If you’ve been following our recent posts and our Facebook updates judiciously, you’d know that we had the greatest pleasure of visiting凯恩斯海军陆战队几周前，他们出色的团队。除了参观该设施并了解如何管理事务外，我们还非常高兴与Timothy Bennet，Deepwater Diver和整体鱼类收集器交谈。
遗憾的是，我的相机在这次旅行前几天破裂，因此必须使用iPhone相机拍摄一切。多么完整而绝对的羞耻感，因为我们看到了很多不可思议的东西，有些无鱼，这是一些非常棒的照片。好吧，c’est la vie！
We’ll try to describe the overall layout of the place to the best of our ability in words. The facility itself is a sizeable area with distinct and organised work stations. Now if you could visualise roughly, the cargo loading and transport area is just outside across the road opposite from the main building. Stuff here gets loaded and prepared before transportation to the airport. Crossing that tiny stretch of asphalt will take you to the main building, which upon entering you will be greeted by three display tanks, and a stairwell that leads to the various staff offices.
继续前进的楼梯间将带您前往主要的室内控股系统（如上图所示），其中大部分鱼和珊瑚都被持有。现在您可以想象鱼或珊瑚坚果一定是什么样的。从字面上看，这是一家糖果店，我本人花了很多时间，只是在欣赏珊瑚海所提供的微小分数的一排坦克上走来走去。Amblard SA的Vincent Chalias也在旅行中，我不想代表他讲话，但我认为他在珊瑚赛道上度过了愉快的时光，并确定了珊瑚。
不过，我们必须赞扬该设施的整洁，精致性和整体功能。人们可能会认为它是由一个严重的强迫症的铁杆式独裁者统治的，但我们开玩笑。它不是。从牲畜的到来到隔离，握住，包装，然后最后运输，一切都经过精心思考和系统性。这就像看一台上油的机器。
凯恩斯海军陆战队collects their fish primarily from the Coral Sea, about 240 kilometres East of Cairns. Their corals come from further south, and the two collection areas do not overlap. We spoke to Timothy Bennet (more on that later) on what it’s like to do what he does, and it was enthralling. Seriously I could, and I would, and if I had my way I will, listen to this man speak forever.
蒂姆和他的两个儿子,三把menal divers and collectors, typically make about week long trips out to the Coral Sea where they travel around different habitats catching various fish. The boats full of goodies then return back to the facility where they get sorted and housed in their respective holding tanks. When we asked Julian Baggio what it’s like awaiting a Coral Sea unload, he described it as puppies for Christmas. And by puppies we mean super cute fluffy ones. You bet it’s awesome, and if my job had perks like Coral Sea unloads every week i’d be over the metaphorical moon as well.
Be it fish or coral, everything gets tagged after unloading right down to the date of collection as well as GPS locality. They arethatserious. The information is keyed into a computer database for easy access and reference, and makes for a very professional way of tracking down their livestock.
尽管储备的五颜六色的珊瑚和大片of shimmering reef fish, Cairns Marine is by and large a major dealer and exporter of large animals intended for public aquariums. The round tubs you see above houses some of the “smaller-large” animals such as rays, Maori wrasses, Trevally, Queenfish, Snappers which are all intended for larger displays or public aquaria.
The outdoor portion of Cairns Marine’s facility is where the big boys are kept. Sharks, some of the larger rays and boney fishes are housed here temporarily before transport and shipping. There’s even a large holding tank for numerous Australian Lungfish, which I would have taken pictures of if my phone wasn’t held hostage by three and five years olds for zombie chasers. I was too mesmerised to remember anyway, and I apologise for that.
Everybody loves cool sharks and awesome rays, but one big fish that really charmed my socks off were these absolutely marvellousNaso Tonganus。These cuties were named after Tonga, their type locality, but are actually pretty widespread. I’ve never seen this species in person but that fleshy bump on their head is so unusual, it almost looks like a baby beluga or some kind of cetacean.
We got to see Lyle Squire (director of Cairns Marine) and Laura Simmons (Curator and project manager) work on packing and crating up some reef sharks for transport in situ. It’s unbelievable how much thought and innovation gets put into something like this. We don’t want to reveal too much, but it’s really commendable how the welfare of the animal and the cargo box is taken into such extreme consideration, with real clever and methodical procedures.
在设施和管理方面，这确实是一种大开眼界和特权经验，可以游览地面。您可以说出用装饰每个坦克的贴纸之类的小东西，将多少思考和努力放入牲畜中。决定日常喂养方案的贴纸以及它们来自哪个船船和到达日期。直到诸如定制和创新大鱼板条箱的大小和形状之类的大事，以及做某些事情的最佳方法。
On the other hand, talking to the staff was a whole different level of bewilderment. Timothy Bennett and Fenton Walsh as we mentioned before, were a true delight. Fenton is a scientist who works on fish species, and he most recently published the paper oncirrhilabrus squirei。Talking to him about fish and his job was amazing. I love fish, and I love looking at them and photographing them and just talking about them in general. But speaking to him, and the diver who collects them is a whole new realm of exciting.
