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NHNZ Images News
This monthly newsletter discusses topics of interest to the footage industry.
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Ultimate storm-chaser
2008-04-27 23:02:00
In 1995 Geoff Mackley rocketed from relative obscurity to cult hero status when he scaled an erupting New Zealand volcano in pitch darkness to capture the action from the crater’s edge. Since then he has photographed countless natural disasters and their aftermath forging a reputation as one of the world's ultimate storm chasers.When it comes to promoting Mackley's collection, unique is an understatement. From the edge of the crater to the eye of the storm his images showcase mother nature at her worst (or best in Geoff's opinion) making adjectives like death-defying, dangerous and downright crazy more apt when it comes to describing his portfolio.Geoff goes to extreme lengths to be first on the scene and is entrusting NHNZ to represent the resulting footage while he gets on with the serious business of storm chasing!Filmed with a Panasonic AJ-D800 DVC Pro digital camera (PAL) NHNZ has Geoff's entire collection of exclusive, stunning HD footage for inclusion in do ...
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Moving Images China Footage
2008-04-07 02:09:00
A construction boom has been taking place in China resulting in the investment in massive building projects, including ports, railways, roads, airports and commercial buildings and residential housing, is all designed to steamroll China's economy into the modern world. NHNZ now offers the first high definition footage from the Shanghai World Financial Center construction project. The building is an architectural marvel able to withstand typhoons, earthquakes and man-made disasters. Footage is shot either from the ground or the 81st floor showing the latter stages of construction.
Construction of the Shanghai World Financial CenterThe stunning hi-def format conveys the magnitude of the project with non-stop activity 24 hours a day, a multitude of workers and multiple construction activities occurring at the same time. The footage features cranes lifting huge loads of steel, truck delivering concrete and container ships at nearby Yangtze Estuary. Other shots show the j ...
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NHNZ Moving Images represents HD footage from Gulliver Media
2008-04-07 02:06:00
NHNZ has recently expanded its HD collection through becoming agents for several companies. Although having just recently joined the list of companies we represent, Gulliver Media have been independent film makers since 1981 and specialise in wildlife and natural history projects. Gulliver also produces a wide variety of educational video programs on topic areas such as ecosystems, conservation and sustainability. As well as filming Australian wildlife and landscapes, they have also filmed in China. Australian HD Australia's birds and wildlife are represented amongst the footage: from black necked storks and black cockatoos to wallabies and water buffalo. A wide range of domestic and native wildlife footage is available. Water buffalo were introduced into Australia in the 19th century from Indonesia and can be found in the wild, especially in the coastal wet areas. A growing domesticated industry emerged in north Australia in the 1980s.
Also featured is the rare and endangere ...
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NHNZ is agent for HD footage from Greg Hensley Productions
2008-04-07 02:02:00
Greg Hensley Productions have over 30 years of footage filmed across America. NHNZ has represented Greg Hensley Productions since December 2000 but has only recently signed a contract to represent their HD collections. Hensley Productions are known for their time-lapse cinematography and wildlife footage in the remote areas of the United States. Hensley Productions has provided us with SD and HD 35mm stock footage.North America's celebrated bird of prey, the bald eagle, primarily eats fish and will scavenge from what it finds on river and lake shores in addition to catching it live. Unlike the distinctive adult, the plumage of the immature birds is brown specked with white until usually the fifth year. Hensley has footage of both mature and immature birds going about their daily lives, catching fish and raising their families.
There is footage of a range of other birds, including prairie chickens displaying. These birds are members of the grouse family. Adult males have dark ...
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Sheep Shearing on an Iceberg
2008-04-03 00:53:00
Icebergs and sheep! A strange combination even for New Zealand, renowned for its woolly quadrupeds. This footage results from two rather unusual events.In November 2006, icebergs were sighted 60 kilometres off the Dunedin coast, on the eastern side of New Zealand. This was a rare enough event in itself. It was thought that the parent of these icebergs had broken off the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica six years previously and was disintegrating as it was carried by ocean currents far from home. Although visible from the hills around Dunedin to the naked eye, binoculars were better. But NHNZ staff decided to take to the air for an even better look. And some stunning shots resulted.They weren't the only ones making the most of the unusual occurrence…Shrek, a merino sheep who shot to "stardom" nearly three years earlier, celebrated his tenth birthday with another blade shearing in 2007 on an iceberg 90 kilometres off the Dunedin coast. Shrek first lost his fleece for charity ...
