God's wonderful creation

Happy CNY from Pulau Hantu!

2012-01-24T10:27:00.001+08:00

Hi folks, it's been a while since my last post and I'm finally out of the hiatus. Here's wishing you a blessed Chinese New Year 2012! As usual, CNY coincides with low spring tide as the festive dates are determined by lunar calendar and that it is the moon and sun that determines the tides.

We visited Pulau Hantu after more than half a year and Chay Hoon found this "auspicious looking" commensal shrimp on the small bright red feather star. How apt it is for Chinese New Year! And furthermore, we have not seen this shrimp before!

And we found many more creatures in CNY-related colours like this unknown bright orange sea cucumber. I first found it on the blade of tape seagrass and initially thought it was a slug! We suspect this fellow to be the red sea cucumber (Actinopyga sp.) that we have sighted before at Semakau and Cyrene.

This sea cucumner has fluffy yellow feeding tentacles and is quite active.

For some reasons, there were many of these orange spotted Gymnodoris nudibranchs (Gymnodoris rubropapulosa). Maybe they are in season and just in time to appear during the festive period!

Here is shot of another of the same nudibranch taken underwater with my UW camera.

Chay Hoon found yet another special find! This is the Alicia sea anemone (Alicia sp.) that we seldom find on our shores. Though its name sounds pleasant and feminine, this sea anemone gives a super nasty sting if you touch it!

Initially found almost completely buried, this lovely heart urchin (Lovenia elongata) was quite a surprise find. It is probably the first record for Hantu!

Though the sargassum season is in full bloom, there is a stretch of reef in deep waters that could still be explored. There's lots of colourful Anemone corals (Goniopora sp.)!

The coral colonies here are large and thick! Here is a huge colony of plate-like coral with the Galaxy corals (Galaxea sp.).

There are also many large colonies of Lettuce coral (Pavona sp.)!

Here is a photo collage of the various hard corals that I've seen at the reef edge. Indeed I got my coral fix here at Hantu!

It is at Hantu where we can find a sea of Galaxy corals (Galaxea sp.) stretching across a large expanse of the reef!

Among the large area covered by the Galaxy corals, one can sometimes find other species of corals as well such as the Carnation corals (Pectinia sp.) and Tongue mushroom corals (Herpolitha sp.).

I also stumbled across this Fluted giant clam (Tridacna squamosa) which I believe is part of Mei Lin's giant clam project.

While it is definitely a relief to know that the resident Burrowing Giant Clam (Tridacna crocea) is still doing well. I couldn't find it during our previous trip here.

This large Magnificent anemone (Heteractis magnifica) opens up like a skirt! Looks like a good design?

I have not seen this flatworm for a while already. We nicknamed this as the Phlegm flatworm as it indeed looks like the phlegm that we ah-choo out after a sneeze.... :P

I'm always not very good at shooting fishes. This is probably my first time taking into notice this school of Orbicular cardinalfish (Sphaeramia orbicularis).

More sea slugs! There are three of these Black phyllid nudibranch (Phyllidiella nigra) found together.

And on the blade of tape seagrass is this Lined chromodoris nudibranch (Chromodoris lineolata).

Ending off the CNY post with a few more orangey-looking creatures, this is the Noble volute (Cymbiola nobilis).

And here's a big fat Stonefish sea cucumber (Actinopyga lecanora) wishing you a big fat and prosperous new year ahead!

Looking forward to our second trip out to southern shores later! We are going to Sisters Island. Thank God that there was no downpour and thunder yesterday. Hopefully the weather will hold for later as well!

Tanah Merah: Hanging on and going strong

2011-12-13T12:52:00.001+08:00

Marine life at our Tanah Merah shore is indeed resilient and they are slowly but surely recovering from the massive oil spill that happened last year during May.

It was definitely a surprise for us to see this colourful nudibranch that I've only seen at our northern shores.

This Hypselodoris nudibranch (Hypselodoris sp.) with colourful and bright spots is probably Hypselodoris infucata. James originally found it underneath a rock!

Another type of nudibranch found will be this pretty Denison's nudibranch (Dendrodoris denisoni).

Unfortunately, we also came across two other of the same species of nudibranch that looked diseased.

Here is a closer look at the weird looking version of the Denison's slug with parts of its body disintegrated into white body. I hope this is not a negative response to the oil slick that remains on the shore.

Another slug that we saw will be the Bohol nudibranch (Discodoris boholiensis) found by Ria.

Used to be very common on Tanah Merah, we have not seen the Persian carpet flatworm (Pseudobiceros bedfordi) since the oil spill. Am definitely glad to find it again after its absence!

It is a good sign to see many Haddon's carpet anemones (Stichodactyla haddoni). Some of the smaller ones could be Tiny carpet anemones (Stichodactyla tapetum) instead.

I found two Haddon's carpet anemones, each with a pair of pretty Five-spot anemone shrimps (Periclimenes brevicarpalis)!

This is the other anemone with shrimps.

Despite seeing these shrimps numerous times on our shores, I never fail to be amazed at the beauty of these creatures.

Have you ever wondered if these shrimps will eat the anemone? Anemone shrimps do not appear to eat the host anemone or off the anemone's fluids. Instead, they are believed to shelter in the anemone for protection and may feed on left overs.

Yes, the anemones do feed by stinging their prey with their tentacles. I managed to spot this anemone in the process of swallowing a tiny crab!

It is definitely good news to see many more Spoon seagrass (Halophila ovalis) on the shore as compared to our previous trips!

Among the rocky parts of the shore, there were lots of molluscs comprising of snails and clams! Here is an assortment of what I saw yesterday.

A snail that intrigued me will be this what looks like a tiny version of a cowrie.

This is the first time I took more time to observe a tiny cowrie. After reading up a bit, I realized that a young cowrie has a short pointed spire on the end of its shell which will eventually be lost as it grows bigger. The spire is not obvious in the photo though.

Flipping rocks allow us to find more organisms that are sheltered from stress such as dessication and I found a group of tiny clams which I do not know of its identity.

More stuffs found underneath rocks include lots of Onch slugs (Family Onchididae).

I almost missed seeing this octopus until it exhaled water from its siphon. It was so well hidden inside a tiny crevice among the rocks!

The Garlic bread sea cucumbers (Holothuria scabra) used to be quite common on this stretch of the shore. I only came across one yesterday.

Hanging on and still surviving on the oil slicked shores of Tanah Merah will be the Common sea stars (Archaster typicus). Though the number of these sea stars have since dropped since the oil spill, they seem to be surviving and coming back slowly.

Sometimes, one can find them in weird number of arms, such as the four and six armed versions.

It was nice to once again see this well camouflaged Spider crab (Micippa philyra) that was last sighted at Semakau. I found two of them!

This spider crab has pretty green claws when seen from its underside.

James found this Spotted black hermit crab (Clibanarius cruentatus) among the bigger rocks and it is extremely shy and sensitive to light!

Usually we will find lots of fishes at Tanah Merah when it is dark. Since the low tide was before sunset, we did not find many of them during this trip. Nevertheless, we were treated to a sighting of the handsome Brown-spotted moray (Gymnothorax reevesii).

It is almost a ritual that we will sort of find at least one Hollow-cheeked stonefish (Synanceia horrida) every now and then when we visit Tanah Merah. Thank God none of us stepped on this guy.

We ended the trip just on time before the drizzle arrived. Hope this shore will continue to recover and regain its beauty!

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/12/12/

Great day out at Chek Jawa boardwalk

2011-12-13T11:42:00.003+08:00

It's our monthly Naked Hermit Crabs guided walk again and this time in December we had lots of people joining us to explore Chek Jawa boardwalk!

Such a joy to see so many people on a fantastic Saturday morning with great weather. We had 80+ participants that day! Joining us are also 4 of my student councillors from Dunman High School!

Before we even started our walk, the wild boars made an appearance! Apparently, the mummy boar and the baby boar wanted to cross the path but it was surrounded by lots of curious individuals.

Of course our mama crab, Ley Kun knew what was going on and told everyone to give way. Without any hesitation, the wild boars crossed the path as soon as the passageway was cleared!

While taking photos of the cute wild boars, I manage to capture this shot of the baby wild boar looking at me! How cute! And I didn't know they have blue eyes.

Soon, we proceeded with our walk. I was guiding a group of families related to each other and they were of great fun to be with throughout the morning at the boardwalk. When I introduced myself as KS, I realized that there are 3 KS's in this group! hahaha.

As they had earlier went up the Jejawi Tower, we didn't go up together and thus also had forgotten to take a group photo of them. :P

While exploring the mangroves during high tide, we came across several nerites clinging onto the roots.

We also encountered this sighting of many more snails found just above the water surface!

The dead mangrove tree in the middle of the water is almost one of the icons of Chek Jawa.

On the way back to House no. 1, my visitors pointed out to me the scarily large number of Cotton stainer bugs (Dysdercus decussatus) underneath the leaves of sea hibiscus.

Why are they called cotton stainers? They got their name because many Dysdercus species transfer microorganisms that stain the cotton bolls that they prefer to feed on. Feeding on the cotton bolls will in the process stain them.

Here is another view of the massive number of bugs under the leaves.

We had a peek at the hornbill breeding nest and Ria (who was near my group) gave a short description of how breeding of hornbills were encouraged through this project.

It's drawing and colouring time! This is one of the KS, Kai Sheng, who posed with his crab drawing.

And here is a look at my lovely student councillors who also had a great time out with everyone at Chek Jawa. Read more about their reflections on the EXCEL Exposure blog.

While waiting for the van to pick us up, we saw this Flying Dragon (Draco sumatranus) high up on the rubber tree.

All too soon, it was time for our sumptuous seafood lunch! Upon request, I took a photo of our all time favourite pepper crab with nice garnishess sprinkled on top of the dish.

The Naked Hermit Crabs will be taking a break in Jan 2012 and will be back in Feb 2012! :-)

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/12/10/

Lunar Eclipse 10th Dec 2011

2011-12-11T20:26:00.001+08:00

Yesterday evening was one of the rare moments where you can see a total eclipse during a decent timing and with a clear night sky! Below are five photos that I've took from my home.

Going...

Gone? Not exactly.... during total eclipse, the moon gives off a reddish hue.

A total lunar eclipse occurs only during a full moon when the Earth's satellite slips into our planet's shadow. It does not turn totally dark, thanks to indirect sunlight which gives it the red colour.

Read here to see a more detailed explanation of why the moon looks red during a total eclipse.

I like this photo with the stars at the surrounding of the red moon during total eclipse!

And soon, the moon was no longer completely covered by the shadow.... as it slowly regains its usual look.

7.31 pm - Start of Penumbra Eclipse.
8.45 pm - Start of Umbra Partial Phase.
10.05 pm - Start of Total Eclipse.
10.31 pm - Maximum Eclipse.
10.57 pm - End of Total Eclipse.
12.18 am - End of Umbra Partial Eclipse.
1.31 am - End of Penumbra Eclipse.

Feather stars and commensals at Little Sisters

2011-12-10T20:46:00.001+08:00

One of the reasons that make me look forward to visiting Little Sisters Island is definitely the numerous feather stars that can be found on their reef.

I visited the smaller of the two Sisters Islands about two weeks ago and had a great time looking at the different kinds of feather stars.

Inspired by the previous trip at Beting Bronok where we found strange commensals on the Feather stars (Order Comatulida), James and I spent more than an hour to closely observe what else can we find living on feather stars. Indeed there are creatures found living on the arms of this particular feather star!

