Isla Coiba & Granito de Oro
In 2004, Coiba Island became a national park. With an area of 270,000 hectares (80% underwater) and hosting thousands of species of marine creatures as well as the birds and mammals, this island used to be a penal colony.
This morning we enjoyed one of the many islets that form part of this island. Granito de Oro is the beautiful white sand beach island we used for snorkeling and enjoyed all morning. While we snorkeled we got the chance to see many species of fish: wrasses, damselfishes, sharks, octopus, and parrotfish.
The parrot fish is a very interesting species of fish. It lives in a harem system (many females and one single super male). If the Alpha male dies or it is taken away, the largest female will turn into a male; at first as a little male and then into a super male. They also can lower their heart rate to almost nothing for up to 210 minutes when they sleep (that is a real deep sleep). Some icthologists believe this behavior is to avoid shark attacks. Parrotfish feed on coral polyps and in order to do this, nature has equipped it with a “bill like” mouth part that allows it to scratch the surface of the coral and take the polyps, digesting while the remaining part is ejected as white sand that we enjoy so much. This is yet another example of “the garbage of one organism can be treasured by another.”
In the afternoon, the galley and hotel department prepared a delicious barbecue lunch on the beach. Later that afternoon we had chances of swimming, kayaking, snorkeling and later some went bird watching with Christian and Jose (known in the naturalist world as Indio).
In 2004, Coiba Island became a national park. With an area of 270,000 hectares (80% underwater) and hosting thousands of species of marine creatures as well as the birds and mammals, this island used to be a penal colony.
This morning we enjoyed one of the many islets that form part of this island. Granito de Oro is the beautiful white sand beach island we used for snorkeling and enjoyed all morning. While we snorkeled we got the chance to see many species of fish: wrasses, damselfishes, sharks, octopus, and parrotfish.
The parrot fish is a very interesting species of fish. It lives in a harem system (many females and one single super male). If the Alpha male dies or it is taken away, the largest female will turn into a male; at first as a little male and then into a super male. They also can lower their heart rate to almost nothing for up to 210 minutes when they sleep (that is a real deep sleep). Some icthologists believe this behavior is to avoid shark attacks. Parrotfish feed on coral polyps and in order to do this, nature has equipped it with a “bill like” mouth part that allows it to scratch the surface of the coral and take the polyps, digesting while the remaining part is ejected as white sand that we enjoy so much. This is yet another example of “the garbage of one organism can be treasured by another.”
In the afternoon, the galley and hotel department prepared a delicious barbecue lunch on the beach. Later that afternoon we had chances of swimming, kayaking, snorkeling and later some went bird watching with Christian and Jose (known in the naturalist world as Indio).
