Psychedelic Nature

Jurong Bird Park presents... All about birds!

2011-12-11T22:12:00.010+08:00

I started a little birding on my own after I started teaching LSM2251: Ecology and the Environment. It became intriguing for me as I like to observe their behaviour and wonder what are they doing. Birds, being so colourful and outstanding, it is difficult to not notice them at all...

Last 4 December, I brought along Alex (enrichment programme for him) to Jurong Bird Park (JBP) where they were holding a small session for birding enthusiasts and members of the public to join on for their talks.

The staff at JBP placed some of the stuffed birds on the table... Sweet! :) Here shows a Buffy Owl and the juvenile.

Outside the lounge, the Flamingos were parading around the ponds...

Interestingly, the Flamingos were 'in flight'... One individual began to attempt flying, then a few others followed. I think it's an escape behaviour where when one decides to fly off for a reason (not known to us), others start to follow or mimick. This helps increase the chances of survival in a group... I remember that some students attempted to study this 'security in groups' for birds at Sungei Buloh and Pulau Ubin. Sweet eh!

Some slides from the presentation that are interesting... The first three slides are about what JBP does to birds that were given to them or picked up by them... The procedures are similar: nurture and rehabilitation.

Rehabilitation is an important step for these wild birds as any human interactions and manhandling may result in learning to rely on us. Therefore, JBP simulates scenarios that allow these birds to emulate what they may find in the real environments. This component is especially more crucial for the young birds.

A rare visitor - the Himalayan Griffon Vulture! It was apparently highly dehydrated and once it was given sufficient liquids, the bird recovered and released back to continue its journey. :)

The next presentations were from NUS-DBS alumni, Yong Dingli! I have met with him once for a different collaboration and he's one of our well-known (and young!) birder in Singapore. Dingli shared with us about birds in general, anatomy and how to identify them efficiently. The other portion of his presentation focused on the conservation aspects of birds (with reference to Singapore). Dingli shared with us how our bird diversity has fared and what are the threats they faced.

Sadly, poaching (for food or sale) is still a big problem in Singapore, and happening in sensitive areas within Singapore. Alot of these birds are the uncommon and rare forest species, and Dingli emphasized the great need for more research and studies on bird ecology in Singapore.

He also shared a topic (that I could relate to well enough) on alien bird species. For my mini assignment, I decided to take up the topic of alien parrots in Singapore. With Dingli's help, I am currently refining my manuscript and hopefully publish in the next NiS issue (2012).

All in all, it was a fruitful session! The best thing - we got to visit the bird park after the talks too! It has changed so much since I last visited and I'll definitely visit it again. Cheerios!

Videos: Fishes on our shores

2011-12-04T21:51:00.003+08:00

Last series - fishes... The more developed form of the marine realm, being the vertebrates. Here, I'm showcasing the juvenile fishes as they tend to be more interesting and cute!

Feathery filefish - an amazingly pretty fish. Filefish is known to stay very still with the substrate of their choice. Like this feathery filefish, their choice of camouflage includes flotsam or bunch of filamentous algae. My last trip to Cyrene, I spotted two adult feathery and boy are they BIG! And read about my observations of their camouflage methods - active camouflage I might add...

Blenny? - Until now, I still have not figured out this fish. I had assumed that it may be the bicolor blenny? No idea... I have better photos on my blog post. It has very interesting propping structures beneath its head.

Seamoth (juvenile) - FINALLY! My first seamoth sighting in Singapore and I found two of them on this trip! Unlike the streamline fishes, the seamoth is laterally flattened and its pectoral fins are modified to become a fan-shaped. So far, I haven't seen it swim actively before and it is described that they 'walk' on the sand. It's quite slow! haha... In this video, the fish barely moved. :P

Three-spot dascyllus (Dascyllus trimaculatus) - I had first encounter this name when I was studying in Bali on a genetics course. This fish was one of the study organism collected in Indonesia for genetic phylogeographic study. When I finally had the idea that what I was seeing was THE dascyllus fish, I was wowed! Our shores do not fail to surprise me and keep me wanting more... It's such a shy fish (and very black), it's so hard to photograph so I decided a video does more justice to its cuteness. :)

This marks my first series of organism videos! I shall be taking more videos and share more behavioural antics from our marine critters! :)

Videos: Slugs on our shores

2011-12-01T23:27:00.006+08:00

Slug series is up! You may be wondering, isn't slugs generally slow and slimy? Well, not all slugs are like that!

Strawberry slug (Costasiella sp.) - This superbly tiny slug is usually very well-camouflaged against its home, the solitary fan seaweed (Avrainvillea sp.). This little one here must be rather adventurous to wander off its seaweed home. On the sandy background, you can see how fast it moves (over sand grains and barriers)!

Black-margined nudibranch (Glossodoris atromarginatus) - This is one of the largest nudibranch found in Singapore. Its pale yellow body usually blends in well with the sandy bottom and coral rubbles. Note how its external gills 'wave' in the water!

Starry bornella (Bornella sp.) - Besides the usual manner of gliding motion, the starry bornella does twists! It wiggles its body left-right-left-right allowing it to propel itself in the water column to swim to another area. Just recently, I encountered another bornella species doing its twist! (Note that the clicking sounds were cameras flashing!)

So you see... Slugs are not only colourful and nice to look at, they exhibit interesting locomotive behaviour. A very short post for today... Next and final series: fish!

Videos: Echinoderms on our shores

2011-11-28T22:01:00.005+08:00

Here shows a good variety of echinoderms. Within this Phylum, we usually associate the sea cucumbers, seastars, urchins and featherstars... Like most marine invertebrates, locomotion is generally very slow, particularly in the echinoderms.

Featherstars - this organism is more commonly found along the reef crest and slopes. This one here was found on a sandy shore, perhaps washed up during low tide. Most echinoderms possess a pentaradial symmetry which also means that each symmetric portion of the body can move independently. Look at how the individual arms are waving and transporting the featherstar across locations - each one giving an undulating movement and pushing the featherstar along the water.

Lovenia heart urchin - this individual here is my very first sighting of a heart urchin in Singapore! I can still remember how I met this little fella - I was photographing a nudibranch and all of a sudden, the sand beside the nudibranch moved and out came the urchin! What a pleasant surprise for me. Earlier during the semester, students in my class were prompted with this question - with so many spines, how does the urchin 'walk' without breaking its spines? Getting them to realise that 1) not all the spines are of uniform length and 2) not of uniform thickness (aka strength). Thus, we would expect the thicker and stronger spines support the body weight while the remaining spines act as enlarging body and protection. Looking at how this urchin moves, it reminds you of the 'rowing' motion. haha...

Astropecten seastar - sometimes as you walk along the sand bar, the first sign of a seastar would be the imprint of a star on the sand. That leads you to your seastar found buried 4-5cm below the substrate. Check out how this seastar goes back into its comfort zone by 'sinking' into the substrate.

Enjoy the videos! Next series: Slugs.

Videos: Molluscs on our shores

2011-11-27T14:19:00.005+08:00

While the tides goes too high for us to explore, I decided to plough through my folders and check out the videos that I took on my trips. Here's a few of them for the first series - molluscs (bivalves, gastropods, cephalopods). These videos are taken on the intertidal zones!

Bivalve locomotion - to observe a bivalve in action takes a whole lot of patience and waiting. Not all the bivalves we encountered were this active. Bivalves tend to be partially or fully buried in the substrate or tightly shut to protect against predation. This video shows that bivalves generally use their large foot (the muscle sticking out of the shell) to translocate from one place to the other. They generally do a leaping action while others drags the shell across the area.

Japanese bonnet snails - a beautiful yet lethal snail. They feast upon echinoderms, especially the cake sand dollars common on our shores. The shell is well thickened and protects against potential predators and dessication. The long snout sticking upon the water is likely a siphon. Try spotting the eye spots and antenna.

Marginatus conch snail - a close relative to the other commonly known Strombids, this snail was fairly recently described by Chim et al. (2009). This taxonomy of this snail is rather complex and we have been notified that the name has been changed (again!) to Margistrombus robustus (G.B. Sowerby III, 1875). A fairly uncommon conch snail, usually 3-4 individuals on each sighting. Like any other conch snail, the righting behaviour is very interesting and captured in the following video.

Olive snail - long cylindrical shape, it allows the snail to penetrate substrate like a bullet. Check out the snail 'hammer-head' shape mantle and observe its movements.

Noble volute - one of our large gastropods, growing up to 20cm shell length. This is a common resident on many of our sandy shores. I still recall that my first encounter with this snail was someone harvesting it home to eat! Oh my! This one surprised by 'rising from the sand' beside my feet. haha...

Reef octopus - a very smart and efficient predator. One of its characteristic is the morphing of its chromatophores into various backgrounds. This individual here was displaying warning coloration to fend off its predators (aka humans in this case). Finally, usually the last resort would be to squirt ink and propel itself away from dangers.

Next series: Echinoderms

Breezy day for tracking through to Lost Coast

2011-11-26T09:54:00.006+08:00

A small team headed out to explore the Lost Coast again. Instead of taking the boat right out, we made our way through the vegetation! As usual, being the least prepared, I got attacked by creepers, thorny plants, lalangs, grass seeds and mosquitoes! Thank goodness for iPhone! Kok Sheng navigated us towards the shore in the shortest possible route. Phew!

Once on the shore, the sea breeze was welcoming. Marcus spotted a white-bellied sea eagle that flew very close to the ground. Such a magnificent bird nesting in the area. I also saw several Brahminy kites soaring in the skies... Check out this view of the beach area! How surreal that such a place is found in Singapore... We were fortunate that the weather was kind and cloudy.

Shore birds were abound, especially these little plovers... Very interesting birds, and they walk really fast! A huge cluster of ~30 birds were gathering on the banks feeding...

As the tide recedes, we started spotting animals! The most interesting find for me would be this crab - Eriphia sp.? The smooth carapace colour is a fusion of red and dark purple, with dark purple appendages. The eye is probably most unique, dark purple with pale yellow spots! The only other crab that I know with dual-colour eyes would be the stone crab (Myomenippe hardwickii). This crab has a pair of dimorphic chela - one larger than the other for two separate purposes. It was rather shy! An unusual spot to find this fellow as it tends to be a rocky-rubble shore inhabitant. Perhaps lost on the 'lost coast'? :P

The other common crab would be the long-horned ghost crabs (Ocypode ceratophthalmus). They are usually nocturnal and stay hidden during the day. Marcus and I saw something interesting, which was these crabs came out of their holes in groups and headed towards the water line... They appear to be catching the waves and a ride out to sea! For feeding perhaps? Not too sure what this behaviour means. Shall try to take a video next time...

Despite being a potentially suitable place for anemones, the diversity was few - with only two on this trip! Swimming anemone (top) and a carpet anemone (bottom). My last trip did not find any anemones.

Echinoderms included this Astropecten seastar again. This seastar is likely the plain sea star (Astropecten indicus) with very sharp spines! A chance find - sea cucumber washed up to shore.

Snail galore! Everyone else spotted other moon snails but personally, the ball moon snail and tiger moon snail. In the second picture (right), the tiger moon snail is surrounded by food (i.e. button snails)!

The Grey bonnet snails are still plentiful! Many of the individuals were found eating a cake sand dollar...

Quite ferocious I must say... Look at the damage to the test of the cake sand dollar! All of the sand dollars were freshly dead. yikes!

Well, what an efficient predator... To end off my post, here's another look at the bonnet snail.

'Weather can't decide to be sunny or rainy' day on Cyrene

2011-11-25T21:56:00.005+08:00

It's been a while since I joined on Team Seagrass for monitoring activities. One of our last monitoring of the year 2011, a small team headed out to Cyrene reefs. Upon arrival, the waters were still rather high so most of us explored a bit of the shore and making our way to the sites.

The weather was really cranky... It can't seem to decide whether to be sunny or rainy, and turned out that it was raining while the sun was shining upon us. -_-||| By looking at this next photo, half of the side is storming while the other half remaining bright and dainty. Marcus, Jocelyn and I were in charge of Site 1, and decided to team up for all three transects. Woot! Jocelyn blogged about her monitoring experience.