Can you see the banded-looking organisms found attached to the arms of the feather star?

These organisms seem to be rather well camouflaged against the lines found on the arms.

James later found an even smaller crinoid / feather star! And there is also something living on it as well!

Here is a closer look at the brown spot.

According to James' blog, these commensals are actually worms. They are likely to be Myzostomida, obligate symbionts of echinoderms (very commonly crinoids). Myzostomida come in a few types, some reside in their hosts while others cling to the outside.

The external ones can be further separated into those that move about freely on their hosts, those that sit mainly at the disc of the crinoid, and elongate ones which cling to and move along the crinoid arms and pinnules.

The most common type of feather stars found on the reefs of Little Sisters Island is the bright red type. Here's showing you a collage of 4 different red feather stars in a sequential closing of arms position.

Among these red feather stars, we also found more living stuffs such as this unknown organism.

There was even a tiny colourful brittle star (Ophiothela danae)!

More feather star photos! This is a juvenile red feather star.

And I'll end off the series of feather star photos with this gorgeous black, brown and white feather star!

Some parts of the reef at Little Sisters are crowded with life and full of different colours. You can find sponges, soft corals, hard corals and zoanthids in this garden.

There were also several Barrel sponges (Xestospongia testudinaria) on the shore.

At first, I thought this was a weird hard coral but it is soft to the touch. Is it some kind of sponge or soft coral or ascidian? Hmmmm...

It was kind of difficult to photograph these black Cave coral (Tubastrea sp.) as there always seem to be some kind of reflection in the water. Otherwise because of the black coloration, one can easily observe silt floating near the coral.

After struggling a bit with my DSLR camera and with the constant crashes of the waves, I managed to get feeble shots of the black cave corals with their tentacles extended.

It was difficult to do that for the orange cave corals as they usual are found at deeper and darker corners of the reef. So I used my underwater camera to take pretty shots of these corals.

We saw quite a number of slugs such as this Ornate leaf slug (Elysia ornata) found among the seaweed.

This Pimply phyllid nudibranch (Phyllidiella pustulosa) is rather common on our southern shores.

We found the Blue dragon nudibranch (Pteraeolidia ianthina) that we have seen on the same shore in January 2010.

As usual, Chay Hoon lives up to her name and found this unknown tiny slug that is definitely less than 1cm long.

Ria showed me her finds of what looks like the China moon snails (Natica onca) which we have only seen at Cyrene Reef previously.

We ended the reef walk with this find of the Land hermit crab (Coenobita sp.) at the high shores.

It is definitely a blessing to have rain-free trips for the 3 consecutive trips during that week. Thank God for that! :-)

Sunny day out at Beting Bronok

2011-11-29T17:40:00.000+08:00

It's our first time visiting Beting Bronok under bright daylight! All of my previous trips to this remote northern reef were during the predawn tides.

Blessed with perfect weather despite of the recent rainy season, we had a picturesque view of the reefs of BB with Johor in the background.

BB is probably one of the last reefs among our northern shores where one can still find colourful marine life such as the assortment of sponges and hydroids in this photo.

Apparently over the years, we seem to observe more and more zoanthids invading onto this shore. So it is rather inevitable to step on them as they are almost everywhere. Among the zoanthids, there are still other living organisms. This yellowish creature looks like a sponge but it is nearly as hard as a rock. I am puzzled!

Oh well, at least I am sure that this colony is definitely a hard coral. This is the greenish Boulder pore corals (Porites sp.).

This brown hard coral is also the Boulder pore coral and it is found among the mats of zoanthids.

Though it was rather sunny out on the reef, we could still find quite a number of flatworms such as this huge Black spotted flatworm (Acanthozoon sp.).

We also saw a number of what is probably the Olive flatworm (Pseudobiceros sp.).

Towards the end of the trip, I encountered this third species of flatworm- the Brown striped flatworm (Pseudobiceros gratus).

The only nudibranch that I saw on the trip was this Bohol nudibranch (Discodoris boholiensis).

We did not find as many sea stars as during our previous trips. It could be because that the tide was not too low and that sea stars tend to go deeper waters or if possible burrow under bright sunlight. Nevertheless, we managed to see a few of them such as this Biscuit sea star (Gonodiscaster scaber).

Rene later found the Spiny sea star (Gymnanthenea laevis), a sea star that we can find in our northern shores, East Coast, Tanah Merah and even Cyrene Reef!

During the lowest possible tide timing, I went to where we can usually find the Knobbly sea stars (Protoreaster nodosus) and saw only one. At least it's good to know they are still there. This fellow has an extension from one of its arm. Looks cool isn't it?!

This plain-looking shrimp is actually the Ghost shrimp (Glypturus sp.). As its name suggest, this creature is rather elusive and are not commonly seen.

Zestin found a special crab! This Domed elbow crab (Cryptopodia fornicata) was last seen here in 2009.

Here is a look at the underside of this rare crab. It looks like a horseshoe crab from its underside and has a domed body that covers its spindly walking legs.

Oh well, since we mentioned on the horseshoe crab, here's is one that I found during the trip! This is the Coastal horsehoe crab (Tachypleus gigas).

Among the many more common sea cucumbers found on BB, this one caught my eye! It looks like one that either we have not seen before or we have but do not know of its identity.

On the reefs near the water edge, I found this Sea fan (Order Gorgonacea) out of water. It looks like it has been uprooted together with the rock that it is attached to.

It's hell of a time for me to be able to see 3 of these uncommon Haekel's anemones (Actinostephanus haekeli) that we also call as the Hell's anemone as the sting is bad as hell.

This smaller version looks much cuter... don't you agree!?

Last but not least, the find of the day would be this Feather star (Order Comatulida). Why is this find so special?

It is because of the intriguing commensals found among the surface of the feather stars! When we first saw them, we were clueless as to whether they are slugs, flatworms or other kinds of worms of what not.

Here is a closer look at this fellow. It seems to have a middle raised lining with pointed corners. The surface of this creature has lines that seem to help the organism to camouflage with the feather star. There are also weird hairy looking projections sticking outwards!

That's not all! On one of them, there was this weird pink ball structure! James kindly found the id and he said that these may be Myzostomida, a kind of marine parasitic worm that can be found on feather stars.

Very very soon, the tide returned as we had to call it a day before we get stranded on the shore. BB indeed is a treasure that we hope will continue to thrive!

Back to the lost coast!

2011-11-28T23:05:00.000+08:00

Last Friday we were back at the vast shores of the Lost Coast and we decided to at a look at another stretch which we didn't had to chance to visit previously.

On this shore are numerous sand dollars that are virtually everywhere! What amuses me is this disused orange container with the $ sign written on it. I think someone was trying to get some dollars from the bank by collecting them with this container (sand dollars on sand bank... get it?). Haha!!

Back to our usual sane note, I noticed that the Cake sand dollars (Arachnoides placenta) can appear in slightly different shapes and patterns. In this photo you can see a round individual and a pentagon individual. The pentagon sand dollar also has a slightly different pattern.

Prowling on the sand flat are numerous of the moon snails (Family Naticidae) where their mantle looks like a full moon when extended. This is the Ball moon snail (Polinices didyma).

A special moon snail that I had found buried underneath the sand would be this uncommon Calf moon snail (Natica vitellus). The shell has orangey brown spiralling bands.

This moon snail with lots of lines is aptly named as the Lined moon snail (Natica lineata).When I handled this snail to take a closer look, I got pricked by one of its edges and thus suffered a cut. :( Got to be more careful next time!

Ria mentioned that the three Naked moon snails (Sinum sp.) that we came across during our previous trip were different and therefore we tried to find more. I only found one though as the tide was coming in real fast.

We saw some Olive snails (Family Olividae) in the sand bar. In this photo, it is quite distinctive that the bigger beige snail with little or no patterns on the shell is different from the other two. I am not too sure on their exact identity.

Of course, we came across many Grey bonnet snails (Phalium glaucum) on this shore, just like our previous trips. Many were also found buried under the sand.

Unlike the Bonnets, the Fig snails (Ficus variegata) are less commonly seen alive though many of their shells can be found on the high shore.

We also have not managed to encounter live versions of the sundial and cone snails though their shells can also be found quite commonly washed up on the higher shores here.

The only slug find of the day would be the Philine sp. white slugs that Ria recently coined it as the Attap Chee slug as it looks like one! Haha...

Back to the echinoderms, the Laganum sand dollars (Laganum depressum) are much rarer as than the Cake sand dollars though I prefer the former.

Two of these brittle stars were found high and dry and one had two arms broken off!

Anemones wise, I came across this Haddon's carpet anemone (Stichodactyla haddoni) and also a Plain sea anemone.

Strangely, we found this crab which looks like it belongs more to a rocky shore.

This crab looks like the Spotted-belly forceps crab (Ozius guttatus), but it seems to be some kind of Eriphia.

This boulder is one of the rare ones that can be found with lots of drills laying colourful egg capsules.

Towards the end of the trip, Mei Lin gamely posed with this abandoned and poorly soaked TY bear found lying on the shore.

During this trip, we hiked several kilometres to get to the shore as there was a miscomm regarding the time for the boat to pick up us. It was a good walk as the trail was scenic!

But of course at the end of walking for so long with blisters on my feet, I am exceptionally thankful to have the boat to bring us back. And also to thank God for the miraculous great weather despite the rainy season going on these days. :)

Creatures found on the sandy shore of Changi

2011-11-06T11:52:00.000+08:00

Last Monday, Ria and I had a look at one of the sandy shores along the long stretch of Changi Beach. To many people, these shores may seem dead or lifeless from a brief glimpse but if you do take effort to observe, there are many living creatures out there waiting for you to discover!

Exploring the shore in the dark probably help as many of the marine life are more active without the strong solar radiation.

It is rather typical to find sand dollars on a sandy shore and what a delight to find many juvenile ones on this shore. I have not seen them here previously.

These are actually the Cake sand dollars (Arachnoides placenta). Here is a view of the upperside on the left and underside of the sand dollar.

I also came across some adult sized individuals at another part of the shore.

Ria found two of these Plain sand stars (Astropecten sp.) on this shore. Usually these stars are quite abundant on Changi especially in the dark, so I'm not too sure why only two were spotted. Perhaps their prey such as button snails or asian date mussels are not around.

Certain species of sea cucumbers prefer sandy shores as they can burrow into the sand without much obstruction. This is the Smooth sea cucumber.

The most abundant sea cucumber species here will be the Ball sea cucumber (Phyllophorus sp.) though not many were found. Sometimes one can find them semi-buried in the sand.

Among the stuffs washed up by the wave will be this weird looking sea cucumber in total white. I suspect it is a dying Ball sea cucumber.

This Beige sea cucumber is one which we still do not know its identity. Given its coloration, it can camouflage quite well with the sand!

There was an area where quite a lot of the Sea lettuce (Ulva sp.) seaweed were washed up. Among the seaweed, there was a different assemblage of organisms such as a number of these Thorny sea cucumbers (Colochirus quadrangularis).

Ria and I also encountered many uprooted or washed up Sea pens (Scytalium sp.).

Living among the sea pen are several tiny Painted porcelain crabs (Porcellenella picta). I have never seen so many porcelain crabs in a single sea pen before!

Swimming at the edge of the water are many different types of crabs including this rather uncommon Reticulated moon crab (Matuta planipes).

Can you spot the crab in this photo? The tiny juvenile crab is right at the bottom of this sea pencil.