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Monkey Dance
2008-04-03 00:51:00
The island of Bali. A bewildering patchwork of colours and contrasts. An intricate Hindu civilisation prospers based on a strong belief in the cosmic cycles of the gods. Temples dominate the Balinese landscape. Strangely these places of worship are protected by troops. Troops of monkeys the sacred descendants of an all powerful monkey god named Hanuman.On Bali's rugged west coast at the temple of Ulawatu, the monkeys take human form, they are the chorus and heroes of the Kechak or monkey dance. In the monkey dance the divine Prince Rama and his beautiful wife Sita are the central characters of the great Hindu epic the Ramayana.
One day while in the forest a golden deer appears before them. Rama sets off stalking it through the forest. But Sita left alone in a magic circle of protection receives an unwelcome visitor. Rawana a monster of wickedness and lechery. He attempts to break the circle and kidnap the terrified Sita. He succeeds and carries her off to this evil kingdom of demons ...
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Oomurasaki Butterfly
2008-04-03 00:50:00
Oomurasaki, the Japanese Purple Emperor, is the National butterfly of Japan.A tiny caterpillar climbs up from the leaf litter where it hibernated over winter.But the colours that were a perfect camouflage in autumn will soon be dangerously conspicuous, for the caterpillar is climbing back into a changing world.To survive, the caterpillar must follow suit.Responding, like the forest, to the lengthening hours of daylight and the rising temperature, it sheds the skin that looks like a dead leaf and assumes the colours of a spring leaf. The caterpillar mimics the leaves on which it will keep feeding until it undergoes its final transformation into a butterfly of summer.The caterpillar that emerged from the leaf litter has grown large and plump. Triggered by a combination of the rising temperature and its own internal body clock, it nears the end of one phase of its life and begins to discard a skin it will no longer need.It will never again feed on leaves so it drops the head and mouthpart ...
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Tapa: To Wear or Not to Wear?
2008-04-03 00:19:00
Tapa cloth (or simply tapa) is a bark cloth made in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, primarily in Tonga and Samoa, but as far afield as Java, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. In French Polynesia it has completely disappeared, except for some villages in the Marquesas.The cloth is known by a number of local names, although the term tapa is international and understood throughout the islands that use the cloth. The word tapa is from Tahiti, where Captain Cook was the first European to pick it up and to introduce it to rest of the world. In Tonga, tapa is known as ngatu, and here it is of great social importance to the islanders, often being given as gifts. In Samoa, the same cloth is called siapo. In Hawai'i, it is known as kapa. In Rotuma it is called uha and in Fiji it is called masi.To make tapa, the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree (Broussonetia papyrifera) is scraped with shells and pounded with wooden mallets. Then the pieces are joined together with manioc juic ...
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Meadows Under the Sea
2008-04-03 00:15:00
The only flowering plant that can live underwater are appropriately called seagrasses. This means that even flowering and pollination occur under the waves. Most species have distinct male and female individuals. But they can reproduce vegetatively and can form large meadows.These meadows in the Solomon Islands, are grazed by dugongs and green turtles. They form a habitat for a myriad of small fish, prawns and other invertebrates. Worldwide seagrass communities are important nursery grounds for fish. They are typically found in shallow sheltered sandy or muddy areas. They can be monospecific or have a range of different sea grass species. The depth at which they grow is usually controlled by the amount of light available for photosynthesis. They survive in the intertidal zone and will survive short periods of drying out, thought they flourish better where there is permanent sea water."Tropical seagrasses are important in their interactions with mangroves and coral reefs. All these syst ...
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Japan's Chilly Northern Forests
2008-04-03 00:14:00
In northern Japan, beech trees dominate the forest. They've evolved a strategy of living long, growing taller than the other trees, and reacting quickly to the lengthening days of spring.Throughout the forest winter begins to lose its grip. But this interval between seasons is still dangerous for the trees. Forest birds like this dusky thrush have remained active throughout the winter, and while pickings may be lean, nothing goes to waste.With the orchestrated precision of a symphony the forest reacts to spring. Dog-tooth violets bloom just in time to attract their pollinator - a butterfly.These images are taken from NHNZ Images, movie clips which are available for you to purchase for your production. ...
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Guess What? Sand Hoppers Hop!
