I started out with Reef Friends since a year ago! My first survey done previously was at Raffles Lighthouse. Then, I was doing the mobile invertebrate survey. :) Upgrade! hehe... While we enjoyed our time underwater, during our lunch break, Francis pointed out to a Brahminy kite fishing for its lunch too!
Without proper lens, you can't see the fish caught on its foot. Here shows the proud owner of a fishy lunch! Perched on the tree, the fish was still seen struggling (via the binoculars) and the bird tore the eyes of the fish out! Yikes!
The fish's futile struggle ended up in a happy bird's tummy. :) (Seen here munching on the fish).
It was a good diving day with little currents. It had picked up a little on the first dive because the change of tidal heights. The second dive was less surgy with better visibility! The reefs were indeed quiet... Jeff and Chay Hoon both noted more overturned corals and rubbles... We wonder what kind of impact would cause the tumbling of these coral heads..
I found some of these animals amidst the slity waters... A trio of Ocellated pipefish hanging out on the rubbles... I quickly took a couple of shots before I continued on my survey. hehe...
As you can see from this photo, it's very slity! (I like this photo because it appears to be snowing and the pipefish looking into the slit snow...)
I came across a long-time-no-see nudibranch! It's the Chromodoris lineolata!
Two Cuthona sibogae clinging onto their food source... This one here seems to be on a dead sponge - Oceanapia sagittaria.
An uncommon Phyllidia ocellata found by Vincent!
We dove quite deep and the fishes present were quite difficult to spot because of their white body colours that matches the substrates. I noticed that this fish (below) is very fond of hanging out near my dive buddy and I. When I left my hand on the sand, it came this close to me!
Like how we Singaporeans like to say, 'kaypoh!' (that means nosey)... :)
The other fish that I had managed to capture was this sandperch... I remember seeing a similar one in Lembeh... It doesn't look like that one that has been recorded for Singapore. hmm... I saw quite a few of them...
Ah aha! I found the same crinoid seastar (still perched on the same rubble) with this same brittlestar still tied onto its centre!
Now I got a shot of the underside that shows the arms of this beautiful brittlestar. Sheesh! I hope the next time I see it, the star has changed its position.
Just before we ended our dives with collection of tapes... I saw this interesting interaction - corals (Pectinia sp.) growing in the pink barrel sponge! Wow! Sponges are good substrates for corals now? I shall ask my labmates for their opinions... :)
Each day out to sea, I learn more stuff! I can't wait to head out to Singapore waters again... :)
2 comments:
I noticed the coral inside the sponge too. It's not obvious that corals can grow inside a sponge (the exhalent channel, in this case), since the water that comes out of a sponge here is filtered of food particles. BUT, this shows that corals can indeed survive from the photosynthetic by-products of their symbiotic algae. Perhaps the filtered water is also less sedimented :)
Hey Jeff! That's an interesting perspective! Let's find more corals-in-sponge to check this hypothesis. :)
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