This Striped hermit crab (Clibanarius infraspinatus) lives in the shell of the Noble volute snail. Sharing the same home as the hermit crab would be the white Slipper snails (Family Calyptraeidae). This indeed is a great example of maximum utilization of resources.

I was rather except to see this, but later realized that it is only the moult of the Mangrove horseshoe crab (Carcinoscopius rotundicauda).

Only one Hairy sea hare (Bursatella leachii) was seen on the sandy shore. When disturbed, this sea hare releases purple chemicals or coloration into its surrounding to distract away predators.

I was quite excited to see this octopus out in the open. It wasn't that active even in my presence.

There were some sea anemones found on the sandy shore including this Tiger anemone or the Strawberry anemone.

Somehow, one of the tiger anemone was seen to be in the process of ingesting a blade of Spoon seagrass!

Funny isn't it? Ria suggested maybe the anemone was trying to feed on some other organism found attached to the seagrass. It will be interesting to know that these nems love seagrasses as food too. Haha!

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/10/31/

Slugs galore at Pulau Sekudu

2011-10-31T15:49:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was the first time I visited Pulau Sekudu during an evening low tide! Just like BB, visiting Sekudu is an annual event which I would always look forward to.

Though this northern island just off Pulau Ubin is very small, Sekudu has many fascinating rock formations surrounded by a small stretch of sand bar and a large expanse of intertidal shore.

From far, we could see many shore birds feeding during low tide. There is even a small mangrove among the rocks on the high shore!

Pulau Sekudu is found just in front of Chek Jawa Wetlands (the boardwalk and beacon can be seen in this photo) and therefore requires special permission from NParks to land on this island. We were visiting with NParks permission to do a survey of the shore and to check for any abandoned drift nets or fish traps.

Pulau Sekudu is also known as the Frog Island and coincidentally, there is a rock formation that really looks like a frog! Somebody even drew an eye on it.

With no jetty, we landed with a long staircase from the boat. As usual, this is the best opportunity to take paparazzi photos. You can see in this photo that Rene is snapping shots of us climbing down the staircase.

Talking about Rene, she immediately found this Denison's nudibranch (Dendrodoris denisoni) as soon as we started looking at the shore. I saw three of them througout the trip!

Little did we realize that there were many more slug finds awaiting for us to discover.

James found this long orange slug that is probably Gymnodoris inornata.

I later came across another one which seems to be doing some stunts balancing itself on the seaweed. Haha!

If one were to look closely among the seaweed and seagrasses, it is not difficult to discover many of these Bushy slugs (Polybranchia orientalis).

There were many first slug sightings for me during this trip! The first would be this super tiny slug that looks like a purple sponge. Chay Hoon suggests that this is likely to be a Jorunna sp. Given its small size, it was rather back breaking to take a proper photo.

Mei Lin later found this bizarre looking slug with lots of zebra-looking patterns. This is probably a Philinopsis lineolata.

This slug is probably the juvenile version of the Rose nudibranch (Dendrodoris fumata). It is my first time encountering it in black/purple coloration. All my previous sightings were the orange versions.

More tiny slugs! We came across two Cerberilla sp. slugs. This is the first one!

And this is another one. Can you see the eye spots in both photos?

Apart from the usual Ornate leaf slugs (Elysia ornata) that are common on the shore, we also came across several of another species of the leaf slugs (Elysia sp.) which is slightly more wolly.

Though many slugs were sighted, I only saw one type of flatworm and this is the large Brown striped flatworm (Pseudobiceros gratus) which I have not seen for more than a year!

As usual, there were many sea stars found at Sekudu ranging from Crown sea star (Asterina coronata), Spiny sea star (Gymnanthenea laevis), Biscuit sea star (Gonodiscaster scaber), Cake sea star (Anthenea aspera), Scaly sea star (Nepanthia belcheri), Plain sand stars (Astropecten indicus) and the Painted sand stars (Astropecten sp.).

This is a pair of Cake sea stars (Anthenea aspera) that were beside one another when I found them.

And nearby, another pair of organisms- carpet anemones!

All over the shore, there were many Swimming anemones (Boloceroides mcmurrichi) of all sizes! This is a super small one found by Mei Lin.

What intrigues us would be this anemone that looks like a swimming anemone. It also behaves like one and is not attached to the substrate. We wonder what the identity is!

Whenever we squat or kneel down to look at stuffs, our eyes were greeted with another spectrum of living organisms. For example, many tiny anemones of all sorts of patterns and lifeforms seemingly popped out in front of our eyes. Many of which we are not confident of their identity.

One of the many unidentified sea anemones would be this Transparent spoke anemone with many interesting structures besides the tiny mouth. It really looks like a flower.

These white fan worms also do look like flowers in the garden of seaweed and seagrasses.

Found on a boulder will be this small mat of zoathids with lots of cowries found embedded among the branches. How many do you think you can spot in this photo?

There must be more than five because within this small portion, there are already four found close to each other! I wonder if the cowrie benefits from living among the zoanthids.

The number of Cerianthids (Order Ceriantharia) at Sekudu seem to have dropped! I'm not sure if anything is affecting their growth here. Nevertheless, I managed to still find a few of them and this particular one with white and purple-tipped tentacles is especially pretty.

Among the many sea cucumbers, this is one of the unidentified ones that we have been seeing on our northern shores.

Last but not least, I'll end off the post with my find of this handsome Estuarine seahorse (Hippocampus kuda). :-)

The tide during the trip was not low enough for us to explore the reefy portions of Sekudu. Well, that will be for next year's super low spring tide in the morning. Hope that this special shore will continue to thrive.

Marvellous finds from Lost Coast!

2011-10-30T00:28:00.000+08:00

We are back at the Lost Coast after close to two years! This is one trip that I have been really waiting for because our previous trip here during a not-so-low tide reveals that this is a special sandy shore. Special thanks to Travis, Ria, Alex and Jumari for making this trip possible.

We saw many rare creatures during the trip but none can compare to this large Astropecten sand star (Astropecten sp.) which I have never seen before! It is a beauty!

A way of identifying Astropecten sea stars would be to look at the arrangement of spines. Interestingly, there are five pairs of two spines (nearest to the centre of sea star) pointing upwards instead of sidewards. The blue margin and orangey red surface makes this sea star really gorgeous!

That's not all, this star has a orange underside unlike the other two kinds of Astropecten sea stars we see in Singapore.

Here is a closer look at the orangey tube feet.

Frequent shore explorers will know that the Painted sand stars (Astropecten sp.) found on the left of this photo can grow to quite a large size. This new star is even larger!

Here is a photo of the two Astropecten sea stars that we used to frequent find in our northern shores. They are the Plain sand stars (Astropecten indicus) on the left and the Painted sand stars (Astropecten sp.) on the right.

Another sea star that can also be found on this shore will be the Common sea stars (Archaster typicus).

Surprisingly, there were quite a number of echinoderm finds on this sandy shore! This is a pretty brittle star found by James with a pink underside.

And who would imagine finding a feather star on a sandy shore?! Haha

Apart from the zillions of Cake sand dollars (Arachnoides placenta), the team also found two rarer Laganum sand dollars (Laganum depressum)!

Travis walked quite a far bit south and spotted two pinkish heart urchins (Lovenia elongata).

Also a representative from the Phylum Echinodermata, this recently dead Keyhole sand dollar (Echinodiscus truncatus) was carried by a leaf porter crab. Ivan spotted it! It made me quite excited because it has been some years since I've seen one.

Interestingly, very few sea cucumbers were sighted by the team. We came across this tiny creature that looks like one.

So much about echinoderms (which are my favourites), snails were also extremely abundant on the Lost Coast. I have never seen so many Grey bonnet snails (Phalium glaucum) on one trip in my life before. Can you see the other two snails at the background. They are everywhere!

The bonnet snails have shells that can be slightly greyish or orangey in colour. The white siphon sticks out from in front.

As seen from Cyrene in the past, bonnet snails feed on cake sand dollars. It was amusing capturing this moment where the snail and a ghost crab was at the same time fighting over a sand dollar!

More rare snail finds include this Naked moon snails (Sinum sp.) which are rather flat. It has a flat shell and the large body is unable to retract into the shell completely when disturbed.

As there are many Button snails (Umbonium vestiarum) on this shore, it is natural to find their predators such as the various types of moon snails. Clockwise from top left: Oval moon snails (Polinices mammilla), Tiger moon snail (Natica tigrina), Ball moon snails (Polinices didyma) and Lined moon snail (Natica lineata).

Rarely do we find living turrid snails (Family Turridae). So it was great to be able to see this elegant snail on the shore.

This is one pretty snail which I have not seen for a long time! The Fig snail (Ficus variegata) is one which has nice pinkish body and a pear shaped shell. They have been previously sighted at East Coast shore.

Only previously seen once at Tanah Merah, there were quite a number of these special sea slugs on the lost coast! This is a Philine sp. as identified by Dr Bill when I checked with him in 2009.

This prettier slug in black and white patterns is the Batik tailed slug (Philinopsis sp.).

This large Peacock sole (Pardachirus pavonina) was rather well camouflaged on the sandy shores.

I'll end off this blog post with a hermit crab that I don't think I've seen before. I found it near the water's edge.

It's amazing how we can still find new creatures after visiting our shores for so many times already. This is indeed a special (and remote) shore and I look forward to coming back again. :-)

Semakau guided walk with SJI

2011-10-28T12:46:00.002+08:00

I spent my Deepavali holiday guiding a group of students from St Joseph's Institution at our fabulous shore of Pulau Semakau!

Though they are currently working on marine-related school projects, it is their first time exploring our natural shores looking at seagrasses and corals. It was great to be able to share with them our marine biodiversity without having to swim or dive!

There are lots of blooming Tape seagrass (Enhalus acoroides) and among the seagrass meadow is a nursery for marine creatures such as this Swimming anemone (Boloceroides mcmurrichi).

Also spotted among the seagrass meadow will be this tiny and cute cuttlefish.

On the higher shores with seagrasses, I came across these yellow fluffy looking things which I do not know what they are. Eggs?

The giant Knobbly sea stars (Protoreaster nodosus) always provide a great opportunity for group photo taking.

Moving closer to the coral reef at the edge, we saw many different species and types of corals such as this uncommon Acropora coral (Acropora sp.).

If you look closer among the branches, there are other living creatures found embedded inside such as tiny clams! If you are fortunate, shrimps and gobies can also be spotted.

This is another species of the Acropora coral that has fatter branches.

It seems that the Persian carpet flatworms (Pseudobiceros bedfordi) are coming back to Semakau as I have not seen them for some time. This particular individual seems to be slightly injured.

Later on, I stumbled across yet another one which is not injured as the previous. Their patterns are intricate and they do look like persian carpets. Haha!

A special find that the hunter seekers found will be this well camouflaged spider crab (Micippa philyra) that I've not seen or took notice of it before.

This crab will close up its legs and claws when it is overturned on its underside. Sometimes it does look like a ball!

Though it looks very boring from above, this crab has pretty green chela or claws as seen from its underside!

All too soon, it's time to head back! Here is a photo showing the broken jetty among the mangroves at the higher shores. We are so blessed to have escaped the rain and bad weather!

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/10/26/

Civets aka musang of Siglap

2011-10-23T23:03:00.000+08:00

I have heard so much about the Common or Asian palm civets (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) at Siglap and finally found a night out with Ron and James to see them with my own eyes.

We were quite fortunate to see about 3-4 of them within a short period at dusk. Many of these civets move rather fast so we usually could see them more with our eyes than we could photograph them.