Leaving some time with no rain in sight, we went off to check out Cyrene... Both Jason and Ria had wonderful sightings of the Geographic Seahare, Knobblies, Grey Bonnet snails, Pentaceraster seastar and even Brahminy kites on the reefs!

Marcus spotted this uncommon shrimp - body patterns resemble tiger stripes with very long bristle antenna. Not too sure what species is that... Unfortunately specimen escaped before we could have a closer look at it.

The only nudibranch I saw was the Discodoris boholiensis. Jason and others also spotted one of their own.

My favourite slugs - Strawberry slugs (Costesiella sp.). They tend to hang around the same type of juicy seaweed. Ever so cute...

Right next to the seaweed, I spotted two burrows consisting of the same goby-shrimp - Saddled shrimp goby (Cryptocentrus maudae). This goby can grow up 10cm long! The juveniles appear to have more distinct bandings and the adults lose this banding pattern (look at website). It was quite fascinating to watch the interaction between shrimp and goby and I shall post the video sometime later. The shrimp appears to not only maintain the burrow, but comes out occasionally to cut algae - for the burrow and the goby opportunistically grabs some of these cut algae! Interesting stuff! So the regular 'clipping' sound you heard on the shores, is the snapping shrimp cutting stuff!

Another awesome fish sighting - Feathery filefish (Chaetodermis penicilligerus). Most of our sightings body length range between 3cm - 10cm. These individuals here were at least 20cm long! Their body colorations appear to be different as well... These ones below, possess a base dark green body colour. When I startled one of it, it changed colours - to shiny blue and pale green! In fact, the fish is able to camouflage and blend in with the algae background. In the state of flight, the fish morphed into the pale version while in motionless state, it morphed to different shades of green... Amazing! I couldn't video it as that would entail me running towards the fish and that may startle and stress the fish.

Here, you can see the paler green with distinct blue and black striations. Compared to the photo above, the body is mostly dark green (similar shade to the algae).

Gosh! I should pay more attention to the ecology and interactions. Fascinating! The shores sure do teach me more about these critters... Until next trip...

Policy brief - Is Ocean Fertilization a possible solution for mitigating Climate Change?

2011-11-21T08:36:00.017+08:00

In the coming COP17/CMP7, one of the topics discussed will be on blue carbon credit and the importance of oceans' role in mitigation and adaptation of Climate Change. Some of my friends will be attending the talks in Durban and from the looks of it, it's going to be an experiential one for them all... :) For us, climate change is an important event as it affects all life forms at various degrees, and cannot be overlooked when we view the bigger picture.

For my last class, Marine Conservation taught by Professor Chou Loke Ming, we had a report assignment to write a policy brief on the topic of Ocean Fertilization (OF). Through this assignment, I have learnt a lot about OF and its application, and how it has a role in Climate Change mitigation. Yet, so little is known of its functional status. In this post and in view of the upcoming Climate Change talks in Durban, SA, I will share my own opinions and conclusions about the use of OF as an option in mitigating against climate change.

1. General Overview

The impending increase in anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations in the atmosphere, together with the lack of success in reducing greenhouse gases emissions have been recognized as accelerating global problems of climate change. The need for mitigation options has incited scientific and policy interests in geoengineering techniques that allow deliberate interventions to moderate Earth’s climate system. Ocean fertilization (OFN) had been one of earliest proposed mitigation to counter climate change problems. It is the intentional act of increasing phytoplankton production in the open ocean and this can be achieved by direct nutrient supply, or increasing nutrient supply from deep waters. Therefore, increasing oceanic CO₂ uptake by phytoplankton while reducing atmospheric CO₂, but OFN utilization and mitigation potentials had been highly controversial and not yet well explored.

As early as in the 1980s, the idea of fertilizing oceans came about when scientists made observations of glacial-interglacial CO₂ changes and insights on the natural components that limit oceanic biological production in both high macronutrients, low chlorophyll (HNLC) and low macronutrients, low chlorophyll (LNLC) regions. Although 13 small-scale fertilization studies have shown some encouraging results, proposals for large-scale application of OFN have attracted much criticism and skepticism from the scientific and public. On the precautionary principle, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) declared in 2008 that no OFN should be carried out for any given purpose until scientific justification was stronger and assessed through a global regulatory mechanism. Regulatory frameworks are being developed currently, through the London Convention and London Protocol (LC/LP).

2. Scientific background

Oceans act as a biological pump whereby photosynthetic primary productivity takes place in the ocean surface followed by sinking of materials into the deep ocean; this increases CO₂uptake into ocean interior and reduce anthropogenic CO₂ in ocean upper layer. Oceans are potentially huge carbon sinks that almost a third of the anthropogenic atmospheric CO₂ since 1750 has moved into the ocean. Natural fertilization such as iron defecation by sperm whales could stimulate carbon export in Southern Ocean (Table 1). However, natural fertilization itself is not enough as macronutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and (for diatoms) silicon, and the micronutrient iron continue to limit marine primary productivity. Therefore, through artificial fertilization (Table 1), we can potentially increase phytoplankton production that would result in the sequestration of inorganic carbon into the deep ocean (Figure 1).

Figure 1 shows the main processes and inefficiencies involved with ocean fertilization for carbon sequestration. Blue arrows represent the intended sequestration paths while red arrows represent the inefficiencies of sequestration paths. Adapted from: Wallace et al. (2010).

All of the OFN approaches to date have focused on increasing the external supply of nutrients, especially iron. Small-scale, experimental iron additions to HNLC regions have shown great increases of phytoplankton biomass, and CO₂ uptake in the surface waters (Table 2). However, these scientific studies were short-term and relatively small-scale, and information on how OFN affects marine biota, the magnitudes of carbon export and fertilization effectiveness are still uncertain. No experimental studies on large-scale fertilization have been carried out at larger spatial and temporal scales, thus even less information is available on the possible impacts.

Model-based predictions have helped in understanding the overall efficiency of atmospheric CO₂ uptake; where iron-based OFN simulations suggest removal of about 40% anthropogenic CO₂ into the ocean on timescales of hundreds to thousands. While improved models have been available to better predict both benefits and impacts, the totality effects still cannot be fully understood as the ocean is dynamic and connected. Model simulations of large-scale OFN predicted that overall costs are high (especially nutrients and transportation), with low fertilization frequency of 10-25% carbon sequestration. These cost estimates only covers the direct fertilization activity, but undervalue the costs for potential negative downstream effects (Table 2).

3. Regulatory, Governance and Policy

The regulation issue with OFN is that it predominately takes place on the high seas where no national jurisdiction or propriety rights apply and therefore anyone in principal could carry out OFN. In December 2007, the United Nations General Assembly encouraged states to support research and enhance understanding of OFN (Resolution 62/215). Four UN parties have taken an interest in this topic: the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the UN Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). All of which have put forth frameworks and agreements on OFN issues.

In response to the concerns with OFN, the recent CBD/COP10 (2010) re-emphasized that no OFN activities should take place unless justified scientific research with a regulatory mechanism are in place (CBD 2008; Decision IX/16C) while taking account of OFN progress (UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/14/INF/7; paragraphs 57-62). In 2008, Parties to the London Convention (LC/1972) and London Protocol (LP/1996) decided that OFN activities other than legitimate science should not be allowed, while developing frameworks to re-assess compatibility of OFN experiments and formulate a potential legal binding to LC/LP.

The Kyoto Protocol (Article 12) defined the clean development mechanism (CDM) that looks into providing certified emission reduction credits as a standard offset instrument. With the potential to reduce carbon emissions, carbon markets and offset incentives are looking into the economic viability of selling carbon credits through OFN within the CDM framework. The main problems with creating carbon credits through OFN are the difficulty to verify, monitor and account for the permanence and leakage. Considering the minimal success from the 13 OFN experiments, the evidence of the benefits from OFN is still lacking and would be wise to remove carbon-offset incentives on OFN.

4. Conclusions

It is clear that anthropogenic carbon emissions contributing to climatic changes have severe effects on humans; we are in urgent need for mitigation options and OFN has been one of them. Small-scale fertilizing of the oceans has been demonstrated to increase productivity, likely resulting in drawdown of atmospheric CO₂. However, there are still significant unknowns in terms of its mitigation potential, sciences, and feasibility of implementation. Yet the presence of these unknowns hinders proper assessment of OFN potential contribution to climate change mitigation. Gap analyses for OFN need to be filled in order to reduce uncertainties and refine our understanding, so as to incorporate into future policies. In the context of a carbon-emission offset scheme, if OFN is implemented to generate carbon emission credits which leads to corresponding increase in fossil fuel emissions, then OFN is unlikely to be effective in the long run as it would result in further pollution to the deep ocean without conferring any environmental benefit or climate mitigation. Finally, one has to keep in mind that it is essential to engage the public concerning strategies for climate mitigation, as the negative effects of climate change can affect ecosystem services, land usage and health. Whilst discussions on OFN have not fully engaged the public, the decisions for full implementation of OFN should consider the public attitude to the solution.

5. References

· Gussow K, Proelss A, Oschlies A, Rehdanz K & Rickels W (2010) Ocean iron fertilization: Why further research is needed. Marine Policy 34: 911-918.

· Secretariat of the Convention of Biological Diversity (2009) Scientific Synthesis of the Impacts of Ocean Fertilization on Marine Biodiversity. Montreal, Tech Ser No. 45, 53pp.

· Wallace DWR, Law CS, Boyd PW, Collos Y, Croot P, Denman K, Lam PJ, Riebesell U, Takeda S & Williamson P (2010) Ocean Fertilization. A Scientific Summary for Policy Makers. IOC/UNESCO, Paris (IOC/BRO/2010/2).

· Woodward FI, Bardgett RD, Raven JA & Hetherington (2010) Biological approaches to global environment change mitigation and remediation. Current Biology 19(14): R615-R623.

· Zeebe RE & Archer D (2005) Feasibility of ocean fertilization and its impact on future atmospheric CO₂ levels. Geophysical Research Letters 32: L09703, 1-5.

A day out with diver friends - Hantu reefs

2011-11-14T15:08:00.008+08:00

On this public holiday, a group of us gathered to visit our Hantu coral reefs. Here's a picture of us having a picnic on Hantu Besar island! hehe... Everyone brought yummy food and cheese! It was a fun outing and we all concluded that we should do this more often.

My dive buddy was Chay Hoon, the macro-finder (literally). Her skills of finding the 'tiny' are renown amongst us. hehe... Anyhow, the others had great finds! Jeff and Jani bumped into one of the large hawksbill turtle and even the residen Starry Pufferfish! Alas, they couldn't find the mystical large batfish... hee... While Zee, Abby and Debby were happily camping out on the sand bars, watching gobies and shrimps...

I attempted to make short camps on the sand but had to go after a while before I lose sight of my buddy! Here are two of the gobies that I saw...

Besides the more active animals, I decided to look for sessile ones such as these beautiful blue zoanthids. So far, I have only seen them on Hantu and they are probably similar to one of the intertidal species, just a different colour morph (an unusual colour I might add).

Here's one that I'm not too sure... A coral or anemone or zoanthid?

One of the common subtidal seastars at Hantu would be the Icon Seastar... Check out the baby one below, almost the size area as my index finger! (And it's not because my index finger is fat :P)

There were only two types of flatworms spotted on this trip.

Nudibranchs, however, were out to play! Check out the whole variety of Chromodoris spp. below!

The Dermatobranchus spp. were both found attached to either soft corals or sponges. Food?

Chay Hoon concurs that even the Gymnodoris spp. are back... These nudibranchs are known to feed on other nudibranchs, especially the one below. G. rubropapulosa is a fat and juicy nudibranch with a voracious feeding behaviour of engulfing nudibranchs bigger than itself! Most of them sighted were 3cm long and 1.5cm thick!

Flabellina spp. are omnipresent on the reefs.

A few uncommon ones such as this Hypselodoris sp. I'm not too sure if this is the H. kanga or H. infucata.

