In ecology the concept of a "search image" supposes that an animal is much
more successful at finding food when it has a specific food type in
mind.  Often even overlooking other possible food items because of being
conditioned to look for one in particular.  The same holds for
bird-watchers, wild mushroom hunters, and Strike and his buddies at Shelly
Beach looking for leafy sea dragons. If you've got a focused search image
and some experience to back it up, you're going to see things that most
others would overlook.  OTOH, you often don't see what you're not looking
for.  Wonder how many reef sharks have wandered completely un-noticed
within nipping distance of Strike's derriere while he had his nose in the
seaweed? :-)
-Mark B.

At 05:03 AM 2/8/02 -0500, Viv wrote:
>And
> >"It is estimated that between half and a third of all the seahorses in the
> >world are found in Australia."
> >
> >They must be dying out judging by the number that we haven't seen at Shelly
> >Beach!  :-)
>
>We apparantly have quite a bit on this side of the island .. but as I am
>such an impatient sod I rarely slow down long enough to notice them.
>One dive spot that has a few deliberately sunk junk - washing machine hull,
>a couple of small barges, etc ... are covered in seahorses.  I can spot
>those but its the ones that hide in the seaweed that I can't see unless one
>is right in front of my nose .. well not quite that bad but they are damn
>hard to see if you lose your place in the weed ;-)
>
>And, its leafy breeding time here so I assume it would be the same your
>neck of the woods Strike .. so keep ya eyes peeled :-)