17 mantas at the Kona manta ray night dive last night.

After a few weeks of nothing, then a couple weeks of mixed results, it looks like things are heating up at the manta dive off the airport. We did it last night and there were 17 mantas. I played Captain, there were flashes going off all over underater on the site so I knew there were a bunch to be seen before the divers even came up. Check out this earlier post for a brief video on a night there were six. We've had 15, 15 and 17 mantas the last three nights. So much for the "they don't show up around a full moon" theory many visitors keep telling me - there's no actual correlation. I'm hoping it stays big for the spring.

This picture is of a true chameleon. I think it's a female Jackson's Chameleon (Chamaeleo jacksonii - males have three horns and were used in early dinosaur films), but they've also found a couple other species in the islands which are similar. They are native to Kenya and Tanzania.

These chameleons were apparently introduced accidently in the early 70's when an Oahu reptile breeder's cage (large aviary size) was torn up by a storm. Now they can be found on all the major islands here. We have several other introduced species of lizzards, and there are stiff penalties if caught transporting them between islands. Non-native species can compete for food with native critters (birds for example) and cause problems.

Aloha,

Steve