2008-04-03 00:11:00
The beach is more than just a playground. For a special group of plants and animals it's home.Best known of these are the sand-hoppers. Related to crustaceans they are in fact amphipods. They hide during the day under seaweed and driftwood on the beach.As its common name suggests it leaps by first flexing its body than quickly straightening it whilst thrusting its hind limbs against the sand.If disturbed, their instinct is to burrow into the safe embrace of the sand where they wait until nightfall. They use the same rear legs to clear away the sand as it is pushed aside by the head when burrowing.Then the sand hoppers turn out in force to clean up the beach, scavenging on kelp and dead animals. They do not survive long in direct sunshine, and provide tasty pickings for gulls, oystercatchers and other common shore birds.These images are taken from an NHNZ Images movie that is available for purchase in your production. Please contact the library team. ...
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Prickly Sharks
2008-04-03 00:09:00
Until remote cameras were invented, no-one had ever seen the mysterious Prickly Shark in it's own deep-sea environment. This is a shark that lives way beyond human dive range, but recently scientists have discovered them in shallower water. Prickly Sharks live in the Pacific Ocean at depths between three-hundred and thirteen-hundred feet, well out of reach of the average diver, but recently scientists have found them in much shallower water, in an underwater canyon at the head of Monterey Bay off the central coast of California.Monterey Bay is well known for it's marine life. The food-rich upwellings from the nearby underwater Canyon support an ecosystem that sustains creatures like harbour seals, sea lions, thousands of pelicans and, of course, the famous sea otter. But it's the only place in the world where Prickly Sharks have been seen at depths of less than 300 feet. Although it's large enough to cause a lot of harm, the Prickly Shark seems a little sluggish and it appears that ...
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Mud Glorious Mud
2008-04-03 00:08:00
Mangrove swamplands, or mangrove forests are tropical places where the sea meets the land, but in an ill-defined sort of way. No nice beach with high and low water marks, rather a muddy expanse of trees and shrubs.There are about twenty different families of plants that have somehow managed to invade the sea's edge. Twice a day, every day the tides drown, then expose the tangled mass of roots.Mangrove plants much be able to cope with the high salinity of sea water, each species has its own tolerances and differing methods of coping with the harsh environment.Snorkel roots rising from the thick mud provide a continuous air supply to the main roots buried deep below. One problem for mangrove trees that snorkel roots help solve is the poor oxygen level in the waterlogged muddy soil.Once established the roots of mangrove forests provide shelter for young fish, oysters, crabs and other marine invertebrates.These still frames are taken from NHNZ Images movie clips, which are available for ...
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Cute and Cuddly Sea Otters
2008-04-03 00:07:00
Cute and cuddly they may be, but sea otters are voracious predators of shellfish, sea urchins, crabs, octopuses and fish and any other smallish morsels they can find. They forage underwater usually for about one to two minutes, but can remain submerged for up to six. Prey is located by vision or touch, which is then brought to the surface by the front paws.On the surface the otter can feed in a leisurely fashion whilst floating on its back, using its belly as a table. They are one of the few creatures that exhibit tool-use. Some otters carry stones which they use as anvils to smash open the shellfish or sea urchins.Otters will often wash their food by turning over in the water time and time again. Sea otters are diurnal, and have bursts of foraging activity at dawn and dusk. These still frame grabs are taken from NHNZ Images video that is available for you to purchase in your production. ...
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A Simple Grain of Sand
2008-04-03 00:06:00
"To see a world in a grain of sand" wrote William Blake, I think he knew a thing or two. Sand certainly takes on menacing form when the wind launches its savage attack.Tiny splinters of quartz are whipped in to a frenzy, slashing everything in their path. The process that takes place here has a fancy name - saltation, which basically describes how sand grains move either in the wind, or underwater.For plants and animals who live in the dunes, these battles are a way of life. It is the challenge they accepted when they colonised the sand.Where sea meets land, the forces of nature stage some of their most violent battles.Sand is the aftermath. It's been here since the sea began storming the coast and it combines the properties of its markers: fluid as the waves, resilient as rock.Magnified, it brings to light a treasure trove of gems and trinkets. Marble and quartz grind against more precious tourmaline and garnet. Windblown grains are like tiny ball bearings perfectly round and smooth, ...