The civets are sometimes also known as the 'Toddy Cat' or 'Musang' in malay. The toddy name came about because it is apparently fond of drinking from vessels put in palm trees to collect sap for making toddy or palm sugar.

However the civet is NOT a cat. They are more closely related to hyaenas and mongooses! It can grow to a size of a large cat and it has a long tail. A fully grown adult palm civet can grow up to 137cm measuring from the tip of its tail to the nose.

To find out more about the cute civets which are Singapore's last wild urban carnivores, read this blog post: http://iyb2010singapore.blogspot.com/2010/05/civets-of-siglap-singapore-last-wild.html

Enjoy the other photos I took tonight below:

Cute variable squirrels of Bidadari Cemetery

2011-10-16T11:32:00.001+08:00

I'm back after 2.5 weeks of NS reservist training! Itching for some nature photography, I cycled to Bidadari Cemetery yesterday afternoon as I kind of missed the cute variable squirrels.

And wow, I managed to spot three of them during my 1.5 hours there and captured several nice cute shots of them.

As mentioned before, the Variable Squirrel (Callosciurus finlaysoni) is actually a non-native, in other words, an exotic species in Singapore. According to the Wildlife Singapore website, the Variable Squirrel is native to Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam. Those seen in Singapore are actually escapees or released by irresponsible pet owners. A good population of them has actually established themselves in Bidadari.

Enjoy the following photos of the squirrels in different poses taken during the afternoon! :-)

Cute isn't it? I don't mind going back another time to find these sneaky and fast squirrels again.

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/10/15/

Back to underwater garden of Tuas

2011-10-02T15:17:00.000+08:00

It has been two years since I have visited the pretty and colourful shores of Tuas. And I was glad to be back here with Sheryl and Ria who are monitoring the seagrasses. Bee Yan was here to survey the crabs at the small stretch of mangroves.

I headed out to the Merawang Beacon to have a look at how the reef is doing and was glad to find several beautiful hard corals and sea fans.

This huge bowl-shaped coral is a large colony of Disk coral (Turbinaria sp.)! I don't recall seeing it the previous time I was here. The tide was not very low so most of the corals were still submerged underwater.

At the slightly higher profiles of the shore, I came across some smaller colonies of the disk corals.

This large green coral with "ruffled folds" is also a disk coral!

Somehow, I feel that there are many more corals near the beacon than two years ago. This is heartening because these are the colonies that survived the coral bleaching period last year. Other than the numerous disk corals that I've encountered, there are also several Boulder pore corals (Porites sp.) in both brown and green too. Ria said she also saw the Favid hard coral (Family Faviidae).

There are also many soft corals found on the reefs of Tuas. The entire shore is littered with lots of these Starry leathery soft corals (Family Alcyoniidae) which are not commonly seen on other shores of Singapore.

We also came across several small Ball soft corals as seen in this photo.

There were also small colonies of Flowery soft corals (Family Nephtheidae).

The main attraction of Tuas to me is definitely the Sea fans (Order Gorgonacea). It is probably one of the few remaining spots in Singapore where one can find a huge underwater garden of so many of them.

Usually the sea fans prefer deeper parts of the shore. Therefore, they are usually submerged underwater. This is one of the rarer sea fan found along the shallower waters, allowing me to take a nicer shot.

The underwater camera does the rest of the job of documenting the colourful garden of the sea fans in mostly red and orange/yellow colour.

At some spots the sea fans are rather crowded!

The waters are rather murky with the outgoing and incoming tide, and of course from my footing that stirred up sediments. So it was rather a challenge to take underwater shots.

The white spots on the surface of the sea fans are called polyps, just like those that we can find on hard corals. As such, a sea fan is a colony of many polyps or many animals as a polyp is an animal. I As the waters are not so clear and time was short, I did not get a chance to look for commensals on the sea fans.

This sea fan looks slightly different from the previous ones that I've posted here. It looks like shredded threads of carrots haha!

There are lumps found on certain parts of this sea fan. Not exactly sure what they represent.

Elsewhere along the underwater portion of this shore, one can find a colourful array of living creatures!

Here is a shot from above ground where the water is not too deep. There are many colourful sponges of all sorts!

Aha! Finally I spotted the Giant carpet anemone (Stichodactyla gigantea) with False clown anemonefishes (Amphiprion ocellaris)! The anemonefishes were the baby ones though. It is quite uncommon to find nemos in the waters of Johor Straits.

Tuas has lots of sea cucumbers, especially the Thorny sea cucumbers (Colochirus quadrangularis)! They are like everywhere and at times are found aggregated together.

Here is a collage of the different sea cucumbers that I came across on this trip.

Unfortunately, we stumbled across a really really long driftnet stretching across almost the entire Tuas shore! Can you spot the long line in this photo?

Some of the living creatures that got trapped by this driftnet include this large White-spotted rabbitfish (Siganus canaliculatus). Another of the same species of fish gave Ria a bad stung though while she was removing the net.

Another fish that got trapped would be this Fan-bellied filefish (Monacanthus chinensis).

We tried to remove as much of the net as possible and though the pile of net looks small and manageable, it was actually super heavy. While sorting the net at the high shores, we realize that a filefish was still trapped and we quickly released it back asap.

Here is a shot of our tireless Ria doing all she can to remove this giant net. We probably only cleared 100m of the 400m net. If the driftnet that is laid by fishermen gets abandoned for a longer time, it will lead to detrimental effects.

One of the reasons why Tuas shore remains so spectacular is because it is inaccessible to people coming from land. May it remain this way for many more years to come.

The shore sits in front of Merck, which adopted the shore for seagrass monitoring. A big thank you to Sheryl for being there to manage and facilitate this. :-)

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/09/27/

A night at Bukit Brown Cemetery

2011-09-19T21:51:00.000+08:00

Last Friday Night, we were on a "mission" to try and find the sambar deers that have been previously sighted at and near Bukit Brown Cemetery. It is my second time visiting this cemetery. The first was during an unexpected Outdoor Activities Club night walk and overnight stay back in my JC days. The memories of that still lingers!

Though the location is a cemetery, there are more living creatures than dead creatures. We saw a number of fruit bats such as this one which is hanging on a branch.

We later also realize that many bats like to hang upside down from the base of the bird's nest ferns.

Here is another cute young bat hanging from a skinny branch.

This collar kingfisher is among some of the birds that we encountered on the trees of Bukit Brown.

Though we hear more of the calls of the scops owls than seeing them ourselves, it was nice to have a short moment having a look at this cute owl spotted by Ron.

This big fat bird is probably a female pink-necked green pigeon with a uniform green plumage. The males will have the pink necks.

Found among the tombstones and also on the ground are the numerous nightjars.

This nightjar was among the many that were found resting on the ground. We could see them from far based on their eye shines.

Ron's sharp eyes for colugos gave us a treat to have a quick glimpse of this mammal. Just that I didn't have chance to take a nicer photo.

There were several frogs around the cemetery.

I'm not too good with identifying them, so I'll just post the photos.

This is a closeup of the frog found in the previous photo.

This banded bullfrog is very cooperative as it stayed in its position in a rather motionless way thus allowing us to have several snapshots.

On the trunk of one of the trees we found several interesting critters such as this scorpion.

And also several tarantulas! I think it is my first time seeing them in the wild.

A special find by Ron will be this whip spider or Amblypygids.

It totally looked out of this world to me in this closeup photo.

Bukit Brown Cemetery is destined to be developed in 2013 to build a four lane road. Housing is also proposed for this area.

More photos of this trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/09/17/

Chek Jawa September Walk with NHC

2011-09-17T22:02:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday I was out guiding at Chek Jawa Boardwalk with Naked Hermit Crabs again!

It was great to be able to guide a family of different generations on a cool morning. And the guiding was much more easier for as I was not alone doing all the explanations. The grandpa and grandma of the family shared even more about their knowledge of nature's treasure trove and their experience with the wild in the past. I have learnt much from them too!

We had a quick climb up the Jejawi tower before proceeding to explore the mangroves and coast of Chek Jawa.

What plant does these bright yellowish orange flowers belong to?

It belongs to the Nipah palm tree. This tree is usually more commonly known for their immature seeds that is used to make attap chee.

The climbing crabs are actually more common than you can see as many are rather well camouflaged. This particular one is very pretty as it has bright red claws. This crab seems to be feeding on a leaf stalk.

Crawling in and out of burrows in the ground are many fiddler crabs.

My most favourite fiddler crabs are definitely the tiniest ones that are really bright in colour. From the boardwalk, they may just look like red spots on the ground.

Ah ha! The knowledgeable and observant grandpa pointed out the fruit of what seems to be of the Nyireh tree (Xylocarpus sp.). It was located quite inside of the mangroves.

It was interesting to find out that none of the participant knew this is the infamous tongkat ali plant. Tongkat Ali (Eurycoma longifolia) has a notorious reputation as a purported aphrodisiac.

Near the tongkat ali is this sunbird that flew past and landed on another plant to feed on the nectar.

While along the coastal boardwalk, I came across a pair of birds that I do not know how to identify (or actually I'm lazy to find the id).

This large carpenter bee is a solitary creature where it does not form colonies. The female bores the wood to create a home. I'm not too sure why it was found among the ropes of the boardwalk.

Coming back to the House No. 1 of Chek Jawa, we had a good view of the island across, Pulau Sekudu. Sekudu is also known as the frog island. There were kayakers at the vicinity though the waters around Chek Jawa as been designated to be restricted.

Everyone showed off their artistic talent and thoughts about the trip on the coloured papers at the end of the trip. It was great to see the reflections from the participants on the wonders and charms of Chek Jawa. We all agreed that Chek Jawa should be conserved for as long as possible for future generations to enjoy.

Similar to last month, we were joined by student councillors from my school, Dunman High. They were here as part of their environmental exposure programme for their leadership development. In this photo, you can see them reading stories and information of Chek Jawa at the information kiosk.

Mr Ishak Khan shared with us the story of how a man proposed to his fiancee on the boardwalk but accidentally dropped the expensive diamond ring into the water. He even did an re-enactment of the scene with Sylvia, one of my students. Haha!

In all, it was a great trip, and the weather was superbly kind to us as we managed to escape the heavy rain! :-)

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/09/10/

Baby stonefish at Sentosa

2011-09-10T21:48:00.000+08:00

Chay Hoon spotted a juvenile Hollow-cheeked stonefish (Synanceia horrida) on our trip to Sentosa shore last Saturday!

Though stonefish are scary looking and horrible to be stepped on (since they can inject venom into you with their sharp spines), this young fish looks quite cute on the contrary. Haha!

This trip to Sentosa shore was actually our first evening trip after the morning lows are over. At night, the reef octopuses are very active on the reefs! I saw at least four!

This octopus is a different one from the one found in the previous photo. See, it is rather uniform in colours and patterns here.

And the same fellow changed its appearance very quickly after a short while.

Not too soon, the patterns and colours reverted back again. Quite interesting to look at I must say!

Here is yet another octopus, this one was found among the branching sponges.

There were quite a number of crabs that one can find on this shore such as the several Spoon pincer crabs (Leptodius sp.).

This fierce looking crab is aptly named as the Red-eyed reef crab (Eriphia ferox). They are usually found on the rocky areas at the high shore.

This bright red crab with white spots on its carapace is actually the most poisonous crab in Singapore! Red signifies warning, so do not mistaken this Mosaic reef crab (Lophozozymus pictor) as a yummy red chilli crab.

We also saw a rare ghost crab, the Ocypode cordimanus. Unfortunately, I did not manage to snap a photo of this fellow. See more in Ria's wildshores post.