Tambja sp. is getting very very very common these days... Jimmy said he saws up to 20s! (See until don't want to see!) Debby also patiently videoed a little Tambja fighting against the currents. Look at how it manages to hold on...

Previous dive trips have seen up to 10s of Bornella anguila! This trip, I spotted one of it and I got a shock when it suddenly took off in the water, explaining this photo... It decided to swim off and find another feeding spot.

Cuthona sibogae are low this season and would be back early next year... This one here is a small one, 1cm long. (Thanks to CH the macro-finder!)

Before I (sadly) end my last dive, the Phylidia ocellata lying on the sand...

It was great to dive with the group! It was quite an experience for me to mingle amongst the early marine conservationists such as Zee, Jani, Abby, Jeff, Debby, Chay Hoon and Jimmy. They have dived in Singapore for such a long time and to see them diving together on this trip was really cool... A noob like me still have lots to learn from them! :D Thanks for the invite Zee and organising the trip credits to Jimmy.

Reef Friends - Little Sisters corals look great!

2011-11-13T09:22:00.007+08:00

After our last exploratory trip, we are back to work! Our second last survey of the year, we headed off to Little Sisters coral reefs... There were slight currents but definitely not as bad as Raffles Lighthouse! The reef survey went smoothly with a small team of 6 divers...

Along my transect lines, I first spotted the halved mushroom coral on the left... Later as I swam a little upwards, I found the other half! Jeff says that it is possible for the corals to still survive as a fragment on its own... I wonder if they move on their own now?

In the deeper waters, bryozoans were more common since they do not rely on sunlight... First look at this colonial organism, you would think that it's a 'skeleton' of some coral. Bryozoans come in different forms, and the usual intertidal ones are found on seagrass leaf blades, while the subtidal ones tend to be solitary (below).

Some other invertebrates of the trip included the 'sessile' ones that lives on the sea fans. At Little Sisters, the slopes are very colourful! Red, yellow, purple, pink, orange, ... you name a colour, they probably got it! Many of such sea fans act as anchors for brittle stars (far left) and commensals such as the white shrimp (center) and even basket stars (far right).

Slug variety was few (maybe I'm just bad at finding them)... Two nudibranchs: Glossodoris atromarginatus (top left) and Tambja sp. (top right). The Elysia ornata leaf slug (bottom left) and flat worm, Pseudoceros sp. (bottom right).

Just the other day, we spotted a different swimming anemone. I realised that subtidally, there are also a variety of them! Oh my!

Moving onto the corals! For many divers, we tend to like to see the fauna of the reefs such as shrimps, clams, octopus, etc etc... Very few really do appreciate the corals as they appear to be the 'lawn' of the seas. While they are analogous to the grass on land, corals are all animals! Each of them have polyps that feed individually, just that they are too small for our naked eyes...

This trip, I decided to showcase our corals and they are very healthy, and it's good to know since they had experience a stressful bleaching period late last year...

Soft corals are octocorallia... Instead of calcium carbonate structures, they possess sclerite structures.

For our reef surveys, we classify hard corals in their respective forms. Note that the following classification given is based on the corals observed. Different species of corals may have different forms and does not apply to all. :)

Here shows a Acropora sp. that is considered branching form (code name: CB).

The next form is encrusting (CE) that includes the Lithophyllon sp. and Ouslastrea sp.

Foliose (CF) includes Pachyseris sp. (concentric rings) (top), Echinopora sp. (center), and Podabacia sp.

Submassive (CS) - Galaxea sp. (top left), Goniopora sp. (top right), Pectinia sp. (bottom).

Finally, massive forms (CM) includes Diploastrea sp., Favia sp. (note the flatworm!), and Platygyra sp.

Thanks to Chay Hoon and Jeff for the opportunity to join Reef Friends, I have learnt how to identify corals better now! :) It's been almost a year since I first joined Reef Friends, and it's a great learning opportunity for volunteer divers on our reefs and its neighbours... Continue to stay tune and I'll continue to show you more about our reefs! :)

Pulau Sekudu - New slugs!

2011-11-10T18:53:00.007+08:00

Another day out with my fellow field enthusiast friends! This time, we visited a reef next to Chek Jawa... Pulau Sekudu, also affectionately called the "Frog Island" is frequently visited by fishermen with numerous abandoned fish and crab traps. With some concerted effort to monitor these drift netting areas, Ria and Zeehan have came up with a protocol to retrieve quantitative data on trapped fauna. So if you do see any drift nets anywhere, please do inform us via this website! :)

Back to the trip... Upon arrival, I spotted a big wild boar searching the grounds of CJ... So cool! I don't get to see many of our common mammals and I have heard so much from Siva's respective mammalogist students, from civet cats, leopard cats, otters and even rodents! Later, four little wild boars came out to join the feasting... Probably a family...

The team had much sightings and have shared their photos in the respective links:
Ria shares a Harlequin juvenile sweetlips, an uncommon Southerner in the North!
James shares his macro-shots on the nudibranchs sighted.
Kok Sheng and his usual ramblings on seastars...
Andy and his handy video cam, capturing the flourescence of the white-spiral fan worm!
Rene and Jerome shared their findings on their FB pages!

We shared a lot of our findings together... Just a breeze through... Kok Sheng found this pretty orange seahorse - Estuarine seahorse, Hippocampus kuda...

I spotted this tiny baby plain seastar, Astropecten indicus gliding on the substrate stealthily... :)

Other echinoderms include the Nepanthia sp. seastar, Biscuit seastar, Crown seastar and the orange sea cucumber...

There were a lot of hermit crabs and I found one that does not have a shell... It's naked! Wonder how it'll fend away the predators...

Sap-sucking slugs are in season! The Elysia ornata and another woolly-looking Elysia sp.

I chanced upon this hoof-shield limpet under a rock while we were photographing something else...

Other gastropods included the resident tiger moon snail, tiny trochus shell, noble volute laying eggs and wandering cowrie...

Look who's carrying the nem! This whelk snail appears to be an ideal 'host' for the nems to stick with on Sekudu... Some of the other snails are overwhelmed by the sheer size of nems!

Nem galore on Sekudu... An unusual looking swimming anemone (bottom right)... Parallel-striped swimming nem for now... :)

Again, I chanced upon these TINY slugs (<1cm) when I was looking at another slug... When I first saw these slugs, the name "strawberry slugs" came to mind! (I know, the colours are reversed but it does resemble the shape of a strawberry.) So from then on, it's known to us as 'strawberry slug', also named Costasiella sp.

Beautiful slugs next up! The Philinopsis lineolata... It's an uncommon slug that isn't nudibranchs but head-shield slugs... Not much I can find out about its diet... Similar to another species sighted on Lost Coast...

This little slug has a funny story to it... As I was leaving a specimen and hopping to find my next 'victim' for photographs, I stood up and spotted this purple dot (yes, it's 1cm)... So I just told James, "Hey, I see something there purple but maybe it's nothing...". Upon scrutiny, James said it WAS something and tada! Another uncommon nudibranch, Jorunna sp. Chay Hoon suggest that it may live on sponges and it has this sponge-like texture...

According to Chay Hoon, two new sightings of Cerberilla spp. on Sekudu... Whee!

What a day! I can't wait to head out to the shores soon... :D

Worthwhile wait to the Lost Coast

2011-11-07T18:22:00.005+08:00

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

Exploration with Reef Friends

2011-10-09T18:59:00.006+08:00

We set off early and headed to Raffles Lighthouse, ready for a survey but the current streams were rather strong and not very good to do surveys (unless we want to keep on finning). It was abandoned to much of our dismay but was quickly perked again at the idea of exploring the western parts of Hantu patch reefs.

With Chay Hoon around, the dives are always filled with plenty of nudibranchs! The visibility was fairly good and many fishes were darting around feeding from the water... Here's what I saw...

This three-armed seastar is likely a type of Asterina sp. Poor seastar lost all of its other arms...

A super tiny slug that only CH could see! She found many of them gliding on the substrate today and will be sharing them on her blog...

The only flatworm for the day...

Now, all the nudibranchs! Today's photos of nudibranch consisted mostly of their frontal shots...

Dendrodoris sp.

Flabellina sp. (Bi-colored nudibranch)

Dermatobranchus sp.

Tamja sp.

Hypselodoris emma

Hypselodoris maculosa

Chromodoris sinensis

Gymnodoris rubropapulosa (?)

Gymnodoris citrina

Thuridilla gracilis (Sap-sucking slugs)

Some other animals sighted included the thorny sea cucumber...

Gobies!

Not sure what fish this is... haha... They occur in pairs...

That's all! :)

Bukom incident and brief look at Tanah Merah...

2011-10-02T08:39:00.008+08:00

On every headline, you would have probably heard of the Bukom refinery explosions and imminent shutdown of operations. Last Wednesday evening was when everyone heard a loud bang and the following day, more explosions were heard. Check out Ria's update on Thursday afternoon. For safety reasons, our monitoring to Cyrene was abandoned and we made other plans...

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

Biodiversity of Singapore Symposium III - What went on?

2011-09-26T09:20:00.011+08:00

Bright and early, many nature enthusiasts made their way to NUS, LT27. Since 2001, the Biodiversity of Singapore Symposium was first initiated and now it has come to its third series of talks. For this symposium, we had the theme of "The Next Generation".

Siti (Twinny!) was the emcee for the day

In total, five different sessions were held and poster sessions were held over tea breaks. Click here to find the abstracts of the presented posters. I also had a poster up about giant clams conservation and research in Singapore! Just as the theme, many of the speakers lined up were the young and enthusiastic or the middle-aged and active enthusiasts. As we continue to progress as a country, people are also becoming more aware of the existence of a natural biodiversity heritage around Singapore. Over the past decade, we have moved from a strong economic focus (not that this has reduced) but there is also the rising importance of preserving our heritage in terms of the environment.

BG Tan Chuan Jin, the current Minister of State, Ministry of National Development graced the event and shared his two cents of his impression of biodiversity in Singapore. As an NSF, his frequent training in the ulu forests have graced him several memorable events such as which is the durian tree that has been fruiting. He also remarked that the army probably has done good deeds since these areas tend to be of limited access, thus well-protecting the rich biodiversity of the forest patches. (On a side note, I kind of agree with him on the military access to such places, and one of such area that was of my interest is the Live Firing islands off South).

BG Tan Chuan Jin (MOS) giving his speech

Onto his main speech, he had pointed out two of my friends! Miss Lim Wei Ling (left) is currently working with NParks Biodiversity Centre and leads Team Seagrass on regular surveys. Marcus, a fellow batchmate (also affectionately known as the Ubinator!) studies mammals in the forest patches. His breakthrough study on Pulau Ubin allowed him to re-discover the greater mousedeer (that have not been sighted for almost 80 years!). Marcus later went on to explain his wide grin. This camera trap that was placed within the damaged forests in Mandai (due to the strong winds) apparently survived! It was the only tree around that area that did not fall. haha...

Poster girl, Lim Wei Ling and boy, Marcus Chua for their conservation efforts!

Siva was up next to present the awards for ICCS contributors. This year, ICCS celebrates its 20 years of work and presented awards in recognition of the partners' hard work over the years. Applause to them! :) He also shared MOS Tan's reflection with us. In short, we all have to work together to keep our spirits high and our efforts in keeping our biodiversity heritage.

Siva giving an overview about ICCS, here shown BG Tan's thoughts

There was so much going on! Being a student in the marine biology lab, I do not know much of the works that my fellow colleagues do along the corridors. This was a great opportunity to not only learn from them, but also their research contribution to understanding local biodiversity better. Here shows the slides from Dr. Darren Yeo's presentation on freshwater biology in Singapore. Dr. Yeo's current research niche is freshwater invasive biology, and looks at several invasive species such as the red-claw crayfish found in our reservoirs.

Freshwater natives in Singapore

Do we have freshwater animals? Yes we do! In fact, some of them were endemic - meaning unique to Singapore only! :) Theses crustaceans, however, are facing imminent threats of extinction as our freshwater streams keep getting dammed up. Let's hope that these endemics will still be around!