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Shovel of the Sea
2008-04-03 00:05:00
Despite its looks, sea cucumbers, or beche-de-mer, are related to starfish and sea urchins. Basically an elongated leathery tube, is held in shape by an endoskeleton, at one end are tentacles which the sea cucumber uses to forage in the sea floor mud and sand for plankton and decaying organic material. They are good scavengersAt this lagoon, a programme of research has been carried out which includes measuring the sea cucumbers, some of which can grow up to two feet (50-60cm).The name sea cucumber derives from their shape, and beche-de-mer means shovel of the sea, both appropriate handles for this squidgy tube.Last week I wrote about traditional harvesting of taro in Ontong Java, in the Solomon Islands. This week's posting concerns the same location, and another traditional method of catching food. They have been an important cash-crop for the Islanders, and when NHNZ was filming the chief of the island they visited had already banned scuba diving, insisting that fishing was carried ou ...
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Tropical Taro, the Tropical Spud
2008-04-03 00:04:00
Taro, or the potato of the tropics, is a staple food crop throughout the Pacific. Here, at Ontong Java in the Solomons it is culitvated in the traditional way, by villagers still living a traditional lifestyle. It is grown all year round, and every part of the plant provides food.As the corm is lifted from the ground, any extra 'waste' is dug back into the soil to provide fertiliser for the new corms. New corms are formed by vegetative propagation from portions of the parent plant.The wild plants have lost their ability to flower and set seed, so this is the only way to produce taro crops. This fact suggests that taro has been in cultivation for a very long period, and some claim it to have been grown since 5000BC in tropical wet India.In Ontong Java, taro is harvested regularly from indiviual plants that are ready, they are then wrapped in large banana leaves and brought back to the village.The starch-rich taro is cooked for a long time to remove sharp crystals of calcium oxalate whic ...
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It's Behind You!
2008-04-03 00:02:00
That's the cry that goes up in pantomime when the villain sneaks up on the hero or heroine, the audience can see what's happening but the hero can't. This must be what it feels like to be a young laysan albatross. Lurking beneath the waves, out of sight, is a deadly foe - a tiger shark.The young birds do not have the skill to take off from the surface of the water, which as you can see from these series of still images, taken from NHNZ Images video, is not an easy task for such a large bird as an adult albatross.There's considerable wing flapping, and running along the surface of the water before final take-off.The plumage of young birds is not quite so water-proof, and once they land of the sea surface they can quickly become bedraggled.Crash-landings in the sea are quite common amongst the youngsters just learning to fly.They are then unable to take-off, and become a sitting target for tiger sharks patrolling the shallow coastal waters.It only takes a few seconds for the shark to g ...
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Thrashing Thresher Sharks
2008-04-03 00:01:00
This pelagic thresher shark, is from the island of Cebu, in the Philippines. Life here can be a real struggle, and too often, nature comes off second best. It's the last place one would expect to find a rare species of shark. Pelagic thresher sharks are occasionally caught in isolated parts in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, but a resident population has recently been discovered in Philippine waters. They're a pelagic species, which means that they roam the oceans. At Cebu, there's an undersea mountain where they're found all year round. From the large size of those eyes it is immediately obvious that this is the type of animal that hunts in deep water or hunts at night.Threshers perform spectacular leaps out of the water, but you've got to be lucky to catch one on film. They are very approachable at this particular sea-mount and not the least bit aggressive. Males are about eight to ten feet long, with big eyes and big long long tails. That tail is almost half the length of the e ...
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How Paddle Crabs Burrow
2008-04-03 00:00:00
Paddle crabs are found throughout New Zealand, from almost semi-tropical Northland beaches to the very much colder beaches of Stewart Island in the far south of the country. They live on sandy bottoms in estuaries and surf beaches alike.During the day most crabs remain hidden in temporary burrows emerging soon after sunset to hunt for bivalve molluscs. In turn they are eaten by over 30 different species of fish. Living as they do in an open environment the crab can either swim for cover (not often its first choice), stand and fight, or burrow out of harms way. Larger crabs (that is those with shells more than 7cm wide) are quite aggressive, and will confront their enemies and lunge upwards with the long chelae (claws) held upwards and outwards. But smaller crabs will burrow backwards quickly out of sight.A short period is spent searching for a suitable piece of sand to burrow into. The crab tests the sand with its first pair of walking legs, it may even take a bit of sand up to its ...
