Marine Life of Western Australia by Ollie

While we’ve been on the coast in Western Australia there have been some incredible marine animals to see. Here are some of my favourites:

Driving the dive boat on Ningaloo Reef.

Humpback Whales. We were very lucky to see four large humpbacks swimming really close to our boat, and they hung around for about 30 mins circling and checking us out.  It was very exciting to see as they were blowing up water and splashing around too. My Mum put the picture taken from the air on Facebook and it was on the news here too! They can get up to 14 metres long and at this time of year they are going south to Antarctica to feed on krill and fish after having their calves in the warmer water off the coast here. They come into the bays with their calves for safety from hungry sharks.  There are about 30,000 of them migrating south at the moment but the water is not usually as shallow or as clear as this, so we got an awesome view.

Compliments of google – what the Dugong looks like from under the water

Dugongs.  Today we were in the biggest bay in Australia, Shark Bay, where they have a huge number of Dugongs. They are also known as Sea Cows, even though their closest relative is the elephant. They graze on sea grass, can grow up to 3 metres long and weigh up to 300kgs. This area has the biggest seagrass fields in the world.  I learned that Dugongs have a 15 month gestation period and when they are threatened they put their babies on their backs to protect them (by making them look too big for sharks to eat). They can smack sharks with their strong tails too.

Our Dugong photo –  very hard to catch on film as they only pop up for seconds.

Each Manta Ray has a different marking underneath

Coastal Manta Rays. We were very lucky to get to swim with them at Ningaloo Reef, near Coral Bay. The ones we swam with were about 3-4 metres in diameter , but the Oceanic Manta can grow up to 9 metres wide. They do not have barbed tails, they are gentle graceful giants and feed on plankton. Under the water they were beautiful to watch but fast swimmers and hard to keep up with, even with my fins on. Our snorkel guide Vicki took a photo of their markings to keep a record of which ones are returning to the same area.  Other rays we saw included Cowtail Rays, Stingrays, Blue-Spotted MaskRay and Leopard WhipRays – all around Ningaloo Reef.

Wobbegong

Spotted Wobbegong – When snorkelling near Exmouth we saw a Spotted Wobbegong shark hiding under a coral bombie ledge. Our snorkelling guide told us to leave it alone as they get aggressive when you get too close to them, and they can spin 360 degrees to bite you quickly – we did not stick around to get a photo (here is one from Google) Unfortunately, they were a popular ‘fish’ in fish n’ chips here, so numbers were getting low.

Grey Reef Shark. We saw one of these in a reef cleaning station, this is where they sit on the bottom with their mouths and gills open for very small cleaner fish to swim in and eat all the bacteria and flesh bits left in their teeth. We snorkelled on the surface watching it finishing being cleaned, then it swam around with a huge shoal of trevally before disappearing, as they are quite shy.  We got a bit of video of it on Dad’s Go-Pro but no photos, but it was amazing to be swimming around above it.  I wasn’t scared at all.

We also spotted a Leopard Shark from the boat in the shallow reef, and it has really bright spots all over it.  I really wanted to see a Tiger Shark but there were none unfortunately.
Tawny Nurse Shark – At Horizontal Falls we got to hand feed these fantastic looking sharks pieces of fresh barramundi. They are very unusual, as they do not tear their food, but use a powerful suction to suck up their prey such as crabs, octopus and small fish. We also saw them on Ningaloo Reef. They can also change their colour slightly depending on their environment – clever!

Loggerhead Sea Turtles – At Ningaloo we swam with a large female turtle, she dived down to the bottom, as they are shy, but did not swim away like most turtles do when they see boats or people. Apparently they can get drunk on jellyfish juice which makes them a bit sleepy and slower to react. There is a male called Albert that is happy to have people swim with him as long as you don’t get in his way. We also saw loads of Green Turtles here and Leatherback Turtles today off Monkey Mia.

Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins – These are the ones that hang out at Monkey Mia since the 1960s, being handfed by locals. The Dept of National Parks now controls the amount of contact they have with humans to keep them ‘wild’ but they feed the large females 3 fish each in the morning from the beach. We got to meet ‘Surprise’ today with 2 younger dolphins. On a boat trip to deeper water we got to see a dolphin with a sea-sponge on its nose, the only place in the world where this happens, as they use them to protect their noses while they dig around on the seabed for a particularly tasty fish. Only the females do this ! We were very lucky to see this today (but not able to photograph it).

‘Surprise’ coming in for a visit

At Monkey Mia

Checking out the reef!

The only thing we didn’t get to see was the Whalesharks, which my Dad really wanted to see,  as we were just too late in the season, so we are going to have to come back again to swim with them too some day.  I loved Ningaloo Reef, there was so many amazing things to see.