Near many burrows, you can easily spot Snapping shrimps (Family Alpheidae) lurking around. They may be out in the dark to try and forage for food.

Looking nearly transparent, these tiny Red nose shrimps (Periclimenes sp.) are plentiful. You just have to look closely on the ground for them.

This more colourful shrimp in orange is the Coral ghost shrimp (Glypturus sp.). Like a ghost, it will only show you itself for a while before it slide back into its burrow once it has detected your presence.

Marcus found a special shrimp! This is the Saron shrimp (Family Hippolytidae) which is probably as shy as the ghost shrimp.

On the sandy bar, it is good to still be able to find the large Cake sand dollars (Arachnoides placenta). However I only saw three. I have not seen any Common sea star (Archaster typicus) on this shore for some time already... oh dear.

On the reefs, the encrusting sponges seem to be doing very well! They are quite abundant and come in different colours. We also came across some hard and soft corals.

This plate like hard coral is the Disk coral (Turbinaria sp.). I remember these corals are quite common at the deeper ends of the Sentosa shore. The tide wasn't low enough that evening for me to check them out. This particular colony was found higher up along the zonation.

This huge snail is the Spotted top shell snail (Trochus maculatus). We also saw a very small one earlier near the start of the trip.

It was my first time seeing this Pink moon snail on the Sentosa shore!

And just right near the pink moon snail is also yet another first time find on this shore- the Swimming anemone (Boloceroides mcmurrichi)!

This was a rare moment where I could properly photograph the entire length of the Giant reef worm (Eunice aphroditois). Usually one end of this super long and huge worm would be found in the burrow while the part with its head and mouth will extend outwards to look for seaweed to snatch for food.

Ending this blog post, here is yet another worm, the Blue-lined flatworm (Pseudoceros sp.), which is much prettier!

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/09/03/

Last morning trip of 2011: Cyrene Reef

2011-09-06T21:51:00.000+08:00

Just before the low spring tide switches to evening tides, my last morning trip was to visit none other than the ever fabulous Cyrene Reef.

Several pressures surround this amazing reef that is situated right in the middle of a busy shipping lane and also surrounded by the industrialized Pasir Panjang Terminal, Jurong Island and Pulau Bukom.

Flaring has been ongoing for some time from Jurong Island and the flame is almost as tall as the chimney! The dredger can also be seen just off Cyrene Reef as well.

Cyrene Reef is one place that you can certainty see Knobbly sea stars (Protoreaster nodosus. This particular one seems to be in a slight tipped-toe position. This could be a sign of spawning in sea stars!

On Cyrene Reef, I will also be on a search for weird-looking sea stars like this Pentaceraster sea star (Pentaceraster mammilatus). Geraldine found this brown star with lots of tiny beige knobs.

I later found another Pentaceraster sea star in dark blue. They seem to be growing bigger as time passes.

This trip was quite a fruitful one to spot sea urchins! Firstly, I came across this young Long-spined black sea urchin (Diadema setosum) among the seagrasses and sandy shore. It has been quite a while since we have seen this urchin in this habitat.

The White sea urchins (Salmacis sp) seem to be in season! There were many of them in parts of the seagrass meadows and sometimes they appear in great numbers together.

This White sea urchin (Salmacis sp) with purple spines look very pretty when submerged in water. You can see its tube feet fully extended outwards!

When young, these sea urchins tend to be more pink in colour which actually appeals to me more. Haha! Very cute indeed.

James and I each found a lovely heart urchin (Lovenia elongata)! These urchins can burrow very quickly into and out of the substrate. James found it when one was burrowing out from the ground. Haha!

That's about all for echinoderms for this post. We saw many molluscs on this trip as well!

Yay! A first sighting for me on this trip will be the China moon snails (Natica onca). There were quite a number of them found on this trip! The foot of this pretty snail has a white net-like pattern while the front part of the body has four rows of orange or pink spots. These moon snails are among the prettiest that we can find in Singapore.

I like this moment where a pair of these moon snails were found side by side.

But the most amazing behaviour of these moon snails will be their ability to carry Button snail shells! We saw quite a number of them doing this. I do not exactly know why.

Another special snail that was found in quite a good number will be the Grey bonnet snails (Phalium glaucum). This particular individual was busy feeding on the Cake sand dollar (Arachnoides placenta).

Don't you think the white part of the mantle of this snail looks like an egg white? Which is why this snail is called the Egg-white moon snail (Polinices albumen). It could have looked more than an egg if the shell is more orangey (which most shells of this species are).

Slugs are like snails without shells. And we love slugs because they are so endearing. Ria found a couple of special nudibranchs such as this Dendrodoris nigra.

And also this Spotted foot nudibranch (Discodoris lilacina).

Geraldine spotted this Emerald Stiliger slug (Stiliger smaragdinus). It's the second time I see it! This slug lives and feeds on seaweed. In the process, it will retain the algae colour pigments in its digestive system. The pigments colour the slug and thus make it looking like part of seaweed!

Chay Hoon the slug queen found a threesome of Gymnodoris nudibranchs (Gymnodoris sp.).

While my threesome slug find will be the super-huge-and-you-cannot-miss-it Forskal's sidegill slugs (Pleurobranchus forskalii). They have been around in Cyrene Reef for some time already.

Not a slug but also black, this is the Starry flatworm (Pseudobiceros stellae). We saw quite a number of them among the seagrasses.

This anemone looks rather unfamiliar to me and I don't know the identity.

A special find of the trip will be this rare Masked burrowing crab (Family Corystidae) that I've never seen before!

It's kind of bittersweet because of its elusive nature. When I first saw this crab, I was taking some preliminary photos of this fellow with my DSLR. And when my eyes went away to check on the photos on the spot, the crab did an instant hide and seek and was later nowhere to be seen. It has lived up to its name.

This long fish is a Sand diver (Family Trichonotidae) and I've also never seen it before! Again, it was bittersweet because it seems to have recently died. The only "happy" person must be Ivan because he can use this for his Monday Morgue.

That's all for this year's sleep madness of waking up at unearthly hours though deep within ourselves we still prefer morning tides as the animals are much more active at this time period.

More photos of this trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/08/30/

Exciting vertebrate night at Central Catchment

2011-09-03T13:00:00.003+08:00

I have always wanted to go out for mammals or vertebrate hunt with Ron after hearing many of his wonderful finds. Finally finding a night that both of us were free, I went to Central Catchment Nature Reserve (CCNR) last night in hope to find some special animals in the dark.

And wow! Just at the outskirts of CCNR right at the beginning of our hunt, Ron spotted a Lesser Mouse Deer (Tragulus kanchil)! My first time seeing a wild mouse deer and it is super cute!

Thanks to Ron for kindly lending me his zoom lens for a while, I could take such a nice closeup photo.

This is how the mouse deer looks like using my own kit lens. It was quite shy and kept a safety distance away from us.

The mouse deer even licked a leaf with its tongue. Awww! Not sure if it was trying to munch on the leaf.

We tried to get a bit closer and this was one of the best shots I could get with my own lens. Not long after that, the mouse deer moved on and left the area.

That's not all, we later came across THREE more mouse deers. This photo shows the second one that is quite far away from us. The last two mouse deers were together at another location and Ron got nice photos of them!

As for me, I was just there wishing I have the zoom lens. Haha! Neverheless, it was great to have a first hand experience with these mouse deers that are unfortunately endangered in Singapore.

The night proved to be very fruitful because just at the location where we first sighted the mouse deer, Ron also found eye shines from the crown of this tall tree. Hard to spot isn't it!?

Here is a closer look, can you spot a furry and small mammal?

Yes, this is it! We found THREE of these Horsfield's Flying Squirrels (Iomys horsfieldi) which are also endangered in Singapore. These squirrels "fly" by gliding where they extend and stretch the membrane of skin between their four limbs. Ron and I kept exclaimed how cute they are!

I managed to also capture the shot of the flying squirrel with its paw in front if its mouth. Haha. This is yet another my first time seeing this animal wild in Singapore! Thanks again to Ron's zoom lens, if not I will not be able to take this photo.

With Ron's keen eyes, we will almost definitely see Malayan Colugos (Cynocephalus variegatus). And indeed we saw FOUR of them! Here is one clinging onto the tree trunk.

I only managed to get a closeup shot of this colugo before it glided to another tree.

While heading back along the outskirts, Ron was saying that it is still possible to find mammals. Indeed he was spot on as he found yet another colugo.

This colugo looks rather young and it was clinging tightly to the tree trunk.

It moved a little and I especially love this position and pose of the young colugo! Super duper cute and kawaii! :-)

Our forest are indeed very much alive! 2011 is the International Year of the Forests and it is wonderful to experience the beauty of them with my own eyes. Thanks to Ron because he spotted ALL of the mammals we found during the trip. My spotting skills are pretty lame on terrestrial field trips haha. I am also super tempted to get the zooms lens too after this trip haha!

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/09/02/

Paper published!: Diet and Feeding in the sea star Astropecten indicus

2011-09-01T18:11:00.002+08:00

Finally part of my final year honours research project has been published in The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology! :-)

I studied on the behaviour and ecology of the Plain sand stars (Astropecten indicus) which is one of the most common sea star species in Singapore.

Part of my research requires field work and I am ever so grateful for the group of friends that tirelessly volunteered to help me survey on the sand stars. This photo shows a gang of the garang warriors getting ready to march towards the shore to conduct a transect survey.

I particularly love this sunset photo with another group of lovely and energetic friends. Though I did not mention in my blog post previously what they were doing, actually they were sieving among the soft ground for tiny snails and clams which are potential food for the sea stars. Definitely not an easy job, so kudos to them!

As super low spring tides are hard to come by and do appear at unearthly hours, we have to start our "mission" as early as 3am or 4am! And these are the "crazy" people whom have sacrificed their sleep to help me survey the sand stars of Changi shore. Haha.

The weather does play a part in our surveying of the sea stars and sometimes we have to quickly get the work done before the rain pour. This is a photo taken when we were surveying at Pasir Ris.

Another part of my research involves indoor experimental work at Tropical Marine Science Institute, St John's Island. Thanks to their facilities, I could carry out experiments with multiple tanks using their indoor aquarium system. And I also made many friends from there as well! :) Thanks for assisting me in my project through various ways.

And of course, my NUS home lab- the Marine Bio lab! With my supervisor Dr Peter Todd! Thank you so much for your guidance and patience with me. And also the people in this lab have been of great help and company too. :)

From the way I thank so many people in this post, I sounded as if this paper is a big or great deal. Actually it is just that I truly appreciate all the help that I've gathered when I was doing this project. Thanks much all!

Diet and Feeding in the sea star Astropecten indicus

ABSTRACT. – This study investigates the feeding ecology of Astropecten indicus, one of the most common sea stars in Singapore’s waters. Examination of the regurgitated stomach contents of 69 specimens collected from four sites revealed that A. indicus is a generalist molluscan feeder; but the Asian date mussel, Musculista senhousia, was the dominant prey species (42.68%). Astropecten indicus preferred M. senhousia over the button snail, Umbonium vestiarium, when given a choice under laboratory conditions. This pattern was significant, and held for experiments regardless of whether prey were shelled or unshelled. Astropecten indicus also consumed more M. senhousia than U. vestiarium when fed these prey ad libitum. This is the first study of its kind on A. indicus and thus contributes to the small pool of knowledge regarding the ecology of this species.