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Successful Rhesus Macaques
2008-04-02 23:59:00
Many ancient cities, like Bharatpur in Northern India, are a home for rhesus macaques. Since the city's first foundation, generations of these wild animals have lived side by side with people.To be so successful, they've had to be adaptable and aggressive, as individuals and as a tribe. But even in this robust society, youngsters are well protected in early life. Individuals can live as long as twenty five years.The daily routines of Bharatpur's people shape the lifestyles of the macaques. They know that wherever humans go, they leave a trail of feeding opportunities. In some colonies the majority of food items are sourced directly from human sources, either as direct handouts or from the monkey's ability to forage, amongst garbage. And by raiding crops macaques have access to a large range of cultivated fruits and vegetables.Rhesus macaques are geographically widespread and are common throughout mainland Asia, from Afghanistan to India, through Thailand and southern China.These still ...
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Big Sharks with Tiny Teeth
2008-04-02 23:55:00
In one of the March postings, a great white shark was shown leaping up out of the water, with teeth bared, ready to chomp down on hapless prey.However, not all sharks have huge teeth, though all do have sharp teeth. This whaleshark is no exception as it has about 300 rows in each jaw. But each tooth is a minute single hooked cusp, which are pretty much harmless.The super large mouth, opens and water rushes in, and along with it a wide variety of planktonic and nectonic prey, including small crustaceans, small schooling fishes and occasionally on tuna and squid. Unlike other filter feeders it does not rely on forward motion for filtration, the act of opening the mouth is enough to force water over the filtering screens of the gill slits.Every summer, hundreds of these sharks gather off the coast of Western Australia, at a place called Ningaloo Reef. At 160 miles long, Ningaloo is the second largest living thing in the world after the Great Barrier Reef. Although isolated, it's become ...
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A Wonderful Bird is the Pelican...
2008-04-02 23:54:00
...His mouth can hold more than his belly can. He can hold it in his beak, enough food for a week! I'm damned if I know how the helican. So wrote Dixon Lanier Merrit in 1910, a Southern newspaper editor and President of the American Press Humorists Association.Like all large sea birds, they sometimes have difficulty taking off, and these Australian pelicans (Pelecanus conspicillatus) are no exception.Pelicans are gregarious, are quick to exploit any resource, and can live on fresh or salt water. If fed regularly they can become quite tame.I am reminded of Storm Boy the 1977 feature film, where a boy rescues three orphaned pelican chicks. Although he and his father set the adult birds free, one returns to become Mike's pet Mr Percival. All of a sudden there are intruders in Mike's world, from a local teacher who wants him to go to school, to hunters. Storm Boy, shot entirely on location in South Australia, was a considerable hit at the local box office. It was based on a no ...
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Happy Birthday Linnaeus
2008-04-02 23:53:00
Carl Linnaeus was born 300 years ago, so happy birthday! His lifetime's work discussing and categorising all known plants and animals in the eighteenth century Western world were published in two volumes Species Plantarum (1753) and Natura Systema (1758). He described the binomial nomenclatural system of naming living things in a taxonomic hierarchy which is still in use all these years later. Many creatures described by him still retain their original names, Mus musculus, the common house mouse for instance. The genus name of some have since been changed, as in the Eurasian jays which feature in today's posting. Linneaus called jays Corvus glandarius thus showing their affinity with other corvids like crows, rooks and ravens. Today though they are known as Garrulus glandarius which befits such noisy talkative birds.These Eurasian jays, were filmed in Japan's deciduous forests, but Carl Linnaeus would have been familiar with their counterparts in Sweden. As usual with pi ...
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Feisty Fruit Flies
2008-04-02 23:52:00
On the continental island of New Guinea, there has evolved a quite extraordinary version of fruit flies that over millions of years have colonised the world.A fruit fly with antlers. Only the males have them and the size of these strange extensions of the insect's cuticle has a significant effect on their mating success. Just like a rutting moose or deer this antlered fruit fly must fight with other males for the privilege of mating.It's a pushing contest to decide ownership of a select spot on this fallen mahogany tree. A battle royal over a site where there is a fungus in the wood that will be ideal food for their larvae. One of these males has claimed such a fungus patch, and is determined to win the right to mate here.Even when he's proved his strength and is exercising his mating privilege, he must still fight to ensure it's the eggs he's fertilised that are laid in the fungus.The male antlered flies of New Guinea are in control of a rare resource here R ...