Endemic crustaceans in Singapore

Another interesting presentation was by my fellow coursemate, Chong Kwek Yan (PhD candidate with the plant systematics lab. I must say, that I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation of his lab colleagues and how they find plants fun to work with. Their research work has progressed from mostly systematics to more recently, ecology-based studies. They also have focus on re-introduction of native plant species, which has been demonstrated by the sudden influx of plants surrounding the University Hall. Go check it out! :)

Chong Kwek Yan giving his plant speech

Posting this photo below raises the other issue of the presence of former plantations in Singapore. Did you know that many of the existing forest patches harbour a great deal of fruit trees? Examples of surveyed patches indicate the presence of longan, langsat, rambutan, mango and durians! Yum! Wen Qing has videoed the entire presentation, so click on it to hear what Kwek Yan has to share about his lab.

Current honours students in the plant systematics lab

My affinity with Dr. Tan Heok Hui began as a UROPS student. He was one of my examiners for my early research projects. After which, I began to TA for his module, field studies on Tioman. He is a very good field person, more than capable at catching his desired animals... Here shows a picture of himself 'breaking the laws'! Ah well... What scientists do... :P

Dr. Tan Heok Hui and his bio-data

He briefly shared his insights on invasive fish species in Singapore - mostly the chromids, a south american stingray and cichlids found in our waterways... Their impacts on our freshwater ecosystem have not been fully quantified and whether they have a negative effect we cannot be sure. However, despite being introduced, they may play an important role to our local ecosystems. Who knows? Research needs to be constantly done!

It was heartening to see so many youths present during the talks, and they made up almost two thirds of the audience for the symposium. I recognise many familiar faces - mostly the honours students from 2010 and current students from NUS. Not forgetting the NParks personnel from their various departments, who were present to answer some of the questions. There were a bunch of interesting questions raised during the symposiums... Here's a summary list (as much as I can remember):

1) Community Impression

How much of the research done has been passed onto the correct agencies and that it has been understood by the policy and decision-makers?
How can we make coral reefs more charismatic for conservation efforts?
What are your opinions of the use of captive animals for conservation efforts?

2) Forest session

Is it possible for MOE curriculum to incorporate biodiversity and ecology into the syllabus? (Hottest debate!)
How do we know if the animals can cross the Eco-Link once it's being built?

3) Freshwater session

How much of the research done is made available (freely for teaching use)?
Concerns over the thrash accumulation at Bishan Park

4) Marine session

Is Semakau the only place that has the richest diversity?
Scientists are unable to retrieve information from governmental agencies (i.e. is it the lack of thereof?)
Where and how can we dive off Singapore?

All in all, everyone probably still have much to ask the experts of their fields but unfortunately time was constrained. The questions brought us to attention to some issues:

1) People are definitely much more aware of biodiversity in Singapore and they would like to see these information incorporated into decisions and developments.

2) At the same time, there is still the need to continue to inform and educate the others who do not know of this biodiversity in Singapore.

3) It is also hoped that information pass down could be more open to the public, government agencies and research bodies.

4) Educating our young from an early age until adolescents.

I find myself being more sure of my decision to continue on this line of work. Many people can do well in their jobs, but only a few will have an impact on their peers and society. Just as how Ria has inspired not just myself, but many others as well. We look upon her as a role model for her relentless efforts, but we should also not forget to share and be part of this effort, and join her in protecting our natural heritage. :) Peace...

Hantu's looking great! (as always)

2011-09-25T21:45:00.008+08:00

The visibility for Hantu was FANTASTIC! 5m or more! haha... We could see the shallow tops from the boat - that's how good the visibility was... Everyone was so happy and saw so many fishes! And here's what I saw...

Highlight of the day! I finally saw the BIG pufferfish that the rest has seen on previous trips... Here's a mug shot of the fish taken from the video... As usual, big fishes scare me (just like the Mola mola), so I only took a video of it...

Looking up for an ID, this one here appears to be a star puffer (Arothron stellatus)... Geographic range of this species is Indo-Pacific and that includes Singapore. A previous fish guide of marine fishes of Singapore did not record the presence of this species. This fish was approximately 50cm in length, and known to grow up to 1.2m! My personal experience with the 1.2m individual was in Christmas island. Then, I too had taken a video of that giant and quickly swam away... haha... What a great fish find! However, whether it was introduced from the aquarium trade or naturalized in Singapore, we probably need to monitor other reefs to find out their presence and populations!

Debby and others saw batfish, moonies, scads, sand divers and even a 5ft long barracuda! Wow! I spotted several six-banded angelfish and also file fishes (below). This little guy here was following me! Later, a remora that tagged along Jimmy got stuck to me! ahhhh!

Now moving onto the other invertebrates... Here's a little cuttlefish with its catch of the day - shrimp...

Flatworms...

Overload of nudibranch! First the Chromodoris fidelis

Gymnodoris sp.

Dermatobranchus sp.

Flabellina sp.

Chromodoris sinensis

Phyllidia varicosa

Phyllidia sp.

Phyllidia ocellata

Bornella anguilla

Cuthona sibogae

Chromodoris lineolata

Flabellina sp.

Glossodoris cincta

One of the cleaner shrimp species...

As well as the usual suspects found on the sea fans - basket stars, brittle stars, crinoids, whip gobies, whip shrimps and ovulid cowrie (below)...

Wow! After a few months of hiatus, Hantu is still full of surprises... I can't wait to visit it again (perhaps next month!) :)

What's it like being a terrestrial ecologist? - Ubin notes...

2011-09-25T07:55:00.011+08:00

Terrestrial ecology. I guess some people may be wondering, have I turned to the 'dark side'!! Well, to be fair, when I started out trying out projects, I haven't really thought about the possibility of changing lab for the next project nor did I have the opportunity (like so many of my friends who did the field studies module) to try another project besides a marine one... I feel less equipped and sometimes inept for my lack of experience and knowledge of other aspects of biodiversity. However, I have this opportunity for the exposure to various projects through being a Teaching Assistant (TA) and now, helping out as a field assistant...

First up, I would like to share my teaching experience and especially learning more about bird diversity in Singapore. For this month of September, we had a huge class of almost 200 students (module LSM2251) whom we brought to Pulau Ubin with the priority objective of bird-watching. My! When I first signed up to be a TA for this module (that was about 2 semesters ago), I had to learn how to identify birds through using all my senses - mostly sight and sound. I think that I'm better now (who am I to judge myself!) and it's almost like an instinct of calling that bird's actual name than saying it's a black bird.

So on the third Saturday of September, I decided to bring along some friends to have a look on Ubin and the opportunity to explore the boardwalks of Chek Jawa. Upon arrival on the jetty, the weather didn't look great - cloudy, windy and sad... But the birds were undaunted by the poor weather and continued to hang around their usual spots... Here below is the white-collared kingfisher (Halcyon chloris). Unlike its counterpart, the common kingfisher, the white-collared is actually much more frequently sighted by birders. These birds live near water bodies including the coastline and the waterways on mainlands... This indicates that their diet would consist of mostly fish.

Right after the jetty, we headed straight up (by bicycles) to Chek Jawa wetlands. We noticed that the stray dogs were barking up at the trees. Looking up, we saw a troupe of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fasicularis). Those monkeys that has more human interactions, such as those on mainland and Sisters' islands, display more aggression to humans compared to these ones on Ubin. Probably could be explained by the extent of human interactions these monkeys get on Ubin, despite having so many visitors each weekend.

Moving along, we headed to the CJ boardwalk. There are several entrances and we started our trail from the coastal boardwalk heading towards the mangrove boardwalk. We couldn't see much of the wetlands as the tides were very high. No otters in sight this time! Moving along the mangrove boardwalk, we started fervently looking for the mangrove crabs and mudskippers!

First up, we spotted some face-banded sesarmine crabs (Perisesarma eumolpe). These cute little crabs exhibit a physical characteristic - brightly coloured face bands. The face bands have been studied and tested to be used in courtship displays as well as for territorial displays. Other studies of these crabs include the colour intensity and reflectance of these bands.

We saw this rather large crab situated on the top of the mud lobster mound. I can't really identify this one here...

Fiddler crab! This is likely a female since it does not have the enlarged pincer.

Mudskippers! Did you know that mudskippers cannot survive underwater and may drown! Therefore, these fishes rely on water pockets for oxygen and replenishes these water by living near water pools such as this one below...

Shortly after, we cycled and headed to Sungei Jelutong (Jelutong bridge) and saw more mangroves... Over here, we can see more fiddler crabs and mostly males of another species...

A pair of white-collared kingfisher perched on the nearby mangrove trees.

As it approaches dusk, most of the pacific swallows (Hirundo tahitica) have started to head back to their nests or seen perched on structures such as these shown below.

On our way back to Changi Village, I pointed out the 'resident' archer fish and other fish. So many of them aggregating together! Perhaps someone is feeding them, thus this is the fishes' hang out...

Back to the urban area, we have our stray cats... Here shows Miss Spot-cat! A resident of the jetty... hahaha... She doesn't look very pleased... hee...

After spending so many weekends on Pulau Ubin, I began to appreciate the type of work my colleagues do and work for terrestrial studies (including mangroves as well). I also recently participated in my student's honours work - plot study of trees. Boy! Was I not only bitten by tens of mosquitoes, I even learnt how to tell if a tree is dead (either you shake it but not too hard or check the bark's phloem). COOL!

There's still so much more to learn, observe and see... All you have to do is look, hear and touch... You will notice that not only you aren't living alone (with humans), there are others who want to share your space too... :) Cheers to ever-surprising nature!

Recce at Labrador shore

2011-09-01T19:03:00.006+08:00

It's been almost 2 years since I last visited Labrador beach! My last post on Labrador showcased the numerous fishes that were around the shore... The shore was very much prettier and had more life on the coral rubble zone.

Today, thanks to Samantha, a graduate student who is studying rocky shore diversity, I was able to visit the shore again. I was tasked to help Siti with her seagrass work. The first thing I saw on the shores were large pieces of man-made debris such as these shown in the photos...

Further around the area, I saw some abandoned PVC pipes, thrash such as shoes, plastics, stone slabs, and many other variety of thrash that you can think of... Sigh! It's was heart-breaking to see that the upper shore was badly littered with thrash and concretes.

The shore was relatively quiet, with several scurrying swimming crabs and snapping shrimps. I saw no fishes this time round... Upper shore was almost bare! Thankfully, towards the deeper waters, we started to see the algae, zoanthids and seagrass patches!

Here shows a pretty algae - Big parasol green seaweed (Caulerpa peltata). This seaweed is not very common on our shores, and Labrador is one of those places that has these seaweed.

Here's Siti and her student, Benjamin taking a closer look at the seagrass patch near the rocks... Labrador is a very special seagrass site - it is the only mainland shore that has Sickle seagrass (Thalassia hemprichii)! Besides that, the shore also has the tape seagrass (Enhalus acoroides) and Spoon seagrass (Halophila ovalis)...

Here's a portion of the exposed seagrass patch. Pretty isn't it? Unlike someone who thinks it's 'unimportant' *ahem*, these seagrass beds play important nurseries for many of the little fishes and crustaceans, and serve as food for animals such as the turtles and dugongs!

An interesting observation! It appears to me that the tape seagrass recently released its gametes! Here shows a male flower (on the ground) that is already emptied. The spawning could have occurred over the last two days when the tides were out! The first time I saw the tape seagrass gamete release was in Bintan! We all thought that someone decided to throw styrofoam! :P

Siti later found the female flowers that has likely been fertilized and many have fallen out already... Here's one of them... Amazing plants isn't it? Another interesting fact about the seagrasses is that it's the only marine flowering plant! :D A good reason to keep them, they are the grasses of our sea gardens!

Tides were switching from morning to the evening timings. I later saw the tides rushing up the shore as we were departing. Right before we left, Siti pointed out the dredging operations carried out. It looked horrible to me! Monster arms grabbing substrate and pouring into the barges... >:(

Because of such operations, it largely affects the silty waters around Labrador and increased sedimentation... Today I did not see any corals (probably because it's in the deeper waters)... As we headed back, I remembered this mural of "Please conserve our rich marine life heritage"...

