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In May, 2004
I received the following exciting email from Ray Farm of White Bear
Lake, Minnesota.
"On April
3, I was diving off the Kona coast when I found a Debelius' Reef
Lobster. At the time, I did not realize how rare the species is
in Hawaii. However, on identifying it from your book, "Hawai'i's
Sea Creatures", I read that it had only been observed and identified
in Hawaii once back in 1981. Given the very distinctive appearance
of this creature, I am 100% certain of the identification. No, it
was definitely not one of the guard crabs! I see them, the orbicular
velvetfish, and even the occasional harlequin shrimp while nosing
around with my dive light in the coral.
It was at a
dive site known as 'Aquarium'. At least that is the name it is known
as by the personnel at Jack's Diving Locker in Kona. It was in a
small coral head ( approximately 18 to 24 inches in diameter) ,
which I believe was either cauliflower or antler coral. The depth
was between 40 and 55 feet. This specimen was about 2 1/2 inches
long. It's purple claws with golden-orange tips and the red spotted
carapace-abdomen were both very distinctive and eye catching. Too
bad my underwater camera got flooded in Cozumel in February."
The only other recent record I know of was by Linda Bail of Bubbles
Below Scuba Charters, who found a complete molted exoskeleton
during a night dive a few years ago off the south shore of Kaua`i.
The original
Hawaiian record was made off Makapu`u in 1981 in coral rubble at
a depth of 70 ft. by the late Alex Kerstitch. It was from this specimen
that the species was described by the Dutch crustacean expert Lipke
B. Holthuis in 1983. Because German author/photographer Helmut Debelius
had previously discovered the species off Bali, Holthuis named it
Debelius's honor.
Some excellent
photographs of this lobster can be viewed at Joseph Poupin's website:
http://biomar.free.fr/enoplometopus/www/debelius.htm
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