Baby Nemo and fishes of Cyrene Reef

When morning dawns, shore explorers were back at Cyrene Reef once again. And we are again treated to a spectacular sunrise.


Sometimes, being in a middle of the busy shipping lane and also beside the refineries at Pulau Bukom, we wonder how resilient nature can be.


Allowing Cyrene Reef to coexist with very nearby developments. This is fascinating and it proves to show that we can have rich biodiversity admist all the development. It is something we should be proud of!


A pair of great crested terns flew near me and rested. One of them was actually swallowing a fish caught from the tidal pool.


No matter how many or often I see them (only at Cyrene), I will still not have a knobby-overdose. These knobby sea stars are indeed charismatic.


And they are ultra super cute when they are in juvenile stage like these three knobblies.


Sea stars is an echinoderm and same for this sea cucumber. We sometimes term it as sandfish, sometimes term as garlic bread sea cucumber. This is also the one you eat during CNY, but it requires processing.


Another sea cucumber, this one can eject white sticky threads when threatened.


This shrimp has greyish-green eyes and is red in colour.


I came across a tiny gigantea carpet anemone and therefore only expected to find anemone shrimps but not nemo.


But to my very surprise, something orange poped out from the tentacles of the small Gigantea anemone. It's a nemo! And a very tiny one, about 3-5mm. Compare the size of the nemo to the tip of the seagrass.


It's exciting to see such a baby nemo in the wild for the first time.


This video, other than showing you how nemos live with their host anemones, also allows you to compare its minute size with the nearby anemone shrimps.


I went to check out another Gigantea anemone, the bigger one found several times before. The two resident adult nemos are still there and this is one of them.


Like Chek Jawa and northern shores, Cyrene Reef has many beautiful peacock anemones.


This one also looks flowery, it is a feather star!


Another perspective of the same featherstar when relaxed. They are related to sea stars and are echinoderms.


Some Nparks personnel were seine netting for seahorses on behalf for Collin at one of the deeper tidal pool.


This is how it is done.


Many many fishes were uncovered in the process!


After a quick count check, we released the fishies back into the pool. How many fish can you spot in this photo?

No prizes though. Haha.


This fish is a first time for many of us. Though its elongated shape looks more like a pipefish, it is actually a Bearded filefish (Anacanthus barbatus).


This then is the pipefish, which is closely related to seahorses.


While this is the usual kind of filefish we usually saw before.


Another filefish from the seine netting.


This sharp long twig looking thing is actually a fish.


Yes its a razor fish that we usually see at Hantu.

Much more about the above fishes at Ria's Wildfilms blog. That's why my descriptions are short.

Again, homosapiens are as interesting at times.


Like Vyna who sportingly wore a t-shirt with a yellow star while Shufen (with the self-indulged looking expressed...laughs out loud) can't wait to also be like Vyna.


Another interesting homosapien is Yuchen doing coastal cleanup at Cyrene with a broom that looks like that used by witches.


Ok lah, actually this is one of the more interesting marine debris found by Ria at first.

Juanhui spotted a very interesting "biscuit-looking" sea star with orange tips where Marcus has the photo at flickr.

Vyna, Jerald and Yuchen spotted beautiful nudibranchs that I've not seen before.

How I wish I could check them out too. But its glad we know new stuffs appear at Cyrene and its never boring to visit this special reef we have.