About Dive! Tutukaka
*Wade Doak
Wade is a legend in the marine world, and a passionate advocate for all things fishy, watery, and environmental. He lives locally and knows more about the Tutukaka Coast than most (apart from his wife Jan!) This is a column dedicated to his view, and his past and present adventures. Enjoy!
Echinoderms of the Poor Knights Islands
MARINE INVERTEBRATES: echinoderms: the 'spiny skins': urchins, starfish, feather stars, sea cucumbers all share the same basic body design; they all use hydraulics for propulsion; they can only live in a water planet.
Footage from Wade Doak
Crustaceans of the Poor Knights Islands
MARINE INVERTEBRATES: crustaceans: creatures with external shells or body armour that range from tiny shrimps [some shrimps remove parasites] to the giant packhorse cray; crabs, hermits, Spanish lobster and even the barnacle.
Footage from Wade Doak
Ascidians and Salps of the Poor Knights Islands
MARINE INVERTERBRATES: ascidians or sea squirts; salps: water -sieving creatures, encrusting rocks or drifting, including the giant salp that a diver can enter.
Footage from Wade Doak
Wrasses of the Poor Knights Islands
WRASSES: These fish have sharp vision & swim with a sculling action so they can inspect the reef closely to tear loose small invertebrates with rat-like teeth. Juveniles often clean other fishes. Starting life as females, wrasses reverse sex to become males-and change colour patterns.
Seaweeds of the Poor Knights Islands
SEAWEEDS: brown seaweeds; reds and greens: basic & most common species.
Footage from Wade Doak.
Molluscs, Seasnails and Nudibranchs - Invertebrates of the Poor Knights Islands.
MARINE INVERTERBRATES: molluscs. Seasnails, nudibranchs, [=seaslugs] bivalves, octopus, squids, paper nautilus; a treasure chest of lovely life forms all with the same basic body design: gills that can be used for jet propulsion or a slippery, all-terrain foot.
Footage from Wade Doak
Cnidarians and Comb Jellies - Invertebrates of the Poor Knights Islands
MARINE INVERTEBRATES: cnidarians & comb jellies: based on the polyp or anemone body, a huge group of stinging animals that often form colonies, even as large as GB Reef, or drift in the ocean as jellyfish.
Footage from Wade Doak
Bryozoans - Invertebrates of the Poor Knights Islands
MARINE INVERTBRATES: Bryozoans: delicate, encrusting animal colonies that often resemble sea plants. Some are flexible like colorful floss; others may be rigid, branching and calcareous like corals but lack their symmetries.
Footage from Wade Doak.
Hunters, Herbivores, and Bottom-Kissers - Fishes of the Poor Knights Islands
HUNTERS, HERBIVORES, BOTTOM-KISSERS:
Three guilds of fishes presented, species by species: predators, weed eaters and those that bottom feed by kissing off encrusting life with soft toothless mouths.
Footage from Wade Doak.
Bottom Stalkers - Fish of the Poor Knights Islands.
BOTTOM STALKERS. Usually nocturnal these species, like groupers and moray eels, stalk prey over the reef & often hide by day.
Footage from Wade Doak.
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Dana and Florian - GermanyThe Rough Guide to New Zealand recommended you as No.1 to dive the Poor Knights for the right reason. We will recommend you to everyone coming to NZ.
