Rain, lightning and rainbow at Pasir Ris

A gang of six shore explorers approached Pasir Ris shore today with the dark clouds looming over the sky.


The clouds were so dark and in such a formation that some of us speculated that a water sprout is about to form but it did not eventually.

We were quite diehard and ignored the warnings from the sky and went ahead to explore the shore.


Samuel was first to sight this Black sea urchin (Temnopleurus toreumaticus) which he almost sat on when he was squatting on the shore.


The mouth of this urchin is on the centre of its underside and it has an interesting name: an aristotle lantern. Read here to find out why it is called an aristotle lantern.


Henrietta found this blob-animal that looks alien to me at least. It wasn't moving and it probably was dead.


The underside reveals it to be some kind of slug or seahare?


After a short while of exploring and finding this Thumbs-up sea squirt (probably Polycarpa sp.), the heavens poured like nobody's business and we ran into a shelter hut. It was more than a hour wait at the hut while the thunders roared and lightnings flashed. We were so bored that we looked around for critters. Caterpillars, flies and other insects were sighted to our amazement!

A storm during a low tide could spell disaster as many animals exposed on the shore cannot tolerate the freshwater from the rain.


After the storm, we went out to the shore and found many sand stars (Astropecten sp.) turned white and dying.


I don't know to be happy or sad to find this huge adult cake sea star (Anthenea aspera). Happy because it is so big and it has been some time I've found a huge cake sea star at Pasir Ris. The gang was really super excited over the find as well. Sad as it looks discolourised too, a sign of stress.

We later put the star into deeper waters, hoping it will recover.

Nevertheless, all is a natural process. Rain is unavoidable during low tides.


Before we start whining that why is there a rain that stopped us from exploring the shore and that the freshwater killed some animals, there was this spectacular and breathtaking rainbow to behold!

It stretches from Pulau Ubin to Pasir Ris, mainland Singapore. We later found out there was a DOUBLE rainbow. Can you see the second rainbow above the more prominent one? It is more faint. Wow, such is the beauty of nature created by God.

Juanhui posted her sight of the double rainbow on her way home and she gave a great explanation of rainbows and the rarer double rainbow.

Today's rainbow sighting was really simply the best rainbow I've seen in my life! Glad to be able to witness with many friends. :-)