Tioman intertidal

I was at Pulau Tioman, Malaysia for a week long as part of my field studies in biodiversity module. My project is on the intertidal so I had many opportunities to work and study the marine animals there when the tide goes low.


Near the edge towards the sea on a very low tide, one can find dense patches of Acropora or table top corals and also other types of corals on the shore. Otherwise, you need to snorkel to see them.

Below are some creatures seen during some of our sessions.


Huge sea hares


Nudibranchs


Flatworms


Damselfish


Gigantea carpet anemone.


Burrowing giant clams.


Living scallop.


Spider conch.


My first time seeing a live cone snail!


This is a red eyed reef crab.


Mantis shrimps are quite abundant on the shores.


We saw an octopus...


but when one of our teaching assistant, Son, tried to catch it, it decided to spurt ink.


And that's the result of trying to outwit the clever octopus. :-)


There are also many scorpion fishes in the tidal pools.


Allen found this Diadema sea urchin which you will see tons during snorkelling at the subtidal area.


There are many of this orange with white spots cucumber. The species is Holothuria hilla.


Towards the right side of the shore, there are many cryptic stars!!


Of course, a few of us also encountered juvenile cushion stars.


Some surprises include this dog faced water snake.


And this beautiful moray eel!


This is our team at work. We have wonderful TAs, Ngan Kee and Son. We learnt a lot about crabs from Ngan Kee :-)


Will continue to keep the memories of the marine life of Tioman in my mind for a long time. Wonder when or will I ever return to this island again.