Read the entire paper here: http://rmbr.nus.edu.sg/rbz/biblio/592/59rbz251-258.pdf

Fishy day at Tanah Merah

2011-08-29T21:16:00.002+08:00

I'm back on the Tanah Merah shore that was hit by the oil spill slightly more than a year ago. Together with Ron and Alyce, we had a look at how the marine life here is doing during one of the last morning low spring tides of the year.

Tanah Merah is one of the best places in Singapore to look at marine fish especially during the morning low tides. But we have to constantly be alert not to step on this Mr Stonefish!

Yes, this dreaded Hollow-cheeked stonefish (Synanceia horrida) is the most venomous fish in the world as the spines can inject venom into your foot if you accidentally step on this highly camouflaged fish that looks like a stone. We were glad that Ron found this deadly fish for us to have a closer look. With its quick movements, this is the most active stonefish I have ever encountered! Must be a really potent fellow :P.

Another well camouflaged fish will be this Painted scorpionfish (Parascorpaena picta). Like the stonefish, the scorpionfish also possesses dorsal spines with venom! Though this one is not as deadly.

Here is a good assemblage of some of the different fishies that we have encountered this morning. Some of them were just too quick to be photographed. While others are found in rather deep or murky waters.

Ron found the bright blue juvenile Angelfish (Family Pomacanthidae) that Ria also found earlier this year. Too bad it dwelled in deep and murky waters when I reached to have a look. No photos from me, do look out for Ron's blog for his post.

No trip to Tanah Merah would be complete without a sighting of this scary looking Brown-spotted moray (Gymnothorax reevesii). It was busy hunting while we had a look at it.

Here are more special fishy finds! This is a Yelloweye pufferfish (Arothron immaculatus). Pufferfish can inflate themselves with water or air to deter predators. Though they are cute looking, pufferfish have powerful teeth and can give a nasty bite.

This fish is the Brown sweetlips (Plectorhinchus gibbosus). They have swollen lips which show up more prominently in adults. This fish can change colour rapidly from pale patterns to dark.

This fish with a weird shape is a juvenile Batfish (Family Ephippidae). Like the sweetlips, I have seen this batfish before on this shore.

Wow! What is this mass of tiny blobs? Ron first found them and told us that they are Comb Jellies (Phylum Ctenophora).

This is a closeup of two comb jellies. I am not too sure if this mass of comb jellies sighting is a good or bad indication. I have read from this article that while jellyfish blooms can be part of their natural cycle, certain environmental stresses can also lead to proliferation and swarms of these jellies. It has also been reported that masses of comb jellies can eat eggs of fish.

There were also a number of crabs combing on the shore to look for prey to munch on. Such as this Brown egg crab (Atergatis floridus).

Looking like the red version of a Thunder crab (Myomenippe hardwickii), this is actually a Red Stone Crab (Menippe rumphii) that is a relative of the former.

What can we find here? There is actually a very well camouflaged Velcro crab (Camposcia retusa)!

This is another Velcro crab where you can see its legs and attached sponges more obviously.

It was great to come across 4 of these stunning-looking Spotted hermit crabs (Dardanus sp.) which can be found near reefs.

How are the corals doing? There were good growths of juvenile or mid-sized colonies of corals at certain corners of the huge boulders found at the seawall area. None of them were bleaching.

Ron and I also came across a patch of the Common sea stars (Archaster typicus) that survived the oil spill last year.

Ron is really good at finding the critters. He found this Miliaris cowrie (Cypraea miliaris).

And while looking for the Saron shrimps that slipped underneath the rocks, he found a rarer cowrie! This is the Arabian cowrie (Cypraea arabica) that we often see on Tanah Merah before the oil spill. Glad to know that they are surviving.

Ending off this blog post with the nudibranch finds, Ron found a pair of Bohol nudibranch (Discodoris boholiensis) that are probably mating.

I found this Black prickly nudibranch (Atagema intecta) that does not seem to be all too healthy. It moved very slowly and was found in a curled position.

Since my trip here on December 2010, I have seen that this shore is doing better after the oil spill. Though it may not be as fantastic as before, I am quite confidently that this shore will recover with time.

Finally! Galloping sea star at Semakau!

2011-08-21T11:42:00.001+08:00

After a long time of trying to search this elusive sea star, James fulfilled my wish by finding this Galloping sea star (Stellaster equistris) last Sunday during our trip to Semakau.

This is the special sea star that I've always wanted to see. It has been sighted at Sentosa twice before but I always fail to find it there. Haha!

One of the identifying features of this star is that it has short stumpy spines that are well spaced apart. From far, it is quite well camouflaged and can easily pass off as a juvenile Common sea star (Archaster typicus).

The underside of the sea star is much prettier. It is in white with some rounded patterns near its mouth.

The story of how this star was found is quite interesting. James first found another rare star, the Eight-armed sea star (Luidia maculata) and he only told me much later about the find. He tried to go back and find the sea star for me to have a look but to no avail. And while searching hard around the vicinity, a rarer star "popped" out and that is this galloping star! Haha!

Therefore, as what Ria later said, everything happens for a reason. :)

We explored my most favourite part of the Semakau shores, the southern part. The substrate and habitat here is quite similar to the northern shores and more closely alike to Cyrene Reef where there is a combination of northern and southern creatures.

Like many of our northern shores, this southern Semakau shore has many elegant Haddon's carpet anemones (Stichodactyla haddoni).

Among the bed of blooming Sea lettuce (Ulva sp.) seaweed (which is common on our northern shores as well) is this juvenile Giant carpet anemone (Stichodactyla gigantea).

When the Giant carpet anemone grows to become more like giant, or bigger, you can find many False clown anemonefish (Amphiprion ocellaris) swimming among the tentacles.

I stumbled across this uncommon sea anemone that is probably the very long Actinoporus elongatus.

Wow, this is one of the rare moments where I can take photo of a nicely expanded Fire's anemone (Actinodendron sp.). In fact, there are quite a number of these anemones on the Southern part of Semakau.

Looking like anemones from part, this is actually the underside of a juvenile Upsidedown jellyfish (Cassiopea sp.) that prefers to be upside down because they harbour microalgae on their tentacles to photosynthesize. Very pretty right?

One of the reasons why I like this shore is because it is rich with echinoderms. I did not expect to find this Feather star (Order Comatulida). Therefore, it came as a pleasant surprise for me. This feather star is quite pretty and does not look like those that we usually see.

We also came across several types of sea cucumbers. Such as this unknown small sea cucumber that looks a bit like the Garlic bread sea cucumber (Holothuria scabra). Is it really one?

Another strange looking sea cucumber would be this one found by Ria. I do not exactly know its identity.

Could the sea cucumber from the previous photo be a juvenile of this Remarkable sea cucumber (Holothuria notabilis)?

Though this Long black sea cucumber (Holothuria leucospilota) can be extremely common on certain rocky shores, it is not often seen at Semakau. I think this could be my first time seeing it here.

Among the soft substrates, one would expect to also find the Ball sea cucumber (Phyllophorus sp.). After Ria asked if I saw it, this sea cucumber was found later during the trip.

Ah hah! A snake! I have not seen snakes on the shore for some time already. This is the Dog-faced water snake (Cerberus rynchops) which is common in mangroves. It is no surprise to find this fellow here as the shore is situated right in front of the mangroves.

Among the seaweed, there are quite a number of intriuging looking ascidians that are poorly understood on our local shores. This ascidian is in black and orange- a nice combination of colours!

Here is another organism in orange, in fact bright orange throughout and speckled with white dots. This is the stunning Little ruby flatworm (Phrikoceros baibaiye)! It is only my second time seeing it if I did not recall wrongly.

An uncommon snail that we have came across will be this Margined conch (Strombus marginatus sowerbyorum).

There were quite a number of slug sightings! Such as this Denison's nudibranch (Dendrodoris denisoni).

James found this tiny Gymnodoris nudibranch (Gymnodoris sp.) that looks different from the usual ones that we see on our shores. It could be Gymnodoris citrina instead of the more common Gymnodoris rubropapulosa.

What is this pinkish thing on the ground? This is actually an egg ribbon of a nudibranch.

Not too far away, I saw another egg ribbon, this time in white. Hmm it looks familiar!!

Indeed I was correct. It belongs to the very large Forskal's sidegill slugs (Pleurobranchus forskalii). This pair is probably doing it on the shore. We saw many more of these slugs on Cyrene Reef recently.

Of course who doesn't love slugs? We all gathered to take nice photos of these snails without shells. Haha.

Last but not least before I left the shore, I saw this Ornate leaf slug (Elysia ornata) nearby. Though it is not exactly very green, it is still beautiful!

A small gang of us later went to explore the mangroves. Read more about more adventures here in Ria's wildshores blog.

Anyway, she found this fish trap with two large Mud crabs (Scylla sp.) deep inside the mangroves. I wonder how the fishermen got in to lay the traps and whether will they remember to go back and retrieve the traps.

After releasing the poor crabs, they became more active and looked happy to be back at home.

On the way out, I had a look at the flowering Avicennia marina. Read more about this special mangrove tree of Semakau here at Ria's wildshores blog.

It was definitely a fruitful trip and I look forward to come back and explore this part of Semakau more properly. :)

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/08/14/

Chek Jawa August Walk with NHC

2011-08-20T11:03:00.004+08:00

I'm back at Chek Jawa boardwalk with the Naked Hermit Crabs (NHC) for the August walks! This time with two of my student councillors for their environmental exposure programme!

Joining me for the morning was a group of enthusiastic participants comprising of old friends and their children. As usual, we love to take group photos on top of the tall Jejawi tower with the wonderful good weather.

We began our walk at the mangrove boardwalk area where we can see many prop roots of the Bakau plants sticking out from the soil for stability and more importantly for breathing in an waterlogged deoxygenated substrate.

As usual the kids are amazing at spotting tiny stuffs such as mudskippers and tiny crabs. Later on, one of them pointed this huge Giant mudskipper (Periophthalmodon schlosseri) which I probably will miss as it was very still!

This Tree-climbing crab (Episesarma sp.) was quite big! Probably the kind of size that the Teochews will pickle with black sauce and vinegar as vinegar crabs.

Along the mosquito valley of the mangrove boardwalk, the kids were excited and pointing out to me all the fiddler crabs in various colours and patterns. I never fail to grow bored looking at them. So you can imagine me getting as excited as them. Haha!

Indeed more eyes make the difference. Another participant showed me his find of this juvenile Malayan water monitor (Varanus salvator) found at the mouth of the mud lobster mound. This makes me wonder do these monitors really also share home with the mud lobsters?

Jessie, one of my student councillors tagged along with my group to observe the guided walk. Coincidentally, one of her kindergarden teacher was also in my group and she immediately could recognise Jessie at the start. Wow! That's the power of the memory of teachers.

And here's a nice photograph of Jessie sharing nature with the children along the coastal boardwalk.

As the tide was coming in very quickly, we could be able to also see some of the marine life such as this large school of fishes (not too obvious in this photo). We also saw a huge jellyfish!

On the way back to House number 1, we saw this Golden Orb Web Spider (Nephila maculata) with its huge web. We stopped by to take nice photographs of this rather still and "cooperative" spider.

Here is a closer look at this spider. Isn't it pretty?

Back at house no. 1, the children and even the adults drew and wrote some of their thoughts and artwork as our guestbook. Here is Timothy with his masterpiece of him in the mangroves! We also have other guests who drew fantastically for us. Ley Kun will post them up soon on the Naked Hermit Crabs blog.

Here is a photo of Ley Kun, our mama crab with her group. And of course, Janet who is another of my student councillor tagged and learnt a great deal from her!

