Pop pop pop - Coral babies in the making...

It's that time of the year again, where everyone in the lab gets 'frisky'... Yup, it's the coral spawning again! This is my second time participating in the monitoring and observation of this event. Singapore is one of the few places that had been monitored for as long as 7 years!

This mass coral spawning event was first discovered by our current research fellow, Dr. James Guest. He also recently gave an interview on the Naked Scientists (Podcast series) on the coral spawning too!

This year, we could not visit Raffles Lighthouse due to some issues with permits (argh!!), but we didn't give up and Karenne (team leader!) selected Pulau Hantu as the first site for monitoring. And the corals spawned around 8pm on the west reef! The corals that went off were Galaxea sp., Echinopora sp., Goniastrea sp., and possibly Platygyra sp. It was a minor spawning and the reasons could be because of the prior coral bleaching event that occurred over months in 2010.

Platygyra sp. - Egg bundles setting (Semakau)

On the following night, the team went to Pulau Semakau, a previously transplanted site. These corals were transplanted from other sites and have been settled at Semakau for the past few years. According to the divers, it was a great spawning night! Many corals went off! :) I was eagerly waiting for my labmates to FB or Twitter about the second night that I couldn't sleep till I saw my colleague's FB:

"Toh Kok Ben

Great night for coral porn! 0 jellyfish sting, Octopus, sea horse, and lotsa eggs... weight belt shifted position, right half of my back feels like it's gonna break =X"

Hahah! Indeed, I too feel that my back was 'breaking' because of the shallow waters and too little weights. Struggling to keep down to watch the spawning!

Platygyra sp. - Egg bundles setting (Semakau)

I went on the third day of spawning and returned to Semakau to check out the reef site and it was really fantastic to see the transplanted corals doing so well and have also propagated! James think that this year's monitoring is very unique - not only because we have a new record of coral that spawned (Diploastrea sp.) but it also shows that transplanted corals have the potential to do well on our reefs! :)

Coming out coming out!! (Semakau)

I managed to capture some photos from the usual species such as Platygyra and Pectinia. However, it was cool to see new ones such as Galaxea and Montastrea! While searching for spawning corals, I encountered a whole lot of marine residents participating in the event too~ I think I might have seen a fish eating a bundle too! haha...

Pectinia sp. (affectionately called the 'ugly bundles') (Semakau)

I simply had great dives over the two days of monitoring... Here are some of the animals sighted while diving.

Betsy the resident Hawksbill turtle was sleeping on the reef! She was magnificently BIG, like her carapace length could easily be 1m long! (Hantu)

The ever-sluggish part of Hantu! Look carefully and spot the clam! (Not a giant clam... :P)

Sluggish at Semakau too! :)

Others like the porcelain crabs and hermit crabs busy filter-feeding, cowries moving slowly, blue-spotted ray dashing around to take cover from divers, and red egg crab trying to squeeze itself in the hole...

PAPA SEAHORSE! Look at the tummy! :)

Best find of the day! An unknown shrimp (Cinetorhynchus sp.)... lol!

Corals spawned on time and we hope to see the new generations of corals settling around Singapore soon. :D