Interestingly, someone on the trip asked me, "How long will Labrador be around?" I couldn't really give an answer... Hopefully for a long time... :)

More surprises at Cyrene reefs!

2011-08-30T21:49:00.007+08:00

This is the last pre-dawn trip for the year! We decided to head out to Cyrene reefs... Every trip to Cyrene would always be filled with first sightings for me! On this trip alone, I saw a whole lot of animals that I have yet to encounter before... Yippee!

As we landed, the first thing we all noticed was the numerous juvenile swimming anemones found attached onto the seagrass blades! Some of them were swimming in the shallow pools while others were attached to the blades for shelter.

My first sightings were these bonnet snails! Left to right: The Grey Bonnet snail (Phalium glaucum) and the Japanese Bonnet snail (Semicassis bisulcatum). Beautiful predatory snails... We spotted several of the Grey bonnets moving along the sandbars, possibly feeding on the sand dollars.

Other little critters amongst the seagrass beds were the Pygmy squid...

Snails...

More swimming anemones and spot the Dubious nerite!

Transparent shrimp...

Five spot anemone shrimp (Periclimenes brevicarpalis) stranded in the pool before returning to its anemone home...

A tiny fish caught my eye... I think it's a type of blenny? It has a complete dorsal and ventral fin that lines the entire length of its body. Approximately 2cm long. Has yellow tailfin... Anyone can help with the ID?

Finally! Seamoths! And two of the baby ones... They are really cute upclose... I can't believe that I found them by myself. :) Both of them are approximately 3cm long...

Hermit crabs were littered on the sand bars as well, and I found this individual particularly pretty for its unique grey colour...

Moonsnails were also very common today... This one here, China moon snail (Natica onca) were found almost everywhere!

Other sandy animals included this uncommon Lovenia heart urchin (Lovenia elongata) that Ria found.

The other urchin invading the seagrass beds was the White Salmacis urchin (Salmacis sp.)... They appear to be seasonal as these urchins were approximately the same size...

Right in between these urchins, we found some Starry flatworm...

Geraldine had a great find amidst the seagrapes cover - Seagrape nudibranch! One unique feature of this nudibranch is the blue body in between those grape-like serata...

The big slugs of the day were the Pleurobranchus forskalii and the Geographic seahare... Both of which are seasonal slugs...

What a great day out at Cyrene! Before we left, we noticed that the flaring on Bukom island was really bright, big and high up! Wonder how much of burning is being done... hmm...

Everyone was still searching for critters despite the rising tides... hehe... Soon, we departed for the boat and bid farewell to Cyrene till the next low tides.

Surprises again at Semakau

2011-08-28T22:32:00.006+08:00

An evening visit to the surroundings of Semakau Landfill... After the first diving adventure last month, we ventured again to the man made parts of the islands... Guess what I found! :)

A seastar that some of us had not seen before! I had initially spotted its three arms thinking what is that... Later after gently prying the arms, I found a star! Look at the beautiful pattern!

We're guessing it's the Ophidiaster granifer... According to Dr Lane's book, this star was first sighted at Sultan Shoal (trawling). It is a tropical seastar found in the Indo-Pacific meaning that it falls within Singapore's geographic range. Very little is known about this seastar though...

A quick Google search on the Grained seastar showed this article dated in 1984. Both of the authors, Yamaguchi and Lucas also studied the giant clams' reproductive strategy! Apparently the article tells of the seastar's reproductive mode and some ecology of it. Neat stuff! :)

Other cool animals that were uncommon were these Tamja spp. nudibranchs...

And finally! After a long long search, Chay Hoon found the anemones on the coral whips... Yippee! :)

Tanah Merah a little oily lah...

2011-08-19T10:22:00.005+08:00

Another mainland shore that Ria visits often to check up on the status of flora and fauna after the 25 May 2010 oil spill... Fantastic animals such as the eagle ray was spotted!

Marcus added onto the list of crabs by spotting this hairy crab! We usually find them common on the Southern shores, and this is fascinating as to how this crab came to be on the Northern shores!

Swimming crabs such as this Thalamita sp. decided to lie low between the rock bunds...

Moon crabs were out and about, scurrying in panic!

Ah... The psychedelic dubious nerites are so tiny and small! They were returning to the shores in abundance... I'm curious as to how many patterns and colorations can you find in these little snails... And what triggers this pattern!

Alas, Mr Stonefish is still a regular sight on Tanah Merah... The waters were so murky that I had to scale my contrast for you to see the fish!

A mangled catfish with its spilling guts... Good for Ivan's morgue diary... It is still alive and kicking! But with the guts out, I guess it's time for it to rest in peace...

Baby halfbeak? Really distinct spottings...

One spot damselfish! So cute... Hovering unknowingly in the waters...

Another needle fish...

Find of the day - Large-toothed flounder! It was really murky but with that kind of fins, it's more identifiable...

Wraps up the trips for this month... Next month's tides are quite bad because it's changing to the evenings! See you everybody!

Muddy Changi

2011-08-19T09:03:00.008+08:00

I decided to take a breather from all the worrying of my written exams (which I completed yesterday with some worries) and all the other stressors... Back to the shores around us... Did you know that just on the mainland, there are possibly more than 30 sites that you can easily visit? haha... Go look at the Google Maps and see if you can find these places... For the coming LSM3254 - Aquatic and Freshwater Biology, students are asked to visit a shore and present a poster on the shore --> Sell your shore! I'm looking forward to this batch's works. :)

Just not too far from my area, Changi has always been star-studded (literally)... I believe that just around Changi itself, I have seen at least 10 different seastars! haha... Let's find out what this muddy shore has installed for us...

Wiggling small octopuses were squirming around in the shallow pools. This fellow here was trying to escape! It kept going in circles though... I made note that this critter started to wrap a bundle of silt/mud and started filtering it and producing this turbid water! I'm wondering if it's a way to camouflage itself from me!

The blue-lined flatworms were mostly stuck on the surfaces of the rocks or under the rubble...

The common Gymnodoris nudibranch usually found near seagrass beds...

Nicholas came with us on the trip in search of the 'brown' Peachia anemone... I had a hard time identifying it! And it's said to be quite rare! Cool! This one below is however an Anthopleura sp.

The peacock anemone is not a true anemone... Ria mentioned that the Phoroid worms around them are common and usually white! The black morphs are the first sighting! Nice... This is my first time noting their presence around the peacock nems... I should hone my observation skills even more!

The Spearman's mantis shrimp sitting outside its home...

A juvenile horseshoe crab decided to join in the muddy fun... I was having a hard time just trying to take each step without getting stuck! I wished I was flat with a larger surface area, crawling on the substrate like the horseshoe crab. :P

Ah... Here comes the 'stars'! Orange morph crown seastar (Asterina sp.)

Brown morph crown seastar

Luidia seastar!! Uncommon.

Plain sand star (Astropecten indicus)

I think this is a cake seastar...

Clammy! This venus clam decided to do a leaping performance with its large foot (right of photo). This leaping behaviour is used for both locomotion and escape response when a crab comes along!

Lastly, another uncommon sea cucumber with stubby feeding tentacles... It retracted into the substrate after one shot... Zzz! haha...

Stay tune to another post! :D

Reef Friends - Hantu patch reef

2011-07-25T09:35:00.007+08:00

Bright and early on a Saturday morning, a small team of volunteers headed out to do another reef survey. The site looked pretty gloomy - waters so yellow and green... It was rather dark underwater despite that I was at 3m depth.

Guess what? The long and tall seaweeds are back! Ahhhh! I was scared by these tall weeds quite a few times thinking something brushed me... Time to dive deeper!

A few of the slugs spotted by Chay Hoon. :)

I like the last photo of the Ceratostoma sp. Pretty cool huh? :)

Reef Explorers out at Sentosa-Serapong!

2011-07-04T21:50:00.023+08:00

Yesterday morning, we made a trip down to the elusive shores at Serapong. Special thanks to Shao Wei, Xi Lin, Sheila and Sylvester for waking up so early and bringing us to the shores today!

Ria had an earlier visit to this shore earlier in May and found many beautiful corals and stunning animals that greeted her. One special invertebrate that littered the shores was the Red feather star (Crinoid) that usually can be seen near our local coral reefs. A team of seven decided to cover more parts of the shores to see what we can find...

Flora: There were too many different algae (or seaweeds) to fully document it properly! We also found the two species of seagrasses that Ria had previously seen: Tape seagrass (Enhalus acoroides) and Sickle seagrass (Thalassia hemprichii) (shown below). The seagrass covers were quite sparse and few - perhaps competition with sponges and corals?

I found a small patch of corallimorphs attached to the surfaces of the coral rubble. They are closely related to the anemones (Cnidarians) but are not true anemones. Like anemones, however, they have stinging cells, so please refrain from touching them!

Hard coral diversity was amazing! I have dived quite a bit in Singapore, and have not seen such beautiful and big Acropora spp. except at Raffles Lighthouse and Kusu Island! The tides were very low, and if you realised, we were actually fairly close to the reef crest/edge already!

A huge lot of other corals were seen growing healthily. Favid hard corals (Ouslastrea sp., Favites sp., Platygyra sp., Echinopora sp., etc), Montipora sp., Pocillopora sp., Turbinaria sp., Goniopora sp., Symphillia sp., and so on!

This picture shows the dense and well-packed diversity of algae, hard corals, soft corals and encrusting sponges!

I even spotted a single mushroom coral (Fungia sp.) attached onto a blue sponge!

Soft corals were highly abundant and can grow up to really big! Kok Sheng shared a photo with James posing beside a huge soft coral.

Dense soft coral garden... :)

One of the prettier sponges is this Oceanapia sagittaria... I found a few but not as much as the encrusting types of sponges!

Moving onto some of the mobile invertebrates... The rocks were full of nerite snails, turban snails and some had barnacles and limpets (seen below).

Only one flatworm sighting for me - Spotted black flatworm (Acanthozoan sp.)

A few reef octopuses came out to play and some of them (like this one below) was stranded out of the water.

The team bade farewell to Dr. Daphne just the day before this trip and everyone missed her stories about the anemones. We still looked high and low for any anemones but could only find both the Wiggly star anemone and Phymanthus spp.

Quite a shore with a lot of crustacean life! The usual suspects of transparent shrimps darting about the waters.

Swimming crabs (adults and juveniles), hairy crabs and floral egg crab... Chay Hoon even found a mosaic crab!

James pointed out the commensal coral crabs hidden in both the Pocillopora sp. and Acropora sp. corals.

Only managed to capture these few photos of fishes: carpet eel blenny, crocodile flathead, and other gobies (that I can't identify!).

A new shore with so much potentials! I'm glad for this opportunity to have seen this shore and would love to head back to survey the other parts of these reefs. Once again, thanks to Shao Wei, Xi Lin, Sheila and Sylvester for making this trip possible and hassle-free for all of us! :)

Reef Friends at Sea again! - Pulau Hantu

2011-07-03T10:26:00.009+08:00

Reef Friends are out to sea again! This time to our beloved recreational dive site - Pulau Hantu. Though the weather had initially threatened to rain on us, we were blessed with cloudy with little sunshine. After the usual briefing by our scientific officer, Jeffrey assigned us on various tasks - I'm practicing my Line Intercept Transects (LITs).

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... :)

Animal Life and Nature in Singapore

2011-06-26T10:48:00.011+08:00

Have you read this book before? It is a local publication by a team of NUS professors in the 1970s - a review of Singapore's flora and fauna life. I first encountered this book while I was doing a review paper for the giant clams. After which, I became fascinated by the amount of information this book has on early Singapore.

Published in 1973, Singapore University Press, the books has three main sections: 1) The land of Singapore and its life, 2) Life in the waters of Singapore and 3) Man and other animals. The book covers not only the terrestrial and coastal biodiversity, they also included the local inhabitants' interaction with the local biodiversity.

