saxonnelson-milton's Identifications

Meadows occur between the mostly rocky shoreline and the sandy rubbly generally bare areas at depths greater than about 7-8 metres at this particular shore dive site which involves entering and exiting at Bluff Beach (Including mixed with Amphibolis antarctica and Zostera species along with pure meadows of each).

(NB:1st pic possibly submitted months ago but I'll check) An important photo to not overlook,I feel.If this is not good visual evidence that rock-pool shrimp clean toadies then I don't know what it would take to convince any doubters!
And it includes the concept of queuing by clients,as a bonus.
Snorkel shallow subtidal very late arvo at Haycock point.
ADDED PICS I've added 2 more good pics from same snorkel.Next one shows the same shrimp cleaning the toadfish's L side and working mainly on gill area ,having finished the R side(per 1st pic, with shrimp on fish's back but positioned for removing parasites from fish's R gill slit) The 3rd pic has no easily seen shrimp hosts but depicts a client queue and includes a 'rogue' zebrafish along with 3 toadfish .
**Worth noting are the fine circular line markings ventrally on the toadfish in 2nd image.Faint contrast only, but they are (definitely, to my mind) patterns adopted by the fish, not artefact etc.Which leads me to suggest those rings are yet another form of communication between the client and host.I have not seen or noticed these rings on undersides of the many smooth toadfish I see in SA .So they must be signals to the host shrimp: either "please do my gills first,I'm so clogged with parasites there I can't breath normally" or "You're doing a great job but my gills are not completely clean yet so please continue" or "Thank you so much,what a great relief it is to get my gills cleaned",or even "Hey,that feels so good I'm flushing/ letting my emotions show ,like a human who's enjoying a neck massage!"
(I don't think the above imaginary quotes by this grateful client are too farfetched. I feel the probability of their general thrust being correct is quite high. Despite the obvious caveat that I am hypothesizing as to the nature and role of those rings and can't prove I'm right)

One of quite a few adults seen on this dive (I spent about 2.5 hours under and near the jetty, starting at shallow end and exiting via outer dive platform and steps. The other 2 on this "pipefish focus " dive in good conditions followed the same basic dive plan but exited after roughly 1(edited:90 minutes and 2+ hours respectively,with apologies for my inaccurate times underwater for my 2 very experienced and especially tolerant buddies!!). We all found a good number and variety of pipefish, as well as seeing many of the usual other marine life forms for the location. Gentle outgoing tide, minimal swell and cloudless sky. Horizontal visibility varied from 6m to 3m but was mostly around 5 metres).

As previously mentioned, on this snorkel there were blue sprat schooling continuously under and near the jetty base. Previous observation of this species from this snorkel was using a different camera, FWIW.

Image #1: Small adult or adolescent in pink mode,with a medium size adult less obvious in lower frame (other species in frame include sea sweep, zebrafish, dusky morwong FTR).

Image #2: the same pink individual ,with more of it's slightly larger companion adults, from directly above.

On this snorkel there were several quite large schools of these fish shifting about close to the rocky shoreline between beach and jetty. But I don't know what they are, nor if they are juveniles or adults.. While they were all of similar size, the largest would have had a TL of about 4-5 cm. Not easy to get sharp close images when snorkeling, either!