Trumpetfish have been nudging me to write about them
lately. While snorkeling in a secluded spot on the Big Island recently,
my partner gestured to an underwater cave. When I dove down to check it
out, I found myself face to face with the biggest trumpetfish I have
ever seen.
This fish seemed between 3 and 4 feet long and as big
around as my leg. The fish and I watched one another for a few seconds,
then with a flutter of fins, it was gone.
When I got home, I learned that Hawaii's largest
trumpetfish grow to a maximum of 30 inches long, making my nearly
4-foot-long estimate a typical fish story.
Then last week, while snorkeling with my family near
Chun's Reef, I swam off on my own. "See anything interesting?"
I asked my sister when we reunited.
"Yes," she said. "A trumpetfish."
Even though they are quite common, trumpetfish are
indeed interesting. These long, narrow carnivores often hang vertically
and motionless in the water like so many sticks. When an unsuspecting
fish or shrimp swims close, the "stick" comes alive and sucks
up its prey like a vacuum cleaner.
This suction method of eating is so powerful that
divers can sometimes hear a whooshing sound when it happens. Once, a
photographer friend, David Schrichte, not only heard it but also got a
picture of an unlucky squirrel fish getting hoovered into a
trumpetfish's mouth.
Trumpetfish have other unique hunting methods.
Sometimes, a trumpetfish will use a school of surgeonfish as a blind.
The trumpetfish drifts in the middle of a moving, grazing school, thus
maneuvering close to an unsuspecting prey. When it gets close enough,
the trumpetfish sucks it up.
I saw this happen recently while snorkeling at
Shark's Cove. In the center of a larger school of whitebar surgeonfish
and convict tangs hung a large trumpetfish, looking like a piece of
driftwood. Its vacuum strike was so fast I didn't even see what the fish
swallowed.
In yet another ploy to get close to prey, a
trumpetfish will cruise alongside a butterflyfish or pufferfish. This
may not seem effective except that trumpetfish blend into their
backgrounds amazingly well.
Besides their sticklike shape, many trumpetfish are a
gray-brown color, matching dark reef bottoms and other dark fish nearly
perfectly. Other trumpetfish are the same vivid yellow as the
butterflyfish and yellow tangs they swim with.
Researchers don't know if trumpetfish can change from
one color to another or if they are born one color and stay that way.
Schrichte, however, a reliable observer with years of experience, swears
that the trumpetfish he photographed eating the squirrelfish was bright
yellow at first, then slowly changed to gray.
A close relative of the trumpetfish is the cornetfish.
These fish are easy to distinguish from trumpetfish because they have
much thinner bodies, grow to 5 feet long and have a filament trailing
from the tail.
You don't have to get wet to see trumpetfish. They
are easy to see, hanging vertically like sticks, while strolling among
the boats of the Ala Wai Boat Harbor.
