Ocean Watch

Getting a line on fish

story takes digging

I love to read novels, especially ones with nature scenes. There's nothing that spoils a book faster for me, however, than incorrect biology. Not only do such errors snap me out of the story, but it's annoying. In this era of instant information, it doesn't take much effort to get the facts right.

Given that, I was pleased to receive a recent e-mail question from a California writer. One scene in this woman's book is based on an experience she had on a beach near Kailua in the early '60s. She was sitting on the beach when suddenly, "people started running into the water, some fully dressed, and began scooping up fish with their hands and actually popping a few into their mouths."

This writer called several people at Hawaii's aquariums and museums who all informed her that this could not have happened. Then she saw a picture in a Hawaii magazine of men standing in waist-deep water fishing for oama. "Could this be the fish I remember?" she asks. "Or is there another tiny fish that can be scooped up in the hand? I want to get this right."

I want to get this right too, but I can't think of a single fish in Hawaii that a person could catch in the hand and eat. This is especially true of the little oama. These juvenile goatfish feed on the ocean floor and are caught with pole and line. Anglers catch oama with their bare hands only in their dreams.

My best guess is that the people at that Kailua-area beach were snacking on the sex organs of worms. Really. Once a year, on the seventh night after the full moon that follows the autumn equinox, worm aficionados from some Pacific islands collect and eat pieces of palolo worms.

Palolo worms live in mucus-lined burrows inside the crevices of rocks and dead coral. When these worms become adults, they don't go looking for mates. They stay home and send their sex organs out to do the job.

At sexual maturity, the posterior portion of the palolo worm develops eggs or sperm and changes in form and color. This body then breaks off and swims to the surface, joining thousands of others in a lunar-timed swarm.

Depending on the species, several things occur during a palolo swarm. In Bermuda the worms' sex sacs light up. Males and females swim in circles around each other, creating a striking light show, and then explode and unite.

The West Indian palolo's sex organs break off in the night and make spiral motions at the surface. At dawn, spinning bodies cover the ocean's surface. When the sun rises, these burst, join and create palolo larvae.

Three days later these offspring sink to the bottom and join the adults, which are busy growing new rear ends.

During palolo spawns in Samoa and Fiji, the water supposedly looks like vermicelli soup. People wade out before first light and gather the wigglers in nets. Hungry collectors eat some on the spot, but most scoop the green things into nets and pool them for a communal worm fry.

I haven't heard of people collecting palolo worms in Hawaii, but since our waters host several of these species, and people from South Pacific islands live here, it's not a stretch. It sure would make a great scene.

I look forward to reading this novel. Whatever the plot, I know the biology will be right.