I was swimming south outside the reef with a final check on the "scratching post" before

finishing up the swim. In 20-25' of water I saw some commotion of a group of fish together

down in the sand. Initially it looked like a bronze puffer and some wrasses and a Humu

were feeding on a dead gray puffer fish. There was an additional bronze puffer half the

size as the other and it seemed to be in some sort of distress seemingly shaking in place.

I watched for a while not being real excited about the deep dive required to get a better

look but what the heck. I dove down. As I came on to the scene, most of the fish scattered

but the bronze puffer held on to the gray one. As I got close, I was surprised to see the

gray puffer show some life and swim towards me with the bronze puffer electing to let go.

As I returned to the surface, the bronze puffer again engaged the gray puffer and held fast

with its teeth sunk into it. I watched for a bit and got my breath and then returned to the

scene. The bronze held on this time even though the gray elected to swim towards me or

perhaps its reflection in the dome port of the camera.

The bronze let go perhaps because of my presence and the gray "turned the table on it".

You can see that the gray puffer has lost its left eye; presumably before I came along. I

have no idea what if any damage it might have suffered to the other fish that were there

initially. In subsequent shots you will see that much of its lips are missing and I saw no

indication in the fight I witnessed that this would have been done by the bronze puffer.

I base this on the apparent target each had for the other being the side of the head,

forward of the pectoral fin. I looked fir the smaller bronze puffer after my first dive but

couldn't spot it. These two that are pictured fighting are considerably smaller than full

grown puffers and I can only wonder what prompted this apparent fight!?! There were

some significant lapses in time between some of these shots because of the depth of this

fight. Scuba and a video camera would have been much better at capturing the event.

While at the surface, It seemed that the gray had really rallied and was giving it to the

bronze! At one point I was surprised to see the bronze puff up. This was my first time in

actually seeing a puffer puff up and certainly it seemed to serve a purpose! As I hastily

dove down to try to get a shot, the gray let go and swam towards me again.

They weren't finished though and in a way, I felt like a referee meddling in a fight I had no

understanding of. Their intent was shots at each other and my intent was shots of them.

To what extent my presence and perhaps intervention altered the course of this fight, I

have no idea. I have never heard of these fish fighting each other and don't know if this is

common or not. I have heard in a home aquarium that they need to be essentially alone.

In the shot below they each have their teeth sunk in the other. I witnessed some of this

balanced fighting from the surface as well. I by no means captured all of the rounds of this

fight!

From above, I saw the gray puff up and as I came down, the bronze broke off the

engagement and swam off.

I followed the gray towards shore and the beginning of the reef. As it approached the reef,

I saw a small spotted box fish swim up to it. I dove down to see if it was still interested in

me or the camera. It clearly was and as I held fast, it came right at the camera and

actually made contact with the dome port with its mouth. I suspect it was engaging a

mirror image of itself. You can see the box fish in the two images below. The second one

was taken as it collided with the camera.

I pulled back the camera and got one parting shot of its head showing the bad eye side. I

don't know if the fish will survive or not but there is a very large one of these that is local

to the reef and it is missing one of its eyes. Perhaps lost in a similar battle?