Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Soft shore of anemones


Early in the morning, we were at Changi with Dr Daphne Fautin, the sea anemone expert. And indeed we learnt so much from her about the anemones we can find on our local shores.


Just seconds after we hit down the shore, Dr Daphne already caught attention on these little guys. They are called Diadumene luciae but it sounds like "die-doom-to-me". Hahaha. They are very common in our shores, even to the high shores zone. They can also be called as Halipanella meaning "world traveller" because they travel to many parts of the world in ballast water. Another name of this anemone is Diadumene lineata.

Don't think these anemones are nobodys! There's a lot more of stories behind them as Ria shares them in wildfilms blog.


This anemone is called Anthopleura handi. Dr Daphne share that this was named after her professor.


Some of these Anthopleura handi anemones can even be found up high on rock crevices.


More anemones were spotted... It looks like a swimming anemone to me.


And wow, didn't know there are anemones living on seagrasses blades. Siti's territory! It's so small that we will not find out ourselves.


This is crudely called the tiger or the strawberry anemone with bumps on the outside. Surprisingly, these "innocent" anemones have long tails in the substrate and they escape real quick when danger arrives.


And they give a good sprinkling job if you really need a wash. Just kidding.


And we finally get the baby carpet anemones debunked. These are not the babies of Stichodactyla haddoni or the carpet anemones we find in Chek Jawa! It is a different species itself and never grows much larger than this. This is actually Stichodactyla tapetum. It has tentacles grouped together into patterns as seen in their neat arrangement.


This is then the baby of the Stichodactyla haddoni. Sorry you cant see it here but the tentacles are evenly spread out. But they can be distinguished with long-short tentacles at the side of these anemone fringes.


Changi has a lot of these sea cucumbers.


Crabs and sandstars...


Squid, hairy seahare, geographical sea hare and a mantis shrimp.


Alvin found a horseshoe crab beside a swimming anemone.


And also this slug underneath a rock. Any idea what is the id??

Update: Chay Hoon suggested its Dendrodoris fumata. Thanks


Last but not the least, Martyn showed us his find of this toadfish.

What a wonderful morning in Changi as we learn so much more about anemones and see other stuffs in the shores.

4 comments:

CH / SONNENBLUME said...

Hi Kok Sheng,

the nudi looks like a Dendrodoris fumata. :o)

Kok Sheng said...

Thanks Chay Hoon!

TS said...

wow...so many new discoveries just in a week!

Kok Sheng said...

welcome back SY!

Can't wait to hear from you in ur blog about ur tioman adventures

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...