More from the Night

While we're on the topic of night dives...after sunset is probably the best time to look for cephalopods.

These highly intelligent, agile animals come out at night, slinking over the bottom, searching in cracks and crevices for sleeping prey, and generally just going about their business.

If you do a night dive in Lembeh, you're virtually assured of coming across one type of cephalopod or another...octopuses, squids, cuttlefish.

Here's a little octopus crawling across the sand, perhaps looking for food:

tiny octopus

Incidentally, we dropped in last night and immediately came upon a group of seven little pufferfish scurrying around like they were on a mission. They were. There was one female, with six males in tow. No prizes for guessing what the males wanted.

We followed, and eventually, with only three males left, they mated. No photos, as the action was too fast and in mid-water. But we did get video.

The funniest part was watching the rejected males. When a male was kicked out of the competition by the others, it rushed to the surface like a spiky little ICBM.

I don't speak pufferfish, but I'm pretty certain the body language meant something on the order of: "^*$@#'$(@"()!@)!!!!"

Pufferfish, flounders, crabs, various nudibranchs, Inimicus scorpionfish...we've photo/ video-ed all of them mating this trip.