By the 1970s, much of Singapore have undergone vegetation changes and already some organisms faced extinctions such as the tigers. Looking at this map, I was amazed to find only two rocky shores listed! Tanjong Gul/Tanjong Teritip have been reclaimed since the late 1970s and it's currently Jurong East. It used to have a living reef flat with much molluscs diversity. The last remaining rocky shore in Singapore is now at Labrador beach - and it's facing a lot of coastal development pressures.

Since I'm a training marine biologist, the information that catches my eye will mostly be marine-related! :) Flipping several pages onto the 2nd section of the book, you'll note the noxious animals in Singapore that includes tiger sharks, hammerhead sharks and eagle rays! Mega-marine fauna indeed!

More amazingly, Ria had a fantastic sighting of this elusive eagle ray on oily Tanah Merah with great shots of the majestic animal. :) According to her, after so many years of trips, this is the first time she saw it!

Also, Dive guide Jimmy Goh spotted a huge pufferfish resting on the reefs off Pulau Hantu! No kidding because you can tell this is Singapore for sure based on the dark, slity and evil-looking waters... :P

Other noxious animals that we haven't seen would be the Portuguese-man-of-war - an absolutely potent jellyfish whose stinging cells can cause extreme irritation if not treated. The other absolute venomous animal would be the cone snails. We have seen empty shells of these conus snails but have yet to see one alive.

I found interesting descriptions of the bivalves present in early Singapore and it includes three species of giant clams...

Moving onto the big fishes... Look at this amazing plate of various elasmobranchs!

I think this is the most exciting paragraph of the book for me... It says, WHALESHARK caught in Singapore (based on 1930s fisheries records)! :)

These large fishes are known to have a wide geographic range and may possibly pass by Singapore Straits to reach the Indian Oceans. I tried to find more information online about whalesharks in Singapore but reached a dead end besides this paragraph in this book. I wonder what did they do to the specimen?

Ever since the news of a baby whaleshark (length 38cm) found off Donsol, Philippines, my fascination with the big fish began. I haven't been able to read much scientific papers on them, but I usually keep tabs on them from the news reported. :)

I started wondering when will I get to see one in real life while diving! Here's one in an aquarium in Japan and it was just amazing to see one so close!

I surely hope to see them in their big homes! It's great to see them in tanks, but ultimately, these creatures belong to the seas. I have learnt much about Singapore's marine biodiversity and we continue to learn more through our regular monitoring. Singapore's reefs are pretty resilient eh? :) Check out the book to find out even more stuff...

Behaviour and life history of giant clams

2011-06-22T21:46:00.008+08:00

I decided to dedicate a post to some of my giant clam work from the past two years. These works here have been published and have some interesting findings on the giant clams' ecology and behaviour...

Predator-induced changes in fluted giant clams (Tridacna squamosa) shell morphology. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology.

Phenotypic plasticity refers to the adaptability of organisms to change their outward traits (i.e. phenotype) in response to changes in the environment or other abiotic factors. Here, we tested the effects of predator effluent (or juice) taken from a local crab species, and shower these juvenile clams with these juices at two different concentrations for 6 months! Imagine being subjected to a 'harsh' environment for 6 months, what will happen to you?

Using shell morphology traits, I measured these traits as shown in the figure above, and did an analysis on them. It turned out that clams subjected to 'fed crabs' treatment (meaning that the crab is well-fed on a regular basis) poses a higher risk to these clams, and they turned out smaller but slightly stronger in shell strength.

This study has a higher implication - these clams can adapt and change their shells in accordance to the environment. In the unpredictable and harsh ocean environment these days, phenotypic plasticity plays an important role to allow our marine organisms to rapidly adapt to these changes to maintain survival.

Quantification of water squirting by juvenile fluted giant clams (Tridacna squamosa L.). Journal of Ethology.

This is one interesting study that I'm very proud of - I designed this set up! hehe... Anyhow, this is a behaviour study that examines this squirting behaviour in juvenile giant clams. We know that giant clam adults are big and have few predators. But how about the babies? So this brings me to determining the strength of these squirts and whether they are strong enough to effect their potential predators. Early studies on squirting have suggested that it's a form of predator deterrence (especially the fishes).

In this tiny figure, (that I did up for my honours thesis) shows the several types of 'squirt' patterns that each generates. I did 54 trials and these are the preliminary results. In the paper, you can find more analysis and charts to show a strong positive correlation of increasing squirt strength with size. We infer that the force exerted by the squirt and after it is translated into 'underwater' squirt force (some physics equations to convert these values), the force becomes somewhat stronger and may possibly be a deterrence! Wow whee! :)

The implication of this study is basically useful as a background of nursery-size - how big the clams should be prior to restocking so that we can ensure high survivorship. :)

Most recently out online - finally after 3 years...

This article describes the early life history of the giant clams - how the tiny egg becomes a big clam... :) We also included an experiment in it to make it more complete. I basically followed the life stages and took photos of the process... The birth of life!

The paper includes the metamorphosis times for each stage or phase change. It was definitely really great fun to observe them so up-close.

I've been studying these giant clams for almost 5 years! And I still can think of many experiments and stuff to study about them. I hope that my upcoming works will be published soon and will continue to share about these amazing iconic invertebrates. Who ever says that clams are boring? :)

Mating season on Cyrene

2011-06-20T21:28:00.007+08:00

On the last lap of low tide, Siti's seagrass project was at Cyrene. I decided that I haven't visited Cyrene since last May and to lend her a hand on her setup. It was a good sunny day! (Too hot for my liking)

Everyone was hard at work scrubbing and 'exterminating' barnacles. They can be dangerous to work as we get scratched and cuts while examining the frames, therefore, we need to clear them. Similar to the work on Chek Jawa, maintenance of set ups are important to ensure that other factors do not affect the experiments. Here's a picture of the shading frames - still looking good!

Nor Aishah found this baby Knobbly seastar under one of the shading frames... Did you know that Cyrene is one of the only reefs that is home to hundreds of Knobbly seastars with regular sightings of juvenile seastars? It is rather amazing since Cyrene is located between the high shipping traffic and ports.

I saw many of this Pleurobranchus sp. slugs! We called it Forskal's sidegill slugs... Everyone was amazed at the size of the slug! Imagine what it eats! hmm....

Apparently it's the mating season of the slugs, and many of them were either laying egg ribbons...

Or clustered together - threesome mating?? haha...

Not to forget a few photos of our famous seastar... In the water...

And drying out on the sand while waiting for the tides to turn in... I wonder why they twist their bodies this way. hmm...

That wraps up this week of low tides... :)

Hide & Seek at Terumbu Selegie

2011-06-19T13:21:00.006+08:00

Rise and shine for our maiden voyage to Terumbu Selegie. It is a patch reef off on the eastern side of the islands' cluster... According to Kok Sheng, it's approximately the size of the large lagoon on Sisters' Island!

Because this reef is located near the channel fairway, rapid currents can be observed and any careless mistake could get us swept away from the reefs!
Thanks to Jumari and Alex, we safely landed on the reef just before dawn and here's a view of the nearby beacon on the patch, with the backdrop of Sentosa.

Upon landing, I found this juvenile oreo-cookie nudibranch/polka-dotted nudibranch (Jorunna funebis). A common nudibranch on our shores, they can be found on almost anything... The others on the team spotted several of them.

Today is quite a slug-ful day for me! I spotted this Bohol nudibranch (Discodoris boholiensis) gliding on the sandy beds...

A juvenile Black-margined nudibranch (Glossodoris atromarginatus)...

This is not a nudibranch but an Ornate leaf slug (Elysia ornata)...

The shore comprised mainly a dead coral rubble zone surrounding a sandy beach. Towards the edges of the shores, more live corals can be seen. After a while, everyone started to squat down and looked under the rocks...

In the small pools, many of this shrimps could be seen darting about and taking cover...

Some pools housed these giant carpet anemones housed several five-spot anemone shrimps... One of the anemones even had this special damselfish commensal - Three-spot dascyllus.

An unusual find by Ivan - perhaps a squat lobster?

Kok Sheng was very happy when Ivan found this pretty orange seastar... We shall wait for his ID on this seastar.

I found this seven-armed seastar that had been seen on several other rubble reefs.

Another under-the-rock sighting was this BIG heart urchin... Previously only seen on Pulau Sekudu (Northern shores), this is a new record for Southern shores - Oval maretia heart urchin (Maretia ovata).

With the many holes and crevices, octopus is never too far and indeed I managed to capture one on camera! :) They are such sneaky fellas gliding away immediately or squirting ink! Just before departure, Chay Hoon yelped after being frightened by the octopuses.

Not forgetting the anemones, I only found one type - Phymanthus spp.

There simply are so many variations of the Phymanthus spp. and only a few have been identified. There is still so much to learn and identify on our reefs.

As the low tide week closes in, we can put a tick on Terumbu Selegie in our check list of islands to visit. I can't wait for the next round of visits! :)

A breezy work day at Chek Jawa

2011-06-18T15:12:00.004+08:00

Upon waking up, I sense aches in my back and joints... Not a good sign! When I looked out of my window, there it was - rain! What a way to start the morning! I was feeling rather dreadful about how miserable we may be on Chek Jawa (CJ) cleaning frames. My labmate, Siti has an ongoing monitoring effort on the seagrass beds at CJ and her experimental shading frames!

Alex and I made our way down and by the time we had started work, the rain turned into a light drizzle with a cooling breeze throughout the work. Yay! We made some headway on the cleaning, as well as other monitoring efforts on Siti's part. It was a short tide, hence, by 9am, we headed back to the hut.

On our way back, I saw three Junglefowl running along the coastline, near the rocky shores! How interesting. I wonder what can they find on the sandy flats. It was quite a funny sight as the male fowl had difficulty chasing the two females that were way ahead of him. By the time I whipped out my camera, they had ventured back into the greens. :(

Walking on the boardwalk, a group of students and their teachers were busy admiring three Oriental Pied Hornbills perched on the nearby mangroves. I hurriedly went ahead to see if I could get a shot of them. Despite the poor resolution, I had actually managed to capture two shots of the bird perched on the railing!

Upclose... Beautiful! :)

Cleaning its beak perhaps...

Just as we were busy admiring the birds, there was a sudden large cracking of the tree trunk right behind me! I turned to see a rather large tree fall!!!! :O Strangely, we all were looking at the tree fall and just didn't realised the possible imminent danger. Fortunately, the tree fell within the thickets and we didn't have any casualties. A rather strange de javu feeling to it... hmm... Hopefully, the authorities will have someone to check if the tree has completely fallen or something...

Another hardcore day out in the field for us! :)

It's a 'small small' world! - Punggol

2011-06-17T10:45:00.007+08:00

My quest on the shores brings me back to Punggol. My last trip in mid-January 2011 was filled with various kinds of people - mostly fishers and collectors. This time the shore was rather plain and empty - fewer sponges and almost no Perna viridis on the huge boulders! Have the people been going to Punggol so often to collect almost everything on the shore? :(

Kok Sheng and I explored Punggol, this time, he showed me the seagrass beds! We had a lot of various sightings and here are the special ones... As we know that Dr. Daphne Fautin, the anemone expert is in town to conduct a workshop and fieldtrips, the others are busy with searching for anemones. We too, caught the 'anemone' bug and started to look for them on Punggol.

While poring through the sandy surface, this tiny animal caught my eye. At first glance, I thought it was a crinoid! I hurriedly got Kok Sheng over to verify and he said it wasn't a crinoid, but a tiny feather worm! It was only 1cm across... hee...

Moving on, here are some of the anemones I found. This resembles the striped bead anemones commonly found on most of the northern shores.

Unknown anemone attached to a loose rubble. Spot the amphipods on it! :)

Unknown anemone 2 - white oral disk with bright orange tentacles!

Unknown anemone 3 - Black-lined orange disk anemone. lol... I've seen this one at Sekudu recently! :)

The shore has very little echinoderms... I spotted the purple sea cucumber and the crown seastar. The most common ones are the brittle stars family.

The shore is consisted of mostly rocks and rubbles, hiding a myriad of crustaceans. Some patience and looking under or in the rock holes will have a pair of eyes looking back at you. :)

I found a porcelain crab moving across the surface. I found this one particularly pretty because of the reddish-blue colours on the mouth parts. Usually, they are found underneath rocks.

