The color of the back is golden rose to become silver on the belly. Not more than 3 cm in length, exceptionally reaches 5 cm, so its size is well below the spiny trumpetfish, with which it shares the habitat typically pelagic and the depth. The slender snipefish also feeds on small planktonic animals and seems to be present only in the Strait of Messina. Encountering this fish underwater is very rare: I seldom have but have no picture of it. I always thought a lot about this, but I never understood why it is so hard to see the slender snipefish underwater, while it is easier to encounter its beached corpses. Therefore, I assume that probably is because of the depth at which they usually stay.

WORDS and PICTURES by Francesco Turano

Trumpetfish and Snipefishes near a wheel

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