“Understanding, Enjoying & Caring for Our Oceans”
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MLSSA JOURNAL 2006 “understanding, enjoying & caring for our oceans” NUMBER 16 ISSN 0813 - 7404 DECEMBER 2006 NON MEMBERS $5.00 (plus postage and packing) 1 MLSSA JOURNAL THE MARINE LIFE SOCIETY OF SOUTH our website at:- http://www.mlssa.asn.au AUSTRALIA Inc. Or you may wish to write to the Society for a form, or to complete the one inside the rear Are you interested in any aspect of marine life? cover of this Journal (or a photocopy) and send Do you want to learn more about the underwater it with your payment to MLSSA. world? Are you concerned about pollution of our oceans and destruction of reefs and seagrass The postal address of the Society is:- beds? If so MLSSA is for you. MLSSA Inc. Our motto is “--- understanding, enjoying and 120 Wakefield Street, caring for our oceans ---”. These few words ADELAIDE 5000. summarise our aims. Members seek to understand our ocean, derive enjoyment from OUR LOGO observations of marine life and are committed to The MLSSA logo on the front page features a protection of the marine environment. Leafy Seadragon which is unique to southern Australian waters. The Leafy is South Australia’s Become a Society member and enjoy contact first totally protected fish and is the State marine with others with similar interests. Our members emblem. Its beauty surpasses that of any include divers, marine aquarists and naturalists. creature found in tropical waters and, once seen by divers, is amongst the most remembered of Our activities include:- their diving experiences. -Studying our local marine environment -Community Education -Underwater photography Established in 1976, MLSSA holds monthly meetings and occasional field trips. We produce various informative and educational publications including a monthly Newsletter, an Annual Journal and a beautifully illustrated Calendar showing only South Australian marine life. Our library is a source of helpful information for marine enthusiasts. Through our affiliation with other organisations (eg Conservation Council of SA and the Scuba Divers Federation of SA) we are kept up to date with relevant issues of interest. MLSSA also has close ties with appropriate Government organisations, e.g. various museums, universities and libraries. Everyone is welcome to attend our General Meetings which are held on the third Wednesday of every month (except December) at the Conservation Centre, 120 Wakefield Street, Adelaide. We begin with a guest speaker. After a short break there is the general business meeting and this may be followed by a slide show if time permits. The atmosphere is friendly and informal. We welcome new members. We have subscription levels for students, individuals, Male Leafy Seadragon carrying eggs families and organisations. We invite you to complete the membership subscription form on Photograph courtesy of MLSSA member David Muirhead. 2 MLSSA JOURNAL CONTENTS Three fouling bryozoans species in Adelaide Waters Page 4 The Marine Life at Port Noarlunga Reef Page 9 Sepia apama, the giant Australian cuttlefish, in Whyalla, S.A. Page 19 Fossil Cave/Green Waterhole Cave (5l81) Bone Retrieval Dives Page 23 What You Should Know About Great White Sharks Page 28 The Western Blue Groper Page 41 The Flora and Fauna of Piccaninnie Ponds and Ewens Ponds Page 43 Save Ewens Ponds! Page 55 Patagonian Tooth-fish – why all the fuss? Page 66 EDITORIAL Welcome to the 2006 edition of the MLSSA connected with MLSSA have made this edition Journal. As usual, this replaces the December possible. monthly Newsletter. A wide variety of topics are covered and you This edition of the Journal is the largest we have should find something here to interest and produced and my thanks go the authors who so intrigue you. willingly gave of their time to create such a wide Good reading and a safe and happy Christmas diversity of interesting and informative articles. and New Year to you all. Members, ex-members and people only remotely DISCLAIMER The opinions expressed by authors of material published in this Journal are not necessarily those of the Society. EDITING: Philip Hall PRINTING: Phill McPeake CONTRIBUTORS: Brian Brock Steve Reynolds Evan John Peter Horne/Dave Albano Phil Kemp Scoresby Shepherd Gerard Carmody PHOTOGRAPHY: Philip Hall Ron Hardman David Muirhead Neville Skinner Peter Horne Mike Hammer Paul Macdonald Gerard Carmody Kath Moores Rudie Kuiter 3 MLSSA JOURNAL Evidence for the occurrence of the three fouling bryozoan species Tricellaria porteri (MacGillivray, 1889), Tricellaria occidentalis (Trask, 1857) and Scruparia ambigua (d’Orbigny, 1841), in Adelaide Waters by Brian J Brock Bryozoans are colonial marine or freshwater around our coasts and in Mount Gambier organisms. The colony is made up of a few or limestone. many thousands of individuals, each in a little If living colonies are put in fresh seawater (for box, cup-like, or tube-like chamber, which may marine species) the feeding