Location: Beting Bemban Besar
A huge reef patch just off Semakau, the team made another intrepid landing on BBB. Just early this year, exactly on New Year's Day, we had clocked a stonefish incident. The victim, Ivan shares his (painful) experience and it was such a shock to all of us. Fortunately he has recovered and is doing fine. :)
The irony of coral reefs living amidst our heavily industrialised islands like the one at Bukom. So what did we see this time?
Almost in the first 20 minutes of the trip, Marcus found this beautiful nem amongst the seagrass bed. The fire anemone (Actinodendron sp.)! Exactly like the name suggests, this anemone is not to be played with. They give really bad fiery stings to anyone who touches the tentacles. The smaller picture shows the close-up of the little bulbs.
Another new nem for me was this Pizza anemone (Cryptodendrum adhaesivum) that James found in the hole... Both Ria and Marcus also saw the nem elsewhere... Why is it called a pizza anemone? Look at the bottom picture and you'll realise that it looks like a crust and the central pizza body! How cool is that? :) We have 'food' animals on the reefs.
The common anemones were this wriggly star anemone... They come in different colour morphs - greenish, brownish and pinkish! :) I like the pink ones best. Usually these anemones will shrink back into the sand when you go too close to them. I noticed that the pink ones usually are less sensitive to motion and shadows. I wonder why....
One of the largest known anemone would be this giant carpet anemone (Stichodactyla gigantea). This nem here harbors quite a few symbiotic animals such as the five-spot anemone shrimp and false clownfish... The smaller picture below shows a pair of the shrimps! On this trip, no clownfish was found...
Another interesting relationship between a tiny fish and tiny shrimp! James spotted this tiny little fish and the shrimp... That fish doesn't look anything like a goby... What is it?
Seagrass diversity was pretty good! I think I found about 5 species in small patches. Strangely, the patch reef is quite sandy and suitable for grass growth... We don't see much seagrass around this reef.
On my way back, I spotted this cute pale orange ball sponge! Check out the spicules on the surface...
With reefs, we never fail to see the iconic molluscs... Of course, the best one of all is my giant clams! Whee! Marcus is getting really good and lucky with Tridacna squamosa. These fluted giant clams are known to grow up to 40cm in shell length! These ones here are almost 30cm long! Similar to the corals, they are one of the few bivalves that have photosynthetic algae living within their tissues. The extra food from the algae helps them grow to such large sizes compared to their other bivalve counterparts...
Besides the 2 giant clams, the team spotted nudibranchs like the ones below: black-margined nudibranch (Glossodoris atromarginata) and the voodoo doll, Bornella sp.
Check out the rhinophore of the Bornella nudibranch in the smaller picture!
The most intelligent mollusc of the day would be this small reef octopus... Strangely all of them were out of water and flashing colours at me! :S
One of the best finds for me would be this strombid - Strombus marginatus sowerbyorum. Majority of the sightings have been at the Northern shores... Recently, they have been found on St John's Island and Lazarus. Now BBB would be a new record! :)
Lastly, before I head back, I witnessed the egg-laying Noble volute, working hard for its next generation. :)
As the phrase goes, adios and till the next trip! :)
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