May 2006

Streetwise Magazine

San Pedro

 

A recent visit to one of our favourite dive sites, outside of the national park revealed a remarkable find. Three John Dory's were spotted in about 12 metres of water, two small and one large. For the last 5 years these elegant fish (if you can call fish elegant) have not been seen at all but we started to find an odd one here and there just before Christmas. It now seems that they might be breeding.

This fish (Zeus Faber) can be found in depths up to 200 metres and can weigh up to 20 kg when fully developed. This solitary predator is quite a veracious hunter stalking its prey head on and shooting out its extendable mouth. It feed on small fish such as herring and sand eels and has been caught up by fishing boats in their herring nets.

 

 
The Spanish legend is that St Peter was asked for money and picked up the fish and squeezed until a coin fell from its mouth. Hence the two distinctive black spots on each side of its body are supposedly the finger marks of St Peter.
It is unfortunate that this fish is highly favoured for the table and is quite expensive in the Mediterranean. We can only hope that they evade the spear fishermen long enough to breed again late spring and summer.

 

 

These specimens were certainly not camera shy and we hope to see them again.

 

Photographs by D Graves & J Jensen

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