Salema

Photo: Miguel · © all rights reserved

Salema school in swirling aggregations of several thousand individuals around the Formigas pinnacles, their striped silver flanks catching the light as the school shifts direction in response to passing predators. They graze on the algae that carpets the basalt boulders, forming a critical link between primary production and the larger predatory fish that follow the school. Watching a massed salema school contract then explode in panic is one of the signature moments of diving Formigas.