An uncommon shrimp on the shores, this is a cleaner shrimp (Lysmata sp.).

These banded hermit crabs are believed to be really rare! I found two variations of these hermit crabs today. The first one with blue-yellow features on the face, and the pinkish-spotted one (below).

Now I think about it, these are the only two hermit crabs I found today! :)

Kok Sheng was laughing how I used to catch these thunder crabs for my experiments. These crabs are littered upon the shores, easily accessible in their shallow hole burrows, unlike those found at Changi. It was definitely an experience of catching these strong crabs. Previously known to be distributed only at the Northern shores, ongoing surveys show that they can be found on the Southern shores. A formidable predator!

Slugs were few but we found two special ones... The first was this beaded nudibranch (Hoplodoris nodulosa). An uncommon nudibranch species, they have been sighted mostly on the Northern shores.

Kok Sheng finally pointed out this Volvatella slug (Volvatella sp.). A unique slug that has a thin external shell protecting its soft body. They can be found associated with this seaweed, Caulerpa sp.

The shore was also full of stranded three-spined toadfishes, croaking non-stop throughout the morning. Also, surprisingly, we found FOUR estuarine seahorses (Hippocampus kuda). To differentiate between the tiger-tailed seahorses, one distinct feature would be the striped tail, while H. kuda does not have stripes on the tail.

One of them has a hitch-hiker, a shrimp on the face!

Tides turn quickly and it's time to say goodbye to the shores... :)

Peace and Quiet... Too quiet at Hantu! :(

2011-05-22T18:25:00.009+08:00

My first Hantu Blogger dive of the year! I missed the first four months of fun and excitement! :( I'm into the final 3 months of my Masters programme and had been working on my project. Just last Friday, I had to give a presentation and thankfully it went well! :)

Also, something that I had meant to do was to fix these macro lens onto my housing... After surfing the net and pondering on the design, this is the outcome! Yes, though it may not look fantastic, but it was innovative! It's the first time I'm bringing it down for a use and here's some of the results and sightings on Hantu.

On the way to Hantu, Debby spotted a huge green turtle surfacing for air! Could it be Betsy, aka the turtle I saw last month? I wonder... On the whole, the dives were not too bad but everyone agreed that the reefs were eerily quiet... Dive guides Cindy and Pei Min saw the Fingered dragonet that I had last first seen on the same reefs! This is exciting because that means 1) there is a population of these dragonets and 2) our reefs are ever surprising us with new fauna... I went down to look for the dragonet but to no avail. Alas, probably next time then...

Today I didn't see many active animals, and noticed a large number of crinoids hiding in the holes on the ground. Whip animals were few and sparse. It appears that a portion of the reefs was damaged as well. hmm... Hopefully it is not dredging or anchor damages. With my buddy, Chay Hoon, she spotted this TINY icon seastar. OMG...

Pretty pink basket stars were common on many of the red/pink seafans...

I started trailing some filefish and taking portrait shots of them... Cute eh?

Just before the end of my first dive, I spotted the blue-spotted fantail ray hiding beneath the pilings... This is my first time being so close to it! Most of the time, I would avoid it like a plague as I do not want to get stung by it...

The saw-toothed shrimps could still be found on the black coral whips... Very big ones too (~7cm long)!

Cave coral (Tubastrea sp.) tentacles

Chay Hoon explained that during this time of the year, slugs and nudibranchs are few and sparse. We did not see as many slugs as we would like to but here are a few: Elysia sap sucking slug...

Special unknown Doto sp.

Translucent Gymnodoris sp.

I had fun with my camera today! Although visibility was rather poor (2-3m), at least some animals came out to greet us on this hot Sunday... With the macro lens, I can see much more details on the animal now! :D

Till the next dive... (One week... :P)

Super low tide at Changi!

2011-05-21T17:04:00.010+08:00

Yes, as many of you have heard or know, I was slated to have a pre-thesis presentation on the same morning of Changi trip. But hey! It was in the afternoon, but it was too good to miss a super low tide on one of my favourite shores! :)

Beautiful sunrise at 6am... :)

The entire trip was just dominated by snails due to its sandy substrate... And the most special snail for me would be this Cassidae snail... This is the Japanese Bonnet Snail.

Looking so pretty and cute, it is in fact a ferocious predator feeding on mostly echinoderms...

Without our slug expert, we only managed one nudibranch that James found burrowing itself in the sand... The Armina nudibranch, a more special individual here has 'bushy'-like mouth unlike the usual counterparts.

Fishy encounters include this common Schaaps dragonet on Changi beach... With its rather flathead, it was easy to mistaken them.

Alas, we did not see any seahorses, even though the team saw many of them just the day before on a different location. The only Syngnathidae was this green pipefish hiding amongst the Ulva seaweed.

Newborn Mangrove whip rays were swimming about! They are just so adorable when small... When big, they can be a terror when stung by their hidden barbs. Ivan and I counted up to 5 of them in the shallow pool! Swimming and settling around our feet... Looks like we have new rays to terrorise us sooner than expected!

Star-studded was definitely a phrase to describe Changi... Small pink-spined urchins...

Knobbly babies came out to play! Kok Sheng spotted a reddish brown one...

Ivan spotted this tiny green one!

The black urchins seem to be back on the shores... According to Kok Sheng, these voracious urchins feed on the invasive zebra mussels.

Looking similar to the black urchins, the white Salmacis urchins are fashion 'disasters'! haha... Looking at the kind of materials they used to decorate themselves, we sure think they look like flotsam...

Pink sand dollars seem to be really common now! In fact, the gray sand dollars seem to have dwindled in numbers... Wonder what these pink ones eat...

Thorny sea cucumbers are still doing well on the shores...

The only orange spiny seastar...

Healthy flowery sea pens....

An uprooted spiny sea pens with their painted porcelain crab commensals... :) A proud mama below!

I didn't see much anemones except this Peachia sp.?

Glass anemone??

Crustaceans included this green shrimp...

Moon crab...

Anemone shrimp... Both the female and male...

Sadly I did not get my chance to see the spotted box crab. However, just after I left, the team found one on the upper shore! >:(

Just my luck! But it seems like there is a population of them on the beach since carapace and broken arms could be found...

Sadly there isn't many low tides left for the year to explore the Northern shores properly. I hope to go back soon! :)

Housing issues at Beting Bronok...

2011-05-21T16:15:00.011+08:00

Just two weeks ago, our Singapore General elections ended with a blast - opposition parties winning 6 seats! Astonishing results in hope to see more changes in the country... On many of the Singaporeans' minds, housing has been a long-standing issue - too expensive, unaffordable, too small, and many other problems...

It appears to me that our marine fauna are much more resourceful and content with their simple houses... A trip to Beting Bronok allows me to have a closer look at their homes... This painted porcelain crab (Porcellanella picta) found refuge in the spiky sea pen. Having almost the same body colour to its home, it provides additional protection to these porcelain crabs, and uniquely, the disruptive patterns on the frontal body camouflages it to the spiky sea pen...

A baby picta...

Other shelters include the ball soft corals that houses the false cowries, brittle seastar, and this snapping shrimp here... Clearly if you did not look close enough, you would not have noticed the presence of another within the coral..

Sponges are a common sight on BB... With their vibrant colours and highly complex labyrinth spicules, each sponge is unique in providing shelters to some of these small fauna... Within the sponges, you can see many of the porcelain crabs! In the central area of this sponge lies a stone crab that was difficult to photograph. I wonder how did it squeeze itself into the sponge without breaking it? Where is the 'door'?

Hydroids - the bane of shore trips! Stinging and painful, we avoid them like plague... Upon closer look, you will see why it makes a good home for many of the following animals... Frail and skinny skeleton shrimps sitting on the hydroids...

Others like the nudibranch LOVE hydroids, they feed on them... So when you see hydroids, you are bound to see a nudibranch! :)

Others like this bryopsis slug lives in the bryopsis algae... It seems like this poor fella here is lost, and no bryopsis were seen on BB...

Well, some other animals have the extra energy to spare, thus making their own homes! These big snails such as the bailer shell (Melo melo) and cowries have beautiful shells.

A seemingly new cowrie has appeared on BB with its identity unknown... Almost resembling the Onyx cowrie, we almost missed it as being different...

Later towards the end of the trip, Kok Sheng also found another one - older individual...

Check out my other fellow bloggers on their sightings and find out more how these smart animals make their homes. :)

Wildshores: http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2011/05/beting-bronok-is-alive.html
God's Wonderful Creations: http://wondercreation.blogspot.com/2011/05/pretty-creatures-of-beting-bronok.html
Colourful Clouds: http://colorclouds.blogspot.com/2011/05/nudibranch-galore-beting-bronok.html
Singapore's Nature: http://sgn090608.blogspot.com/2011/05/110520-beting-bronok.html

Photos:
Russel - http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.185549691496431.60496.109257872458947
Mei Lin - http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150192562639452.321814.565034451

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

2011-04-26T19:20:00.006+08:00

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

Frog Island - Sekudu

2011-04-26T09:33:00.008+08:00

Oh my! I haven't been blogging for such a long time! My apologies... I have been doing a lot more fieldwork than documentation trips. So here I am, back with a series of stuff that went on over the Easter weekend! :)

My first trip just before Good Friday was to Pulau Sekudu... From the boardwalk on Chek Jawa, Ubin, you can clearly spot the cluster of rocks on this island. A small team of us went on the expedition to check out the state of the reefs, and also part of the Project Driftnet - to remove and document the abandoned net gear.

Upon landing, I found snails moving around the sand bar... There's the tiger moon snail below..

Cowries were happily stuck onto loose shells such as this one below.

It's probably the baby marine animals season again! I saw many baby crabs such as this one here. Although I cannot be sure if this is a fully grown one!

Lots of swimming anemones - big and small...

Unknown anemone one - wriggling to hide...

Unknown anemone 2 - it is about 1cm across...

Echinoderm galore! The painted seastar...

Common plain sand star...

Rock star...

Spiny sea star...

Biscuit seastar...

Baby white urchins...

Baby pencil urchins...

Baby black-spined urchins...

BIG Knobbly seastar!! I was quite excited to see one, and alas, it was the only one... :(

Baby pink sand dollar!! How cute... :)

Stranded geographic sea hare. This animal is very sensitive to touch and disturbances, usually squirting purple ink. So don't do that because it is not good for the animals' health to keep on inking... Leave it as it was. :)

Nudibranch time! I spotted three types myself! :D First it's this common one amongst seagrass - Tiny black Gymnodoris sp.

A pair of Chromodoris nudibranch... I'm not sure of the names..

Two different nudibranchs here! :) Bottom: Chromodoris sp. Top: Gymnodoris sp.

Yellow cuskeel! Not a true eel, but it sure does look like one! :)

Spaghetti eel

A great day out for photographs as the waters were so calm! Look out for my next post on coral spawning! :D

Blow wind blow.... Big Sisters

2011-01-24T22:20:00.009+08:00

A cool evening to Big Sister's Island... Last night's tides were not too low, so the group of us explored around the shallow lagoon... It was particularly windy! The rippling surface of the waters made it difficult for me to venture any further... I saw quite a lot of critters despite the rippling waters and slity waters - three-spined toadfish, flower crab, red egg crab, a lot of red ribbon worms, brittle stars and fishes!

The best find for me would be this creature here... What is it that has eye spots??

It's actually a flatworm! Ria also seen this flatworm before and gave it the name: Slit flatworm. It is just so different from the usual flatworms and I'm not too certain if it is a different order of worms...

Anyhow, the Acanthozoan sp. flatworm was spotted by myself and Russel... We couldn't decide if this was two or one individual. haha...

Not many special snails were seen except for the pink moon snail (below) and wandering cowries...

The only interesting coral I found would be this juvenile mushroom coral! Ria also took a photograph of the same individual! :D

Besides the sessile animals... I also saw some fast-moving animals such as these burrow-dwelling fishes... Here is a beautiful goby - Slender-lined shrimp goby (Cryptocentrus leptocephalus) sitting quietly outside its burrow.

False scorpionfish!

