Where to dive in South Australia to see blue devil fish

South Australia’s reefs are top spots to dive, and you can eas­i­ly stum­ble upon our super­mod­el of a fish.

It’s blue, has per­son­alised mark­ings, can live up to 60 years and is pop­u­lar with under­wa­ter photographers.

We’re talk­ing about the strik­ing south­ern blue dev­il fish.

It’s bet­ter the blue dev­il you know

South­ern blue dev­ils live around reefs and are com­mon to SA’s waters, but can be found along Australia’s coast from south­ern Vic­to­ria through to West­ern Australia.

The fish like to stay close to home, which is usu­al­ly a cave dwelling that’s more than 5 metres deep.

Spot the blue devil

Dur­ing rou­tine marine mon­i­tor­ing, our marine sci­en­tists became intrigued with the ease of telling blue dev­il fish apart by their iri­des­cent spots. So they decid­ed to give them celebri­ty names.

One blue dev­il fish cou­ple were named after Rolling Stones rock­er Mick Jag­ger and his for­mer super­mod­el wife Jer­ry Hall. Mick and Jer­ry mat­ed and Jer­ry laid a mass of sticky eggs on the roof of a cave nes­tled in the reef. Mick guard­ed the eggs until they hatched as tiny lar­vae only a few weeks lat­er – that’s Jumpin’ Jack Flash quick!

Dive with the dev­il in SA

You can spot the south­ern blue dev­il fish by div­ing at Encounter Marine Park’s Aldin­ga Reef and Sec­ond Val­ley, or Sea­cliff Reef.

Grab your scu­ba gear and get ready to fill your cam­era with lots of south­ern blue dev­il shots. This reef fish is slow mov­ing, inquis­i­tive and easy to approach, mak­ing it a fan­tas­tic super­mod­el – some even say bet­ter than Jer­ry Hall.

Feel­ing inspired to head out to your near­est marine park to uncov­er South Australia’s sea world? Here’s some of the oth­er marine life you might see: cut­tle­fish, reef fish, octo­pus­es and cute baby marine ani­mals.

This sto­ry was orig­i­nal­ly post­ed in March 2017.

(Main image cour­tesy of Aus­tralian Museum)