When people go to Lembeh, a few top items on the sighting list are the wonderpus, mimic octopus, Pygmy sea horses, flamboyant cuttlefish and also crazy fish like this fellow, the hairy frogfish.
I pestered the dive masters throughout my first like 7 dives that I HAD to see one of these. When another group saw it, I almost turned hulk green with jealousy. My pestering paid off. At one of the black sand dives, our dear DM searched the sand for more than 30 minutes. As soon as he was about to give up ( and my heart about to break because I'm dramatic like that) there it was! Sitting next to some sea weeds. Just chilling out.
I must have screamed into my regulator and danced a bit. Camera battery check. Strobe battery check. Shoot! And then as it was almost done admiring the little fella.... It yawned !!!! Twice!!! OMG! And I got a photo. Ok ok not the best one out there but still!
I really love watching mantas and whale sharks but this, this is something else. Top 5 dives. Oh yeah. Hairy frogfish. I'm sorry about the flashing lights though. Heh. Go copulate. Shooh.
Sometimes called a striated frogfish, it is a species of angler fish. Similar to its other cousins, like giant or warty frogfish, the hairy has a dorsal spine which it waves around to attract prey. It's small and the one I saw was about the size of a golf ball, but can eat prey it's own size! That's what the cavernous mouth is for. Its for food and its a 100% carnivore. Like others also, the hairy doesn't swim unless really necessary. It waddles instead.
And no. I did not lay a single finger nor pointer on it.
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