As requested by the ladies, I look a photo of them in front of the House no. 1 with our frog island, Pulau Sekudu at the background. We look forward to see these two girls in action as an OJT (on the job training) guide when they return later in the year.

When we walked out of the gate of Chek Jawa, a family of wild boars greeted us! My group wished to see them and their wish has been granted. Haha!

I find it amusing how some of the wild boards sniff and push the backside of their siblings. Really cute I must say!

While waiting for the van to arrive, Ley Kun kindly shared with the ladies about rubber tapping using the rubber tree. At this point, one of the other van drivers came over to show a live demonstration of the process! Wow, it's my first time seeing it! Thank you so much!!

It is intriguing seeing how the droplets of the latex sap seep out of the trunk and trickle downwards.

Looking forward to the September walks which I think we will have a lot of children since it's within the school holidays! :-)

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/08/13/

Back to the Great Reef: Terumbu Raya

2011-07-31T14:46:00.016+08:00

What a GREAT way to start a GREAT day at the GREAT reef, Terumbu Raya!

Raya means great in malay. Terumbu Raya is a submerged reef off Pulau Semakau and it never fails to amaze me. This is my third trip here.

Just within a minute after the safe landing with the help of the ever skilful Jumari, I found this pretty Purple-spotted yellow flatworm (Pseudoceros laingensis)! It is only my second time seeing it, the first was at Semakau.

Another flatworm spotted during the trip will be this Blue-lined flatworm (Pseudoceros sp.).

Also found just moments after landing will be this tiny juvenile Kite butterflyfish (Parachaetodon ocellatus) poking around in the tide pool.

Near the reef edge, I stumbled across yet another charismatic fish. This is the Longhorn cowfish (Lactoria cornuta).

Another yellow fish but a very special one as well is this Spotted-tail frogfish (Lophiocharon trisignatus)! It is quite small, thus of course Chay Hoon was the one who found it. It looks less green than the usual ones that we have seen.

The reason why we saw more fishes on today's trip than our previous Raya trips is because this is our first time surveying this shore before sunrise.

In addition to fishes, there are also a couple of these Pencil squids (Family Loliginidae) which may be in the process of hunting down smaller animals for food.
There is a good variety of hard corals on this reef. I especially like the corals found along the stretch facing Pulau Semakau. One of the uncommon hard corals encountered would be the Moon coral (Diploastrea heliopora).

I hardly see the tentacles of the moon corals extended outwards from the corallites even though they are known to do so at night. I was pleasantly surprised to see some tentacles slightly coming out from a few corallites of this colony. It is not very obvious from this photo though.

It was nice to come across this huge colony of Lettuce coral (Pavona sp.)! What are the white rounded structures among the corals?

Here is a closer look at the rounded structures. I believe they are eggs sacs of cuttlefishes.

Here is a colony of the Carnation coral (Pectinia sp.) with the long tentacles extended outwards as well (not very obvious in this photo too). It is my first time seeing their tentacles.

The tentacles of this brightly coloured Favid hard coral (Family Faviidae) are fully exposed when submerged in water as compared to the top part.

It's great to spot the tentacles of the different hard corals during this morning's trip. Hard corals can use their tentacles to trap supsended food particles in the seawater to feed themselves.

This small colony of hard coral is a mystery to me. I have not seen it before do not know its identity. Is it some kind of a Cave coral (Tubastrea sp.)?

Terumbu Raya is known to have many sea anemones such as this Bulb-tentacled sea anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor). I came across several of them today and some of which are homes for Tomato anemonefishes (Amphiprion frenatus).

Russel shared with me his find of the Fire's anemone (Actinodendron sp.) which is probably quite common on Terumbu Raya.

I also spotted this lone Swimming anemone (Boloceroides mcmurrichi) near the reef edge. Usually these anemones are found near seagrasses.

This large snail is a Noble volute (Cymbiola nobilis) and it can be commonly found in most of our northern shores and some of our southern shores.

These snails were previously abundant in Singapore but is now considered vulnerable due to habitat degradation and overcollection for food and for its attractive shell.

This wavy shell belong to a living Scallop (Family Pectinidae)! It immediately shut its two valves / shells when I drew closer.

Another bivalve of a larger species will be the Fluted giant clam (Tridacna squamosa). Unfortunately, I only have bad news to share. Mei Lin's tagged fluted giant clam has died with only the two shells left beside the marker. :X

Slugs! It's always a joy to spot them on shore trips. This purplish nudibranch is the Black phyllid nudibranch (Phyllidiella nigra).

Ria found this large Polka-dot nudibranch (Jorunna funebris) with many well developed spots. Indeed this slug is a beauty.

One of the top finds of the day will be yet also another of Ria's find! This is probably a Flabellina sp. that looks similar to one of Chay Hoon's previous sighting at Sisters Island but are different in terms of their features.

It's truly fascinating to hear from Ria that she found this on top of a Garlic bread sea cucumber (Holothuria scabra)! Probably hitch-hiking in process. We have never seen this slug before.

All along, we thought that there was only one nudibranch until I reached home and realized another similar-looking slug of a much smaller size was photographed as well! Can you spot it at the bottom right hand side of this photo?

Here is a closer look at the colour pattern and arrangements of the cerata of this gorgeous nudibranch.

Last but not least, we will end this blog post with some crabby finds. I like this photo of the Swimming crabs (Thalamita sp.) with blue and green branching sponges and also a Stonefish sea cucumber (Actinopyga lecanora).

Near the reef edge, I found this rather huge crab found half hidden in a deep crevice. This was the only decent photograph that I have taken and am not sure of its identity. Ron has later shared with me that this is a Sawedged spooner (Etisus utilis) which I have seen at Semakau before.

Once again, Ria has found yet another wonderful find, this time an unknown crab that we have not seen before too. The striples near the edge of the carapace does make this crab look like a chicken pie or curry puff. Probably also because we were too hungry on the shores?! Haha.

Ron has commented that this is the Granulated Flatfoot (Platypodia granulosa). It is probably the second most poisonous crab in Singapore. Thanks for the id!

This rather docile and gentle crab has pretty brown claws and some nodular bumps on its body.

It's incredible to find new sightings on our reefs despite having visited some many of our shores several times!

Octopuses mating at Terumbu Bemban?

2011-07-24T10:45:00.008+08:00

Last Sunday, we had a 6am trip to Terumbu Bemban, a submerged reef off Pulau Semakau. As the trip started while the sky was dark and the weather is cool, many creatures can still be seen in action on the shore.

I came across a pair of octopuses with one individual stretching its only one of its arm towards another octopus (quite well camouflaged in this photo)!

The arm was stretched really long and reaches towards the other octopus.

Ria has previously shared with me that this is probably a sign of mating among octopuses. I had a quick read over some online resources and found out that the octopus' penis (called hectocotylus) is made by the male's third arm on the right and is detachable.

The male will introduce the hectocotylus into the gills' cavity of the female to deposit their sperms while the partner keeps a distance away. During the mating, the male loses its hectocotylus but will regenerate a new one for the next season. You may also read more about octopus sex here.

Interestingly, what happened next was slightly unexpected. The other octopus suddenly also stretched out one of its arm and this action seemingly chased away the first octopus. Could it be a case of mismatch where the first male octopus accidentally tried to mate with a fellow octopus of the same sex? Definitely hilarious!

Predawn trips always has its perks despite having to wake up at unearthly hours- the sunrise!

With some sunlight, it made landscape photography possible. Here is a nice shot of the dense coral reef of Terumbu Bemban.

As usual there are lots and plenty of different types of hard corals!

Many of these colonies are found lying next to each other on this crowded part of the reef. In the centre is an uncommon colony of Acropora coral (Acropora sp.).

At certain stretches, there are many mushroom corals such as the many Circular mushroom corals on the right side of this photo. The coral colony on the left is the Carnation coral (Pectinia sp.).

What a delight to spot a healthy and large colony of the Anchor coral (Family Euphyllidae).

Some species of this coral can be distinguished through the U-shaped tip of their tentacles. U sounds like Eu of Euphyllia. A good way of remembering right?

Here's some underwater shots of the hard corals near the reef edge of Terumbu Bemban. This brownish colony is the Disk coral (Turbinaria sp.).

While this pinkish colony is the Pebble coral (Astreopora sp.).

Among the Galaxy coral (Galaxea sp.), there was this pretty clam that looks like a scallop.

This Lettuce coral (Pavona sp.) is quite large and is usually only found in good reefs.

Same too for this healthy colony of the Ringed plate coral (Pachyseris sp.).

Ria showed me our first encounter of the Ringed plate coral (Pachyseris sp.) that has the shape of a lettuce-like form. Usually the Ringed plate corals that we see on our shores are rather flat and grow like a plate.

Among the tentacles of a Bulb-tentacled anemone (Entacmea quadricolor) is an extremely shy Tomato anemonefish (Amphiprion frenatus). This was the only good shot I took of the fish as it went to hide after a while.

I was glad to find the uncommon Leathery sea anemone (Heteractis crispa) that is probably also the one that Russel had found previously on this reef.

As usual, one has to be careful when threading on the shores as there are many Blue-spotted fantail rays (Taeniura lymma) around and some are buried underneath sand.

This anemone-looking creature is not a true sea anemone but a cerianthid. This is the Shy glass cerianthid that we do not often see on the reefs. Probably because they are rather transparent looking. These guys are often only encountered at night, where it wilts away into its tube in the light of a strong torch or camera flash.

I spotted this pretty but lone Feather star (Order Comatulida) and it's the first time I'm seeing it on this reef.

Ria shared with us her find of the two Black phyllid nudibranchs (Phyllidiella nigra) next to each other which apparently did not show any signs of mating.

While squatting down to look at the two nudibranchs, I happened to also spot this pretty Lined chromodoris nudibranch (Chromodoris lineolata) nearby.

Since the title of this blog post is about mating, I shall end it with another photo of mating creatures- this time the Marine spiders (Desis martensi). It's also the first time I have seen them doing it. Haha.

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/07/17/

Colugo at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

2011-07-10T15:37:00.009+08:00

If you have visited Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and read the information signboards, you should be aware that Malayan Colugos (Cynocephalus variegatus) can be found here.

As the title of this signboard suggests, one has to stop several times and stare into the wood to find the colugos. They are extremely well camouflaged!

On one of the days in June, I happened to pass by the area with James Choi and we stopped by to have a quick look to see if we can find any colugos in the hot noon. After about 15 mins of searching, I finally spotted one high up the tree trunk!

We decided to go closer and around the other side of the bark to have a better look at this really cute colugo.

Apparently, this colugo was quite shy. It turned around away from us when we drew close.

After much quiet waiting, we managed to have a good look of this fellow!

Here is a closeup at the colugo. A colugo is also known as a flying lemur though it does not fly nor it is a lemur. The colugo glides like a parachute from tree to tree using its patagium membrane. This explains the flap like structures connecting the neck, tail and their limbs.

Sooner than we wished for, the colugo turned again away from us...

And climbed higher! I guess it probably felt threatened by us. As such, we left the reserve yet feeling satisfied to fulfill our objective of finding one.

This was not my first time sighting colugo at Bukit Timah. Ron brought me here last year December and we found one as well after a long time of searching. I did not get a good shot that time though. He told me that colugos are very common at Bukit Timah and he has always at least seen one during every trip here.

Next time when you visit Bukit Timah, do look out for the colugos! :)

Underwater garden of Sentosa at Serapong

2011-07-04T20:03:00.010+08:00

For my first time, a team of us get to visit another of Sentosa's natural reef off Serapong.