Transparent shrimp...

Juvenile false clownfish with its fellow shrimp companions...

Head-stripe goby (Amblygobius stethophthalamus)

Tides came too fast while we are finding more animals! Kok Sheng found the Moon-headed side gill slug! Awesome!

By the end of the trip, all of us were starving like this Sally-lightfoot crab eating on a polychaete... Yikes! :P

Chasing the next tide soon. :)

A Myriad of People on Shore...

2011-01-22T23:08:00.009+08:00

After Kok Sheng and James made some headway with exploration at Punggol, I decided to drop by the shore myself... With the objectives to find some black collector's urchins and seagrass, I made my way down to the place... To my bewilderment, there were many people carrying bags and buckets!

Oh no, don't be mistaken that they are doing corrective work order or beach cleanup, they are indeed 'cleaning up the beach' of its inhabitants. From the picture above, you may be able to see them holding metal poles and scrapers with huge bags...

Inside their bags, held numerous numbers of this animal, Perna viridis (Green mussels) that are commonly sold in wet markets.

They were families and foreign workers that happily digging and collecting, while I went around checking the kind of damages. Here shows a clean shaved patched of green mussels... In the process of scrapping, they also affect the surrounding organisms such as barnacles, and grazers such as the poor onchs covered with sand!

Green mussels adhere themselves strongly onto the substrates through their own byssal threads and the multitude of byssal threads create a strong holdfast for the aggregate of them. Unfortunately, most of them are probably forcefully removed and those that remain after this ordeal may die if not collected. Some remnants of broken shells and gills.

Another victim of collection - the plain rock oysters and a numerous number of white plates could be observed on the shoreline... And then! I found one person harvesting and observed how it was done...

Equipped with a hammer and chisel, she first knocks it off the rocks. This is followed by chiseling the oyster open and collect the flesh inside... As a result....

This is what is left of the oyster. :(

Fishing is a common sight and I spotted a boat putting out fish traps... I wonder if during lower tides, could we find more abandoned traps... I observed further down the shore that such fish traps could catch swimming crabs and a number of filefishes!

A huge quantity of thrash swept onto the shoreline... Should be a good place for a mini clean up...

Abandoned fish trap...! But no trapped animals were seen inside - Phew...

Despite the numerous number of people collecting animals (and I even met a collector who captures these poor animals home to rear!), the shore is teeming with an unusual set of animals... Although located somewhat in the north-east of Singapore, this shore is undoubtedly different from those in Changi and Tanah Merah.

A variety of sponges could be found! On the many rocks, scattering climber crabs were making their way into the crevices, while the thunder crabs wedged themselves into the rocks...

This is probably ascidians...

Candy cane hydroids?? They look stubby...

Onchs grazing the algae! Look closely and you will be able to spot mini green mussels flourishing!

I only saw one nerite... Gasp! (Collected??)

Limpet lazing...

Later in the evening, a hoofshield limpet (Scutus sp.)

Despite looking high and low for them, I only saw one black urchin... :(

The shore is filled with bottlebrush brittlestars!

and a rock star.

Lots of Anthozoa types...

Encrusting snails as suggested by Kok Sheng...

This is interesting as this worm has long feeding tentacles that is now out of water and splayed right in front of its mouth parts... Can you see it?? I think this may be the body of a type of burrowing worm??

Bristle worm...

Best find - the tiny chiton!

The tides came in too fast and I hope to go back soon to check out more of its inhabitants...

Sweltering hot at Chek Jawa...

2011-01-02T21:25:00.006+08:00

It was exactly 2 years ago when I started out as a Team Seagrass member where I had my first monitoring trip at Chek Jawa in January 2009! Our first seagrass monitoring falls on the second day of 2011! 17 of us headed out in the hot afternoon to Pulau Ubin, to conduct our first seagrass monitoring at Chek Jawa.

What's so special about Chek Jawa? It has been laundered to consist of 7 different ecosystems within a small area of land. In December 2001, reclamation at Chek Jawa was deferred due to the overwhelming response from the public to preserve this area. Today, Chek Jawa is still a popular reef walk site for many of the members of the public. Public walks are still regularly conducted by the Naked Hermit Crabs and NParks.

Team Seagrass Scientific Officer - Siti!

Team Seagrass is a non-profit organisation that runs monitoring surveys through a base of volunteers. Volunteers are not only trained to identify the different species of seagrass, they contribute their effort by helping in the overall monitoring of this important ecosystem. Singapore contributes to the international organisation, Internation Seagrass Watch. Data helps the scientists keep track of seagrass health, and the organisms that interact with the ecosystem.

Volunteers laying transect lines prior to monitoring

Today, I had the privilege to observe the monitoring and also did some monitoring on the overall sites. The regulars noted the increase in patch area with 'bleached' grass blades. According to Siti and Ria, they believed that these grass are losing chlorophyll pigments and this could be due to the lack of sunlight.

Bleaching Cymodocea rotundata

Healthy Cymodocea rotundata

Bleaching spoon seagrass (Halophila ovalis)

I did not managed to find the new patch of Halophila beccarii this time, while the older patch could still be found near the jetty. We all noted that the sand bars on CJ is growing bigger with time, and we wonder why that is happening... Hmm...

It was a really hot day! It was no surprise that members of the team could not see much animal activity around.. Andy made an observation of returning carpet anemones! That is a good sign of recovery since the last mass mortality in 2007.

Wei Ling pointed out this small horseshoe crab baby. It's still too young to identify which type of horseshoe crab!

Underside of horseshoe crab

Gastropods of the day include this uncommon black-lipped conch (Strombus urceus)...

Concentric eye spots of Strombidae

Noble volutes procreating...

A large ball moon snail individual...

A recently eaten razor clam with the remains of its uneaten foot...

Juvenile filefish individual trying to hide in crevices...

Echinoderms were just the usual common sand dollars, and this pretty spiny cake star...

As well as this bottlebrush brittlestar...

I also noticed a huge influx of shore birds, including this particular species shown in the photo... As I approached the flock, one of them noticed my close presence and made an alarm call to alert the others, and every one of them flew away...

In flight...

Mystery Animals Solved!

2010-12-28T20:24:00.003+08:00

After consulting the experts, we have names for these creatures now! :)

Thank you very much Hoong Wei, for taking time out of his family holiday (oops!) to look at this pretty allied cowrie... This is his reply and some notes on this special animal:

"I believe the ovulid is Phenacovolva nectarea (Iredale, 1930). Some authors consider this to be synonymous with Phenacovolva rosea (Adams), but in my report (currently submitted for review), I followed Lorenz & Fehse (2009) and consider them to be different species. They are very variable in colours, and yours is peculiarly pale. However, you will notice that it has the usual yellow papillae and dark spotting, and the foot at the rear is colourfully stripped, just like the red shells."

Double-checking with my other photos of its foot, indeed, the rear foot has red horizontal bands! :D And like Hoong Wei says, the taxonomic status of this snail will be published soon!

He has also kindly ID-ed this massive snail that has not been seen often in the local waters - Chicoreus ramosus.

Don't belittle this snail as it is a highly efficient predator that feeds on bottom dwelling bivalves and gastropods. Unfortunately, Hoong Wei also added that this snail often gets trapped in fishing nets.

Finally, this feisty looking little fish is.... Orange and Black Dragonet Synchiropus kuiteri. Thank you Pei Min for the ID!
Debby has also blogged and described this little fishy on the Hantu Blog - check it out to see what is known about this fish in our local reefs. There seem to have been a taxonomic disparity as the name Dactylopus kuiteri is the old name, and I couldn't find much about it off the net besides the relationship it shares with the infamous colourful Mandarin Fishes.

I can't wait to discover even more wonderful animals in Singapore! :)

Mei Lin, the explorer's last dives of 2010

2010-12-26T19:09:00.009+08:00

Instead of spending this Boxing day at home looking at my thesis and papers, I joined Pei Min and Cindy out at Semakau-Hantu! Sadly, Cindy couldn't make it though she had organized the trip. :( Nevertheless, it was a great company of people who love diving and food! Yes, the boat was jammed pack with food (from Christmas leftovers to junk food like chips!) I enjoyed their company a lot, and I was completely enthralled by some of the animals that I have seen today with some surprises!

Dive 1: Semakau
It's been almost a year since I had last dived at Semakau. If you have heard of Semakau Landfill, it's the same site that we are talking about. Upon descent, my fellow buddies got pricked by the resident algae-feeders, Black-spined sea urchins. Alamak... As we explored around, I spotted a few pretty sea whips and guess what one of them had?

This beautiful and HUGE allied cowrie! Oh my! It was 3cm long and instead of the usual pink-spotted, this one has black spots with yellow appendages! I will have to check with Hoong Wei of the ID.

Some nudibranchs such as the Phyllids were out and hanging about...

Others like this Flabellina sp. bends itself into unusual shapes... haha

I spotted one sap-sucking slug (Thuridilla gracilis) out and about bobbing its head on the substrate. I caught the feeding behaviour on video. hehe...

Cushion stars are not very common but in Semakau, you can usually spot several of them just like this one below.

Several whip gobies could also be seen on the sea whips, darting about as we shine our torches on them...

Finally, I was able to spot some pipefish! haha.... This one here is the Ocellated pipefish that is common around Semakau waters.

In the shallow reef zone, large anemones were attached on top of coral rubble, with its residing False Clown Anemonefish.

Dive 2: Hantu
After a hearty lunch (with little pastries, sandwiches and orange juice from every one on board) and a short lazing around on the boat, we hopped into the water for another dive at my favourite place, Hantu!

After Chay Hoon's post on the Tubularian hydroid, I spotted some today. Really pretty!

It is a common sight for baby featherstars to hold onto sea fans and whips, but an orange coloured featherstar is a first for me!

More whip creatures could be seen today such as the shrimps - white and reddish-orange (below).

Another resident allied cowrie that resembles the host whip...

I spotted this HUGE snail on my last trip, and today, I saw a total of 3 of them! They resemble a type of Murex shell... I'm not too certain what is the exact name. This snails were at least 20cm long and 15 cm high! Don't be deceived by its white shell (which is usually a trait of dead shells), these snails are very much alive.

Strangely, upon arrival, I spotted this snail shell taken out of water and placed under a shelf on the pontoon. At first I thought it was plain weird to have a shell there and it was a really mean thing for that diver to pick it out of the water. Later after we finished the dives, I realised that the poor snail was still alive sticking its foot out! Worse, it had a bubble gum stuck to the foot! So angry! It was still very much alive though it has a blue gum on it... I decided to drop it back into the water of depth 5 m onto the sandy part. I hope that it will be able to get the blue gum out.

This is such a terrible thing to do and whoever the diver was, should be punished (*curse, swear and kick)!

Moving onto the remaining animals (yes, you have not reached the best find of the day). I spotted only one nudibranch egg curl unlike Chay Hoon who found nudibranch laying eggs on her last trip!

Though there were no nudibranch within the vicinity, I spotted others such as this Cuthona sibogae...

Janolus sp. found by Pei Min's friend, Agnes! Whee!

AND Glossodoris cincta!!!!!!!!! :D

Haha... After all these excitement, there's even more! Flatworms...

Fishes such as this semi-juvenile batfish who was staying so still that every diver around me failed to notice him/her... lol... A portrait shot of the fish. I also saw a 6-banded angelfish zoom past me...

Ji-kok ji-kok - Tiger-tailed seahorse!

Winged-pipefish... Cutes!

This black pipefish whose name is forgotten... :P

Dum dum dum!!!! Before my 5 mins decom stop, I spotted this funny 'nudi'... Later then I realised that it is a FISH!!! What kind of fish looks this cool! It has the best head gear, and prettiest colours on the body...

Check out the back view of the body! Electric blue!! :D

So I pretty much spent 20 bar worth of air keeping underwater and photographing this little critter up, left and right... Can't do down. :P It wasn't shy at all... (which is good since I'm only good at still shots). hehe... I don't know its name. Pei Min probably seen it before, and she's gonna find out! :)

Yay, Mei Lin the Explorer signs out and see you next year with more critter reports!