An anchor tuskfish and half a dozen blue-spotted fantail rays were the displeased inhabitants of a large fish trap found on the southern rim of Cyrene Reef early one July morning. Men need to feed, but we felt none would starve if these captives received a second chance. A hole was wrought in the wire and the prisoners unleashed with bewildered indignity back onto the reef flat where they fled with little to thank for their ordeal. And despite the flurry of cartilage and stings, no one was hurt, save perhaps those who suffered a dent in their machinations to harvest the bounty of a reef already besieged by long lines and wayward ships.
Of lesser interest to men in search of a free lunch were damsels snug in hosts that have retained their symbionts. The anemonefish and their stinging carpets still thrive in the reefs of Singapore's southern islands, but a collusive conspiracy of collectivitis and climate change may well chip away at both their undulating playgrounds and their basic homing instincts.
For now, the anemonefish are safe from nocturnal prowlers such as two-feet long snake eels that probed the rubble for hidden treats. The blotchy ophichthids are adept burrowers with stiffened tails that let the fish worm their way backward through the sediment with rapid ease. Sharing fossorial habits but humbler lengths were carpet eel-blennies that avoided the exposed flats, preferring to weave through crevices in weed-lined rocks. For an hour or two in the dying night, these cryptic dwellers of Cyrene Reef led us on but gave little away of their secrets and what drives them to such boldness before our bright, bewildered lights.
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