A giant "wall" of fish, measuring around 50ft wide, 50ft deep and 400ft long, swam into the view of amazed divers as they explored a reef on Pescador Island in the Philippines.
Published: 10:54AM BST 07 Aug 2009
The shimmering cloud was made up of tens of millions of tiny sardines, swimming in formation.
The swirling sardines appeared out of nowhere, and stayed long enough for a series of stunning pictures to be taken before shooting off.
They were taking part in the annual migration of sardines, dubbed the "sardine run", which happens off the Philippines every July.
American diver Erwin Poliakoff was on holiday with his wife and teenage son at the time.
Mr Poliakoff, 54, said: "We were diving on the reef, quite happily looking around at all the interesting fish, when suddenly everything went dark.
"It was like a cloud had fallen over us - at first I thought it was the sun going in.
"But within seconds I realised it was this huge mass of sardines swirling around us.
"They look like an impenetrable wall, but you could actually immerse inside the coil while they whirled around you.
"It was absolutely incredible, I've never seen anything like it.
"It was like a silver, shimmering cloud. Very disorientating to be inside - almost like having vertigo.
"I have been diving for years and seen many shoals of fish, but everything else pales in comparison.
"Given they are sardines and have a reputation of being closely packed, there would probably be around ten per cubic foot.
"By my reckoning, there would have been tens of millions of fish there. It's mindblowing, really.
"I have no idea why they swim in that formation. It must be to protect against predators and stop individuals getting picked off, but to me they just look like a giant bullseye."
Alex Gerard, curator at Brighton Sealife Centre, said: "The sardine run is all to do with breeding - the fish migrate to a better breeding ground with more food such as plankton.
"The odd thing is that they travel together for protection but the size of the run actually means they get decimated by predators.
"It creates a huge melting pot of dolphins, sharks, whales and seabirds all waiting to pick them off.
"In the Philippines it usually happens in July. It is not that common to see huge shoals over there, so this diver was very lucky to catch it."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5988101/Wall-of-fish-surrounds-divers.html
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