Video of Muck Diving at Hairball in the Lembeh Strait

Please "like", share, comment or view this Hairball video on YouTube.

This classic muck dive is also on the Sulawesi bank of the Lembeh Strait and is so named because of the clumps of weed lying on the black volcanic sand. The video opens with a striated anglerfish (hairy frogfish - Antennarius striatus) "running" across the seabed then squaring up to the camera, and closes with an Ambon scorpionfish (Pteroidichthys amboinensis) lunging at a small bypasser.

In between we meet various nudibranchs including the distinctive Melibe viridis, an orange devil scorpionfish, a moray eel hosting a clear cleaner shrimp, a strapweed filefish, a peacock mantis shrimp, an urchin crab taking cover under a blue-spotted urchin, and a juvenile emperor snapper and red lionfish in the midst of a group of blue-spotted urchins.

This footage is included as a bonus feature in my DVD, Mucky Secrets - The Marine Creatures of the Lembeh Strait.

Shot in June 2006 at Two Fish Divers.

The music is Starbeam by Toao of www.soilsound.com.

Nick Hope