This shore is very much alive and colourful, just like an underwater garden!

Among the first creatures spotted will be the stunning Red feather stars (Class Crinoidea)! Two of them are perched on a huge Barrel sponge (Xestospongia testudinaria) at the reef edge.

Later on during our exploration, we saw lots more of these feather stars clinging on to rocks and corals. Can't imagine to find so many of them at Sentosa!

Here's another pretty red feather star, this time relaxed and showing its arms extended in a clear pool of water.

I had a look at the reef around the Berhala beacon. The beacon is named as Berhala because this used be part of a small island off Serapong of Sentosa, Pulau Berhala Reping.

And wow, the shore is packed with hard corals and soft corals of different colours!

Indeed, this was really a treat for all of us who were there. The coral assemblage is indeed impressive. At times, we forgot that we were at an island so near to mainland, surrounded with so much development.

That's not all! There was an area where lots of Acropora corals (Acropora sp.). Lots is probably an understatement as the extent of the colonies is just too huge. A sight that we do not see anywhere else in our local intertidal reefs except in Raffles Lighthouse, the southernmost point of Singapore.

Here is Mei Lin in the photo to show a part of the huge spread of the Acropora corals. Acropora corals are also known as table top corals and this is quite evident today. We seldom really see huge table top structures of these hard corals intertidally in Singapore.

Did you see a black patch in the photo among the corals?

Here is a closer look at this mysterious wavy looking creature which I have not seen before. Is it a sponge or a soft coral? I wonder.

This is not a snorkeling nor diving photo. This is another view of the vast spread of Acropora corals seen intertidally today!

On the higher shores, there was a tinier colony of Acropora coral with a Face-banded coral crab (Tetralia nigrolineata) living among the branches. This crab has a bandit-like dark band across its broad face.

More hard corals seen today include lots of colonies of Anemone corals (Goniopora sp.).

Here is an assemblage of other types of hard corals taken using my DSLR camera from above water (of course).

And here is an assemblage of hard corals taken beneath water with my UW camera. The reef here is indeed stunning. It was nice to see the Mole mushroom corals (Polyphyllia sp.), Galaxy corals (Galaxea sp.), Moon coral (Diploastrea heliopora), Bracket mushroom hard coral and Carnation corals (Pectinia sp.).

There were also a few Brain corals (Family Mussidae) seen today such as this green colony.

At other parts of the shore, the reef was also packed with leathery soft corals (Family Alcyoniidae) in all sorts of shapes and colours.

Here is James with a huge leathery soft coral!

Here are many colonies of the Black-and-white leathery soft coral (Cladiella sp.). In fact, most of the leathery coral species that we see on our local waters are very much well represented on this shore.

This uncommon soft coral looking animal is probably actually not a soft coral but we currently named it as the Leathery sea fan.

Serapong reef has lots and lots of Barrel sponges (Xestospongia testudinaria)!

This photo shows an underwater barrel sponge with other hard corals of different colours. Pretty!

Enough of corals and sponges, are there mobile creatures on this shore? Yes! We saw a few types of nudibranch. For me, I only came across the Phyllid slugs such as this Phyllidiella pustolosa nudibranch.

And this purplish slug is the Phyllidieila nigra nudibranch. We sometimes call them the pimply nudibranchs because of these bumps. Haha.

Flatworms sighted included this Black spotted flatworms (Acanthozoon sp.).

And this Blue-lined flatworm (Pseudoceros sp.) that seems to be in season recently.

There were lots of fishes swimming happily in the waters though photographing them is not easy. I could managed to get good shots of a few of them. This filefish swam past me when I was squatting down and taking a photo of something else.

I came across a couple of these pretty Copperband butterflyfish (Chelmon rostratus) too!

Right at where the beacon is when it was still dark, this reef octopus emerged and remained rather motionless for me to take a nice shot.

Towards the end of the trip, Ria shared with us her find of many Magnificent anemones (Heteractis magnifica)! It was rather deep by the time I reached there. This shore is the closest to mainland Singapore where one can see these magnificient anemones. Cool right?!

And the last creature spotted on this trip would be this Dolphin shell snail (Angaria delphinus) found by Ivan from under a rock.

The rest of the team found lots of other wonderful creatures. This trip was made possible by the arrangements by Shao Wei, Xi Lin, Sheila and Sylvester. Thank you for allowing us to have a look at this pretty underwater garden! :)

A walk around Lazarus Island

2011-07-02T16:22:00.008+08:00

My first proper trip to check out the natural shores of Lazarus Island was in Feburary this year.

One of the areas that we visited previously would be the lagoon where there are quite a good number of corals and other reef creatures. The water here is quite clear too on a outgoing tide. Today, we were back and were treated to a beautiful sunrise.

Our focus was on sea anemones and one of the sea anemones that we can find on this rocky shore will be this Giant carpet anemone (Stichodactyla gigantea) stranded out of water. You can clearly see its body column with rows of pink dots near the oral disk.

There are lots of Frilly sea anemones (Phymanthus sp.) of different types and colours, both expanded in water and stranded out of water.

On the more silty side of the shore, there were a number of Cerianthids (Order Ceriantharia) which are not true sea anemones.

Some of the hard corals there are quite large such as these boulder Favid hard corals (Family Faviidae).

This large unidentified shrimp or prawn has a pair of extended pincers that are very pretty with patterns.

After a quick look at the lagoon, I decided to complete the whole "cycle" of checking Lazarus Island by walking back through the side facing St John's Island. It is my first time here. Right in front is the bridge connecting the two islands and also where a fish farm is situated.

I came across the fish farm equipment 'parked' on the shore that Ria also saw during June 2009.

Here is a closer view of the fish farm situated between St John's Island and Lazarus Island. Just about a week ago, there were news of many fish escaping from the nets of the fish farm. Fishermen flocked there and returned with "bags and bags of fish, and it was all sea bass!

I witnessed two fishermen when I was walking along the shore facing the fish farm. Usually they are situated on the bridge but today they came right down to the shore. Will this help them catch more fish?

Earlier on, I saw this huge dead fish on the shore and am unsure if this is related to the recent fish escaping event.

Focusing back on what was found on the rocky shore, I came across this Onch slug (Family Onchidiidae) with patterns on its body.

There were a couple of flatworm findings such as this Blue-lined flatworm (Pseudoceros sp.).

This is another flatworm with a yellow band in the middle.

Dr Daphne and the army were looking for Anthopleura buddemeieri in the high shores and I was flipping rocks to find this anemone. To my surprise, I came across two Cryptic sea stars (Cryptasterina sp.) together with Little African sea cucumbers (Afrocucumis africana). This is the first time we see these Cryptic sea stars outside of Pulau Semakau!

When relaxed in a pool of water, the Cryptic sea star is gorgeous looking! This particular one has a mottled coloration of blue, red and brown to help itself camouflage among the rocks. Thus, explains their name.

These stars are usually found on the underside of rocks. I later found two more around the same area.

Though I was about to declare that the shore facing St John's and the fish farm to be quite boring, the starry finds definitely changed my perception! Haha :)

Anemone hunt at Seringat-Kias

2011-07-02T15:50:00.008+08:00

It's the weekend and I'm out on the shores again with our sea anemone expert Dr Dahpne and the anemone army. Instead of looking for sea anemones on a natural shore, we headed for the reclaimed sandy shore of Seringat Kias. You are so wrong if you think that reclaimed shores are dead as life does creep back!

Indeed, we found quite a number of burrowing sea anemones in the sand! For identification purposes, we tagged the sea anemones with labels when photographing them. This will great help matching of photos with specimens back in the lab.

There are quite a good variety of sea anemones spotted during the trip.

Here is how one of the anemones look like with their body column. Don't you think it looks like a vase? Haha.

This flowery looking creature looks like a sea anemone but it is not! These are Cerianthid (Order Ceriantharia) with a small mouth. While sea anemones belong to Order Actiniaria, cerianthids are not true anemones and belong to Order Ceriantharia. The latter has an outer ring of longer tentacles and an inner ring of much shorter tentacles.

There were quite a number of these olive and black flatworms found on the seagrasses.

Here is another one found in the same habitat but is almost completely black with some speckles of white dots.

This one looks like a combination of the above two. Are these three flatworms belonging to the same species? I do not know.

The only slug without a shell I came across today would be this Ornate leaf slug (Elysia ornata).

Not too sure what this is, this bivalve has fleshy projections coming out from its mantle. Could this be a kind of Scintilla clam (Family Galeommatidae)?

This shrimp or prawn is quite large and was happily grazing among the seagrasses.

I later went over to Lazarus Island to check out the shore there if we can find any unusual sea anemones.

At the end of the the day's trip, we had a brief look at the pontoon while waiting for the boat to arrive. As usual there were lots of marine life such as sea fans and soft corals.

Here is a huge pink sea fan!

Geraldine pointed out to this unidentified crab with purple and yellow carapace. It is quite pretty!

Today is my last trip with Dr Daphne though her last trip with the others would be tomorrow.

I am grateful to Dr Daphne for her tireless effort in surveying our shores for sea anemones, working on them in the lab for identification, and also imparting so much of her vast knowledge to us through the workshop, lectures and even during casual conversations. I wonder where she gets all her energy from. Her passion is definitely an inspiration to me both as a naturalist and as a teacher. We look forward to her coming back again soon! :)

Wild dolphins of Lovina, Bali

2011-06-30T21:32:00.007+08:00

It's my first time seeing so many wild dolphins frolicking in the sea. This was one of the highlights of my Bali trip earlier this month.

This is one of my best shots of the pods of dolphins at Lovina, north of Bali. Lovina actually means I love Indonesia. And I love Lovina because of these magnificient but yet gentle dolphins.

The dolphins that we encountered were mostly the Spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris). They are known for their for acrobatic displays in which they spin longitudinally along their axis as they leap through the air. Though it is not well understood, it is possible that their spinning behavior is related to communication.

Here are another two of these spectacular dolphins. These fellows are not easy to photograph as they surface and go back into the sea very quickly.

I managed to capture this moment showing the flukes of the dolphin!

Though a picture speaks a thousand words, a video speaks an endless amount of details. Here's a clip showing the dolphins!

It takes a little bit of sacrifice to watch the dolphins. We have to wake up before sunrise in order to catch a glimpse of them as they usually would appear at such early timings in the day.

We also get to enjoy great views of the sunrise at the same time! The sky was quite clear and we were able to get many scenic shots.

However, dolphin watching in Lovina is one of the tourist attractions. Therefore, there will be many boats sailing in the waters to search for dolphins.

Nevertheless, we were actually quite fortunate that morning to see so many pods of dolphins. They seem to be unafraid of so many boats' presence and are comfortable with us getting very close to them and vice versa.

Look! More dolphins?! No.... these are snorkelers!

Yes, the boatmen also arranges of snorkeling trips to the very calm waters of Lovina. Under South Bali, the waters off North Bali are gentle and is perfect for snorkeling!

We later went to the reefs to feed fishes and with my underwater camera, I could take many photos of the fishes and the reef.

Though the tide was not low, the water was extremely clear!

We could see what lies at the sea bed from the top of our boat! Mind you, I did not snorkel or dive to take these photos.

Look, there's even a blue Linckia sea star!

I'm definitely looking forward to come back another time to watch the dolphins. And also to snorkel. Yup, we did not managed to find the time to snorkel as we had to proceed with the other itineraries. So, till next time! :)