Jawfish

With an amazing repertoire of skills, the jawfish makes for a fascinating study. The jawfish dances beautifully, keeps house meticulously and romances passionately.

  • The Dancer: While waiting for the jawfish to appear, you will first see a small yellow head with great bulging eyes pokes out of a hole. Slowly, a slim, graceful body with stunning iridescent blue fins appears and dances in the water column just inches above the bottom. Soon an entire colony of jawfish proceed to treat you to a choreographed dance performance.The yellowhead jawfish is one of the most commonly sighted of the jawfish family.
  • The Housekeeper: The jawfish is certainly particular about its personal space. From the surface, the yellowhead jawfish’s burrow looks simply like a small hole in the rubble, but it is actually a fine piece of engineering strategy and skill. The jawfish starts its burrow by digging a funnel-shaped pit about 8 inches in diameter and 6 inches deep. Once the pit is complete, the jawfish moves small rocks, shells and coral fragments into an intricate framework. The structure supports an entrance and tunnel leading from the surface to a lower bedchamber. This chamber, larger than the size of the jawfish, is lined with fine sand. Throughout the day, especially towards the late afternoon, loose sand and rocks are carried in its jaws from the burrow to the doorway and expelled away from the entrance. As the daylight disappears, the jawfish retreats to its lower bedchamber and closes the front door by pulling a rock or shell over the entrance. The yellowhead jawfish, male and female, is extremely territorial and will only allow its mate to enter its territory and visit its burrow.
  • The Lover:The jawfish prefers early morning or late afternoon for courting. During these periods, the amorous male tries to lure potential female partners by performing an "arch". Once engaged, the female happily follows the male into a honeymoon burrow built separately from each den. Here the couple will remain for a few seconds of privacy before reappearing and repeating the courtship ritual. Once spawning has occurred, the male takes on the parenting responsibility of the clutch of eggs. The eggs hatch within five to seven days. Until then, he will incubate them in his mouth, often performing what is known as "churning." The churning action involves spitting the eggs out of the mouth and then sucking them back in. This helps aerate the eggs and remove waste.

Food: Like almost all other activities, the jawfish is serious about food. 90 percent of its daylight hours are spent picking zooplankton out of the water column. The feast consists primarily of copepods, shrimp larvae and other bits of floating microscopic food.

Self-preservation: Yellowhead jawfish tend to be somewhat wary and on approach of danger will head back to their burrow. The majority of time they will enter tail first but in a real emergency will dive headfirst and cover the burrow opening with a rock.