Worthwhile wait to the Lost Coast

A beautiful beach front, sandy bars abound numerous burrowing fauna... A big thank you to Alex and Jumari again, who made this trip possible for nine of us... Some of the team have already shared their finds:

Wild shores of Singapore - Lost Coast: bountiful bonnets and awesome sand creatures
God's wonderful creation - Marvellous finds from Lost Coast
Singapore Nature - 111028 Lost Coast
Naturely Curious - FB photo album

Just like Rene told me, I barely made it to the shore and everyone else had a great find in hand! I spent half the time taking photos of others' findings... Kok Sheng shared a great deal of seastars and the moonsnails, while James spent some time looking at the macro level. So what did I see?

An uncommon looking hermit crab (by Kok Sheng at the deeper waters). Beautiful green eyes and hairy legs...

A wide range of echinoderms! From maroon crinoid to a new Astropecten sp., and even the Lovenia heart urchin.


A fascinating slug - Philinopsis pilsbryi? Usually slugs would be found near sponges, hydroids and sea fans... But these slugs were found on sandy bars... Diet studies suggest other gastropods and slugs... Interesting!


This slug looks alien to me (or even reminds me of attap chi seeds from the nipah palm...). Anyway! Previously sighted at Tanah Merah, the Philine sp. slugs (headshield slugs) were a handful on the sand bar...


A new sighting for me - Naked moon snails (Sinum sp.)... It's very weird when your usual moon snails have a distinct shell and will retract fully upon disturbance. This snail here has a very flat shell and a huge foot. It produces ALOT of mucus... eecks!


The beautiful Ficus snails were thought to be lost after Marina East, but thanks to Travis, we now know that the Ficus variegata snails can be found in some abundance on the lost coast... We're still not certain of what they eat...


Another big and pretty snail - Grey Bonnet snails were everywhere on the shore! Guess why? Their favourite food - Cake sand dollars were also littered on the shores for them to munch munch on... Previously thought to be uncommon, these grey bonnets can now be seen in great numbers on many of our trips... Could it be that the environment has become more suitable for their survival? We won't know till we continue to survey their numbers in the next few years...


Can't wait to explore more parts of this elusive shore... :D