We talked to Tim for a little bit over dinner regarding some aspects of his job and fish collecting in general. Tim collects with his two sons, who are just as good as he is. You can imagine the amount of things I wanted to ask and the kinds of questions that were running through my mind. Tim catches most if not all of the fish that passes through Cairns Marine, and each one of those fish has a story behind it. How he catches them, where he finds them, how they are like in the wild, what kind of environment they live in, what’s their biology, how they move, etc. Every facet of the animal in its natural surrounding has been immortalised in Tim’s brain, and there was only so many things I could ask.
So I did anyway. I made a mental list of every fish I could possibly think of from the Coral Sea and began firing. Tell me more aboutPseudocoris aequalis! What about that undescribedPlectranthias? What are some of the cool fish you’ve seen?
Tim’s mind is like hard disk with accessible information at the click of a button. He can generate visual maps of the deepwater dive locations and the terrain with such accuracy you’d be hard pressed not to hold your breath for fear of drowning. It was interesting when he mentioned briefly onBodianus paraleucosticticus，，，，for which I whipped out a photo on my phone to show him. He was delighted that it’s still alive and doing fine, and you could see it in his eye the genuine love for fish and his job.
He then continued about the habitat, whereB. Paraleucosticticus发现这些深水猪鱼在黑暗的地方超过70m（230英尺）。然而，他抓到的特殊洞穴被发现在一个巨大的洞穴中，与之共享Centropyge Colini。His excitement and enthusiasm when recalling these stories are palpable and tangible almost, and it’s heartening to see.
We tapped into some of his knowledge database on some of the Coral Sea假人也是。现在有很多从珊瑚海出来的美丽物种，但在我看来，三个最华丽的物种必须是伪黄酮，，，，假人ventralis和全新假人cf. aurulentus。
P. Flavicaudais the most nimble and hardest to catch of the three, according to Tim. If I didn’t remember wrongly, he finds them at 60m where they school along near vertical walls. The habitat makes it tricky and difficult to set up a barrier net to chase and maraud them in, and they generally scatter and disperse when attempted. Tim also mentioned that it takes a certain instinct on the job, to be able to say there’s the fish I want to catch, there, there and there, then actually doing it within a set amount of time while ignoring all the other stuff you don’t want.
I guess it’s difficult to visualise and imagine, unless you are there actually doing it.假人ventralisalso prefers deeper waters, but in calm slow moving areas with flat rubble bottoms. These are easier to catch with a barrier net, where they are herded and picked off. Sometimes they get scared and descend into the rubble where it is also easy to collect. When asked if he’s seen any of them swimming upside down in caves, Tim said no.
我问，因为在相关的夏威夷物种中，P. hawaiiensis，，，，they are sometimes observed swimming upside down underneath large ledges. The screen capture above demonstrates this very well, with a group of females and a single male at the lower left.
The Coral SeaP. ventralisare not needled during decompression because they are too small and fragile. Instead, they are brought up to the surface slowly over many days, a tedious and time consuming task. Collecting around the Coral Sea means that Tim and his crew has to travel to different reefs with different habitats throughout their week’s stay. The ventralis anthias comes from only one reef, where he has to go back repeatedly many times a day over a few days to surface it. When you buy one of these fish from Cairns Marine, you get an idea how much effort goes into one little fish.
除了与蒂姆（Tim）交谈之外，我们还拥有一个从船上新鲜卸下珊瑚海的收藏品。因此，自然而然地，我们想为自己挑选一些东西，在可用的库存上贴上这些“去柠檬”贴纸真是太好了。我们最终问蒂姆，他在2015年真正想看到什么，他用新的呼吸器说，他希望找到一个新的甜嘉。
He’s already seenLiopropoma tonstrinum，，，，which is a new record for the Coral Sea. This particular species is so aggressive in its distribution that every year we are finding out new range extensions for it. At 90m (300ft), Tim mentioned seeing a pair of banded butterflyfishes. At that depth and description, only two genus comes to mind.预后orRoa。现在，这两个属可能真的很深，如果它们存在于珊瑚海，尤其是对于预后。Roa另一方面，仅由R.澳大利亚in the Southern Hemisphere, and it’s found in Western Australia. Still it’s anybody’s guess what those butterflies he saw down there were, but we bet you anything it’s probably new.
We wish Tim and his two sons all the best in their dives, to stay safe and just have fun. Special thanks to Lyle Squire, Laura Simmons, Fenton Walsh, Rob Lancely and Julian Baggio for the incredible hospitality, laughs and a great time. If you are reading this, a huge thank you from us, and especially to Rob + Julian for the fishing trip and the unorthodox airport welcome.
A big thanks to Ehsan Dashti ofTriton Applied Reef Bioscienceand Vincent Chalias of Amblard SA for the companionship too. Before this turns into a graduation day speech, we’d like to end off here. Hope you enjoyed the recount, despite our crappy iPhone photos or lack thereof…
Keep reading for a follow up on our visit to the Sydney Museum and meet up with world authority on dottybacks, Dr. Anthony Gill!
