Despite campus being so near the coastline, I barely heard the 'bangs' and saw anything (maybe that's because I'm short) that Ivan witnessed. Gosh! It was really very bad! Luckily we hadn't gone to Cyrene, although we were concern of any possible impacts on our nearby reefs.
Plan B was heading to Tanah Merah! Ria shared her finds of Tanah Merah and found so many cool fishes! In fact, since all of us were walking in a straight line along the seawall, we actually spotted some of the animals at two time points... :D
The best find of the day is definitely this fish here - Bearded filefish (Anacanthus barbatus)! I had first heard of it while diving off Semakau where Jimmy and Edwin both shared their find of a large bearded filefish. Sadly they only had a glimpse of the fish. I was so excited with my find! This fish here has beautiful blue eyes... hee... :P
Strangely, the fishes that I had spotted were either very flat, or leaf-like, and the similar behaviour of floating in the water... I surprised myself by actually spotting some of them because they resembled leaves (dead leaves too!)... The shore tides were pretty low and there were many people on the beach... Some were fishermen, some apparently collecting stuff while some were students from NUS on their assignment! haha...
First flat-looking fish... This pair of juvenile razor-fish was really suspiciously floating in a single area... Shy as they usually are (even underwater), they keep swimming away when Marcus was trying to photograph them.
Ria had first spotted these feathery filefishes (Chaetodermis penicilligerus) in a group of three - small, medium, large! When I saw them, they were 'blending' in with the rope and spread along the rope feeding on the algae. The small one was really so cute! An interesting behaviour noted was that when the rope moves, the fishes quickly moves with the rope. Possibly an active behaviour to keep camouflaged.
Here's the large individual. Sweet! This is only my second time seeing this fish... I know it sounds lame but it's true! I haven't seen all fishes (or anything else per se)!
Another group of filefish but a different species - likely juvenile strapweed filefish (Pseudomonacanthus macrurus) and a single fan-bellied filefish (Monacanthus chinesis)...
A shy little fish hiding under the rocks was this halfbeak... Ria named it the twig-like halfbeak... I can see why! It could have been mistaken as a floating twig!
It was a big challenge to photograph fishes! It's amazing how Ria gets her pictures clear for ID... I barely make it! Anyway, my favourite invertebrates are still easier to capture and here were some of the sightings... Below here a pink moon snail - I think it's my first time see it on the shore (at least a live one) since the moon snail egg cases are plentiful on the sandy bars...
Another pretty snail, the black-lipped conch (Strombus urceus) partially buried in the sand...
A mama spiral melongena (Pugilina cochlidium) laying her next generation of snails!
On the patches of seagrass on Tanah Merah, there lay many carpet anemones and some of them have their five-spot anemone shrimp commensals...
A swimming crab emerged from the sand and stood still...
At the start of the trip, I spotted the Striated heron scavenging for food... I think it caught some small fish... While watching it, I recalled a student's project that studied their feeding behaviour and the stances it took. It was an interesting project! Hopefully it will be published somewhere... :D
1 comments:
Mei thank you for writing and sharing your experience. Ria certainly is a master when it comes to taking great photos and yours were great too.
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