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Galapagos sharks
2008-04-02 23:50:00
Galapagos sharks are so little studied because they are only found in remote places like the Islands they're named after, the only twist is, this is not the Galapagos Islands, but Midway Atoll.Midway Atoll is a Pacific atoll that lots of us are familiar with, but it's been pretty well off limits to all but government and military personnel for about the last sixty years. Just like you'd guess from its name, Midway Atoll is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, half way between the US mainland and Japan. That geography makes it a strategic outpost.Because public access has been restricted since the war, Midways reefs have grown a healthy population of Galapagos sharks and now that Midway has opened up to tourism, more people are going to meet these sharks than ever before.The Galapagos belongs to a branch of the shark family called whalers. They mainly eat small fish and squid, but they are known to have killed at least one diver in the Virgin Islands.The Galapagos shark is a kind of ...
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Sea Nettles
2008-04-02 23:50:00
Aptly called nettles these jellyfish sting! They hunt by drifting in the open ocean. When small prey items like crustaceans, larval molluscs, fish eggs and other smaller jellyfish are sensed in the tentacles, hundreds of stinging cells (nematocysts)are fired, which paralyse the prey. Other tentacles then pull the item up into the jellyfish mouth area where it is consumedSea nettles swim continuously with tentacles and oral arms extended. They are common of the Californian and Oregon coastlines, and occasionally to British Columbia and the Gulf of Alaska northwards, and have been collected as far south as Mexico.The group (Order Semaeostomeae) that contains sea nettles, also contain other large jellyfish including moon jellies and the largest of all the lion's mane (which can grow to more than 6 feet across at the bell). They typically have four or more frilly oral arms that can be quite long, and a scalloped bell margin.Like all gelatinous sea creatures their bodies are 99 percent wate ...
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Black Robin: Back from the Brink of Extinction
2008-04-02 23:46:00
This week no apologies for bringing you a success story which although enacted through the 1970s and 1980s still manages to amaze and awe. I'm talking about the rescue of the black robin from the brink of extinction by the NZ Wildlife Service team led by Don Merton. The still images come from the NHNZ classic film Black Robin a Chatham Island Story (1990) - itself a compilation of three documentaries, Black Robin, Seven Black Robins and The Robin's Return which were made during those decades and which were the founding films upon which the formation of NHNZ (formerly TVNZ's Natural History Unit) was based."When Europeans first arrived on the Chatham Islands the black robin (Petroica traversi) was relatively widespread. But in the all too familiar pattern, its numbers dwindled as European settlement progressed. By late last century it had become restricted to a bleak pocket-handkerchief of stunted forest on top of Little Mangere Island. Here it struggled with its impoverished habitat, ...
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Debris, Garbage and Rubbish
2008-04-02 23:44:00
This week's posting is not about cute, cuddly or other interesting bits of wildlife. This is the natural history of waste. While filming in waters off the Philippine island of Cebu, the crew encountered a typhoon, a common enough experience for that part of the world, and in itself not very remarkable perhaps. Though it did create some interesting rain drops on sea water effects, as you can see from this still image taken from the film.No, the point of interest in this week's posting lies with the amount of debris which the winds and currents churned up, to produce a long slick of flotsam and jetsam.What astonishes me is the sheer amount of true debris, garbage, and rubbish that you can see, hidden amongst the uprooted and broken bits of seaweed. Most obvious is plastic, plus other unidentifable things, the origins of which I don't really want to guess. Of course I know that the oceans are polluted, and have been for decades, but it's not until you have close personal experience that ...
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Pink Maomao
2008-04-02 00:23:00
Schools of pink maomao Caprodon longimanus congregate during the day where they have herded their plankton prey (tiny red euphausid shrimps or krill) near the surface and where escape is limited. Here in the Poor Knight's Islands Marine Reserve off the northern coast of New Zealand they mostly live where there is a moderate current, and the areas natural archways, tunnels and cave entrances seethe with them.They are usually found in water between 15 and 60m deep, but occasionally will school nearer the surface. Their extremely long pectoral fins suggested the species name longimanus and these help the fish to manoeuvre accurately and rapidly. Their deeply forked tails and elongate body-plan (they can grow to 50cm) is typical of open ocean species.However, there is less co-ordination in the maomao schools than amongst silery fish schools of the open sea, which swim in schools for protection. 'Pink maomao swim in a more casual type of school, turning and twisting as individuals and perh ...
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