Understanding the secret life of marine creatures

The real-life under­wa­ter sto­ries of South Australia’s Great South­ern Reef beats the tales of Dory search­ing the Cal­i­forn­ian seas and Nemo lost in a Syd­ney den­tist aquarium.

But how can we watch SA’s marine sto­ries? With BRU­Vs, which stands for Bait­ed Remote Under­wa­ter Video sys­tems.

SA marine park sci­en­tists are using inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised BRU­Vs tech­nol­o­gy to reveal nature’s secrets and mea­sure fish communities.

As Mr Ray, the blue-and-white spot­ted eagle ray school­teacher from Find­ing Nemo and Dory, would say: Hold on, here we go! Next stop, knowledge!’

BRU­Vs are used in SA marine parks to mea­sure marine life abundance.

The bait­ed cam­eras are low­ered to the seafloor and cap­ture the unique and sur­pris­ing under­wa­ter world.

Many sur­pris­es pop up on the BRU­Vs footage. One bomb­shell was a crab rid­ing a Port Jack­son shark! That’s right, rid­ing. Anoth­er Walt Dis­ney Pixar movie gold­mine is wait­ing to be told… Find­ing Jack­son anyone?

Watch the video below to learn more about BRU­Vs and why they’re so use­ful to marine research – and keep your eye out at the 1 minute 30 sec­ond mark for that cheeky crab hitch­ing a ride. Show your kids and con­nect with the secret adven­tures of our own marine backyard.

Hope­ful­ly you’re feel­ing inspired to head out to your near­est marine park to uncov­er South Australia’s sea world. And what bet­ter time than now – dur­ing Nation­al Sea­Week. For details of what’s in store, vis­it our marine parks web­site.

This sto­ry was orig­i­nal­ly post­ed in August 2016.