currents and tentacle be more or less calcified. When feeding, a ring of bells might be seen. A hand lens will help. tentacles is protruded from the protective Following a sea snake to see living bryozoans on chamber. Cilia along the tentacles beat in such a its tail is not recommended. way that food organisms or particles are swept From mid 1975 until February 1977, I carried towards the base of the tentacle bell. When the out settlement experiments at Outer Harbour mouth opens and the pharynx dilates, the food is and Angas Inlet. The latter site is warmed by forced into the top end of the U-shaped gut by effluent from the Torrens Island Power Station. water pressure. Some colonies look like plants, My settlement tiles for the longest term others are heavily calcified and might be experiment, were dark grey cement aggregate mistaken for coral. Others form delicate window-sill tiles suspended horizontally, 50cms incrustations or branching sculptures on brown below water, beneath pontoon platforms. Pairs of or red algae or marine flowering plants. Living tiles were immersed for a month at each site, bryozoans are common on most submerged new tiles being put in every fortnight, Tiles were surfaces; look for them on boat bottoms, raised after a month, preserved in 10% formalin pontoons, buoys, jetty piles, rocks, mangrove seawater, and ancestrulae or young colonies of pneumatophores and waterlogged branches, each fouling bryozoan were counted under a hulks, etc. Fossil species are common in microscope. limestone cliffs along the Murray River or 4 MLSSA JOURNAL Tricellaria only occurred at Outer Harbour, the colder water site. Its seasonal abundance is shown in the histogram (fig. 1). Figure 2, shows a 6-spined ancestrula of the Tricellaria species and some other details of the young colony. Old colonies were not found despite regular sampling of pontoon foulers. My settlement tiles could have been seeded by propagule from some of the fouled yachts or other harbour installations or mooring facilities. Vessels moored for a long time became heavily fouled with bryozoans and other benthic invertebrates and algae etc. On June 7th 1889, a paper by P. H. MacGillivray titled “On some South Australian Polyzoa”, was read to the Royal Society of South Australia. Menifera Porteri, was one of four new species described and illustrated (Plate11, figs. 1-1b). This is the species later known as Tricellaria porteri (MacGillivray). MacGillivray described and illustrated the ooecia as “large, rounded, with a row of foraminera along the upper edge”. The ancestrula is not described, but I believe this is the species that settled on my Outer Harbour tiles in 1976. Specimens MacGillivray saw, grew on algae. I have not seen ovicellate specimens. 5 MLSSA JOURNAL Contrast the 6-spine count for the ancestrula of Ancestrulae & ovicellate colonies would be T. porteri (MacGillivray), with the 10-spine helpful. A settlement tile I fastened to a pile on count for an ancestrula collected from a 27/2/06 disappeared. It was KESAB week. Tricellaria band just above Low Water Spring Fig 9.15(c) of Bock (1982) shows ovicells of Tide level on a Glenelg jetty pile on 27/3/06. Tricellaria porteri with several scattered This appears to be an ancestrula of Tricellaria foramina. Such an arrangement is more occidentalis. See my Fig. 3. It accords with characteristic of occidentalis as shown in Mawatari (1951, figs 1A & fig. 7 for T. Mawatari (1951) figs 1E & 1H, Nielsen (1985) occidentalis & Anna Occhipinti Ambrogi & J.L. fig 3, & Gordon & Mawatari 1992 plate 6F. See d’Hondt’s (1994) fig. 2 p141 for Tricellaria also my fig 4b. Flexible joints at the base of the inopinata. The 1994 paper deals with the branches are shown in my fig 5. Brock (1985) invasion of Venice Lagoon by a Tricellaria has illustrated several South Australian fouling species. Gordon & Mawatari (1992) considered bryozoans, including T. porteri (MacGillivray, T. inopinata and Menipea Porteri MacGillivray, 1889) but ovicells & ancestrulae of Tricellaria 1889, to fall within the range of variations for T. were not shown. occidentalis. The third fouling bryozoan found recently, was Anna Occhipinti Ambrogi (1991) says of her T. Scruparia ambigua (d’Orbigny). The specimens inopinata in Venice Lagoon, Tricellaria “was were growing on drift red alga (Ceramium) from never found deeper than the Low Water Spring Osborne Beach south of North Haven marina on Tide”. This applies for my T. occidentalis on 6/8/06. A single line of adherent zooids buds Glenelg jetty piles. If I could find colonies of off erect monoserial branches of zooids some of Tricellaria conforming to MacGillivray’s which might terminate in brood chambers. See description, below Low Water Spring Tide level my figs. 6 & 7, Ryland (1965) pp22 & 23, & on Glenelg jetty piles, it would be fairly Ryland & Hayward (1977) pp 50 & 51. The convincing proof that we do have two different brood chambers have two valves and look a bit species of Tricellaria in Adelaide waters.