Alor - Masjid Ampera (Mucky Mosque)

Setting

A night muck dive whose photographed subjects are overwhelmingly invertebrate macro life rather than a reef framework, consistent with a "muck" site (e.g., Image 15).

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A night dive on a low-relief silty and sandy slope with scattered rock, rubble, and isolated growth rather than a coral-dominated reef. Hard coral was sparse, mostly free-living fungiids and small massive or encrusting colonies; sponges, hydroids, soft corals, and anemones supplied most of the attached structure (e.g., Image 3, Image 13, Image 14, Image 18, Image 21).

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A sediment-associated macro site of camouflage-dependent and nocturnally emergent animals.

General benthic features

One frame shows a solitary mushroom coral (Fungia, Anderson's identification) with an unusually saturated electric-blue coloration in its polyp centers — an intense hue not typical of daylight Fungia and possibly a strobe/color artifact rather than true tissue color (e.g., Image 6).

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No hard coral framework, algae turf, or fish schools are represented in this sample; visibility and lighting are typical close-focus night-macro strobe work.

Stressors

Anderson's dive log entry for this night dive (28 July 2026) carries no notes, and the expedition notes record only its position, so no bleaching, disease, or other stressor is recorded for this station. Region-level context, not an observation at this station: Anderson's notes from the July-August 2026 Alor expedition record no bleaching in Alor, but intensive fishing pressure, with fishing platforms and fish traps even on the most remote islands and very few fish longer than 30 cm.

Fish and other fauna

Anemones dominate: a long-tentacled orange anemone hosts what the photographer recorded as an anemone eating a crab — a small crab is indeed visible gripped among the tentacle bases, plausibly captured prey (e.g., Image 10).

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One frame shows a lavender-white anemone that Anderson did not identify (e.g., Image 4); another, noted as a white anemone (with a second similar frame), is a mass of pale cream, ribbon-like tentacles filling the frame (e.g., Image 19, Image 25); several frames show green tentacles tipped purple over rock (e.g., Image 5, Image 7, Image 9, Image 29); and another frame of a Fungia (Anderson's identification) shows a tan, long-tentacled mushroom coral with a magenta mouth (e.g., Image 28).

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One frame shows a blue-gray foliose cup that Anderson identified as Leptoseris (e.g., Image 1), and another a frilly green-and-pink disc on sand identified as an anemone (e.g., Image 31).

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Other frames: a small orange frogfish with dark eye-spots sits on sand beside encrusted rock (e.g., Image 11, Image 24); a mottled brown-and-cream cowrie or gastropod shell is visible tucked at the base of a large anemone (e.g., Image 4).

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The photographed nocturnal fauna included long-spined Diadema-type urchins, sea stars and brittle stars, crinoids, cerianthid-type anemones, gastropods, nudibranchs, and small crustaceans (e.g., Image 23).

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Comparisons with other data

We found no other surveys at this site as of 2026. If you would like to share yours, please email us.