Toadfish Tales from Costa Rica

When you have been diving somewhere for a while you start to become very familiar with all of the local reef residents.

Whether its butterfly fish, angel fish, sharks!!(oohhh eehh!!) or even some of the smaller visitors e.g. nudibranchs and blennys (love those big googly eyes ) you can even start to judge depths and specific areas of the reef by seeing what is floating around. On the pacific side of  Costa Rica if you float above 30ft you start to see a lot of panamic fanged blenny which gives me an idea immediately that I’m heading towards the shallows.
And contrary to his name he does not look vampire like even though that seems to be the trend for everything right now!?

As an eager fish finder I do have my head buried in the Fish ID book on a regular basis, more so until I ma familiar with an area. Because of this I find that even if you see something you have never seen before on the reef you are able to at least pick out a family , or have a “vague” idea where in the general fish ID chain it falls.

Now one of favourite fish, and call me strange if you will because of this, is the ToadFish. I have very strong reasoning behind this so hear me out. Firstly, they are in all truths pretty bloody hard to find. After spending a couple of years diving in the carribean and listening to them “singing” I managed to find them only on 2 occasions. Secondly, their singing, which is compared by some people to the sound of a motorbike revving. And thirdly, they always look soooo grumpy! Its like the scrooge of the reef fish I think?!

When I used to live in the Carribean, I started to be able to seek out their hang outs after a while and became pretty good at finding them , but in Costa Rica, it has taken me 4 years!!! But finally….success!! My first indication that they were around was about a month ago when I heard the all to familiar to me once sound of motorbikes under the water. I eagerly began looking under rocks and looking for san chutes but alas.

Then just last week with some divers who had just finished their open water I had to do a double take because sitting out load and proud in between some rocks was non-other than a toad fish. Smaller than their caribbean cousins, the toadfish here have protruding eyes on the top of his head and was unfortunately missing one of my favourite features, the beard. Luckily one of my divers had a camera so I was able to grab a couple of quick pictures for formal ID.

I enthusiasticly was waving my hand under my chin at them and pointing, but as you can imagine, the thrill of a toadfish find is not the most incredible thing to a new diver.  I think though from my over zealous description they got the idea of how important it was. That completely made my week, and now to find the batfish ; )

Popularity: 14% [?]