Two years ago, during our previous Line Islands Expedition, reef vampires attacked us. They were silver and red, but had the ability to change their color at will, to tones of orange, rust, and white. They had two, sometimes three or four sharp canines, which looked like old ivory, prominently displayed outside their mouths. Their faces had a permanent frown, and their big eyes had a jet-black iris, surrounded by a ring of golden honey.

They were everywhere, swimming frantically over the bottom, and hovering in the water column between our boat and us. It seemed they pretended to intercept us on our way to the surface. Before visiting the Line Islands we were concerned about sharks, but as we started diving at Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef, we became increasingly afraid of the vampires.

What did strike us the most was their biting taste. Unlike Dracula and other Transylvanian creatures that belong to our collective imaginary, these vampires did not bite our necks or suck our blood. Instead, and to our astonishment, they bit ponytails, ears, foreheads, diving reels, strobes, and cameras. When they came close and saw themselves reflected on the domes of our camera housings, they kept charging the domes.

The vampires were red snappers, Lutjanus bohar. Their size ranged from just a few inches to two and a half feet, and the large ones were not particularly more dangerous. They are the second most important predator at Kingman, second only to sharks, and by far the most curious fishes we have encountered. Red snappers do not hesitate to check if we taste good.

This afternoon it happened again. I almost drowned in laughter underwater after Brian Skerry showed me a clean bite on his ear. He was virtually immobile, taking photographs of a small fish inside a coral head, when a red snapper charged him. His ear is now punctuated by a couple of small, bright red cuts. Curiously, in 2005 the only person to be bitten on the ear was our underwater photographer, Zafer Kizilkaya. I wonder whether photographers have particularly tasty earlobes.

I also had a camera, but could not fool them. They must have known all along that I am just a marine ecologist.

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