In this 2-day part of the Marine Biology Workshop, we mainly dealt with fish and immersed ourselves in two different reef species:

1. At Marsa Shagra House Reef, a coastal strip interrupted by a natural Bay (Marsa), and

2. On the Elphinstone Reef, a platform reef that lies about 15km offshore of the coast.

On the eve of the evening, the marine biologist Stephan Moldzio had already given a rough overview with the talk about the fishes of the Red Sea.
After an exciting early morning dive on the Elphinstone Reef and a dive at the house reef, we have now occupied ourselves under the “parasol” on the beach with ecology and peculiarities of some selected fish families.

We worked with a ‘ reef graph ‘ that Riffzone the different zones of the reef and placed ‘ plastic fish ‘ with species that we had observed during our dives in the respective areas where they are normally found.
We asked if there were differences between side reefs and offshore reefs in relation to their fish companies.
On Elphinstone Reef we observed two open water doctor fish species (Acanthurus gahhm and Naso Hexacanthus), which live there by plankton and are usually not found at the House reef.
We also found the Red Sea flag perch which lives here in contrast to the jewel flag perch under 30 m depth. The latter is by far the most common type in lesser depth and is known to eat the  “wall of Anthias “, The  “Clouds” of fish, the plankton in the immediate vicinity of the reef.

In Marsa Shagra we found a strikingly colored green Skorpionsfisch, which we have never seen before. It is probably about the hump head Dragon Head (Scorpaenopsis diabolus), which is quite variable in its appearance. A request has been sent to Fishbase to confirm the Artbestimmung (if this can be done using the 4 photos).

To date we have shown about 260 species of fish from 58 families around Marsa Shagra with photos.