Adventurer Drops Insta360 Ace Pro 2 Camera Into Waters Off Black Magic Island, Captures Rarely Seen Creatures

Photo credit: Barny Dillarstone
Barny Dillarstone is an adventurer who enjoys traveling to distant bodies of water and placing baited camera systems in places that most don’t even think of. He chose a location near Nusa Penida, a small Indonesian island nicknamed the “Black Magic Island” due to its murky legend and hazardous tides. Over the course of a few days, he was able to get his beloved Insta360 Ace Pro 2 down to about 170 metrers / 600 feet, where the water is so forceful that only the most desperate life can cling to the bottom.

Using squid as bait, which allegedly smells like the dinner bell for these animals, as well as some lights and weights to attract anything in the vicinity, Dillarstone was surprised to snag a western highfin spurdog right immediately. This is a shark with a serious expression on its face, a short snout, large dorsal fins, long spines, and a stunning tail with white edges. They’ve developed enormous eyes to cope with the lack of light, which is essentially what you need to exist in this pitch dark planet. What’s even more astounding is that, unlike certain predators found in shallower water, these creatures can locate their prey using their sense of smell before pouncing on it. Unsurprisingly, and perhaps unexpectedly, they didn’t take off when they noticed the light. That might differ from a few species you encounter at shallower waters.

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Dillarstone captured a number of western highfins in the area, some of which had suffered serious injuries but still showed up for the party, as well as a couple with gear that would not be spotted in deep water. He also saw a houndshark drifting by at a safe distance; later, he noticed an Indonesian wobbegong, a carpet shark with a flat body and mottled patterning that allows it to lie down and attack any unwary prey that passes by. Interestingly, this shows it prefers colder, deeper water than you might expect.

One of the absolute highlights he managed to record on camera was a stunning purple eagle ray that appeared. In gliding smoothly closer, he revealed a flat, mottled brown and purple body, a pretty standard eagle ray head and snout, a teeny little dorsal fin, and a pair of barbs on the end of its tail that were just as lethal as they appeared and ready to unleash at a moment’s notice. It flew by the rig a couple of times, doing these rapid bursts of speed that made it appear to be stumbling around for a second at a time – it appeared disoriented from where I was standing, and was this possible the first time this species had ever been seen on camera in the wild? Could be.

Other species were going about their daily activities all throughout the region. There were jobfish and deep water snappers that appeared to have legs inspecting the bait. Squat lobsters burst out on all sides, hot on the tails of the scraps, little urchins clinging to the sand, catching everything that came falling down, and the occasional sandperch would spring up, hanging around with its nose twisted up as if it was trying to figure something out. And just when you thought it was getting too much, schools of fusiliers would dart into view from above.
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