And you come across this puny little fish aggresively darting at you.
Once..it is warning you to steer clear..
Twice if you stubbornly insist on confronting it..
Third time is usually a charm..the little bugger will really take a nip at you..
This damsel buggers are really fearless..They will take on fish or divers 50 times its own size..
Not that it hurts , actually more amusing than painful when bitten by a damselfish.
But have a heart. There is a good reason why it is so aggressively trying to chase you away from the vicinity.
Some damsels are nicknamed farmer fish. In the real sense of the word.
They actually grow their own food, just like a vegetable farmer would do.
Damsels are known to cultivate their own crop of algae.
Certain types of damsels graze on algae among the coral reefs and some actually swim around collecting algae and plant it all in a chosen patch, concentrated on a rock.or coral.
They will graze around and gather the algae onto a small patch on a selected patch , the algae they harvested .
So have a heart,next time you are diving the reef and the damsel have a go at you. The thing is merely protecting its algae farm it has so carefully cultivated and when you wander too close ,you are perceived as threat to its crops,stealing the spoils of its hard work.
Raiding its store.
Like in the video above ....
See the healthy clump of algae on the bleached staghorn...
Yup indeed.these Damsels are fearless and by no means helpless in Distress
