On 11 Oct 2014, we visited Pulau Hantu to look at the beautiful reefs, of which at certain stretches are very thick and full of life! We saw several giant clams, slugs of different types, flatworms, uncommon fish etc. It's amazing to witness the diversity of marine life just right opposite the petrochemical plants of Bukom.
It's Singapore's 49th birthday and the intrepid team celebrated National Day way earlier than many others as we crawled out of our bed for a 3.30am departure to Pulau Hantu!
On 11 May 2013, a team of us visited Pulau Hantu and we saw lots of beautiful and thick growths of hard corals. The reefscape was spectacular! Special finds include the Cauliflower nudibranch (Dendrodoris tuberculosa), a Cushion star which we seldom see on the intertidal shore of Hantu and a slug / bivalve that was found on seaweed.
Today we were at Pulau Hantu with Dr Daphne Fautin to look for sea anemones!
Unlike yesterday at Cyrene Reef, the weather was very kind to us today and we began the nem hunt by looking for the Edwardsid-looking anemone that we have been seeing at Hantu's high shores.
Setting off from the pier, here we were back at Pulau Hantu again! It has been more than half a year since I've set foot on this island.
The tide was still a little high when we arrived. What caught our first attention will be a layer of floatsam ringing around the island.
It's been a long while since since I've last blogged! Work has kept me away from most trips but I'm glad to still be able to share two video taken from the Hantu trip last year. :)
We are back at Hantu to take a look at the current situation of the bleaching that has been around for the past couple of months.
Across Pulau Hantu is an island, Pulau Bukom where there are lots of petrochemical installations that are well lit at night.
This morning, a small team of us checked out Pulau Hantu to see how the reef is responding to the widespread coral bleaching in the region. We first checked the lagoon.
It's May Day! Happy labour day to everyone. Today's also my first time guiding at Pulau Hantu!
After an hour ferry ride from Marina South Pier, the participants of the walk were all excited when they set foot on this island that has an interesting legend that gives Hantu its name.
We are high at Hantu: both the tides and human beings. The tides this week haven't been that compliant so we were stuck at the lagoon tonight at Hantu. And it was high for us because there were many surprising finds!
Today's trip started off at 7pm, so it was near darkness all the while except for the petrochemical plants from Bukom just at a stone's throw away.
There is an underwater world at Pulau Hantu. During high tide, one can dive off the island to discover the rich marine life that belongs to our Singapore waters. During low tide, the intertidal area of the shore and reef is exposed where one needs not to dive to catch a glimpse of the splendid underwater world of Hantu.
Pulau Hantu is just a stone throw's away from Pulau Bukom, where oil refineries and petrochemical plants are located. Yet, we are proud as Singaporeans to tell the rest of the world that coral reefs can reside next to such developments!
I was out with the RMBR guides at Pulau Hantu at a super early 2.45am trip and one of my personal objectives is to find the giant clam(s) which I failed to find in all my previous Hantu trips.
And when I was already giving up (probably given up hope) towards the end, Eunice called out to me of her clammy find!
Wow, this is a Burrowing Giant Clam (Tridacna crocea)! Tridacna crocea also has many other common names, including the boring clam, crocus clam, crocea clam or saffron-coloured clam.
This species can burrow into rocks or corals by using their ridges of its thick shell to dig into the substrate by opening and closing quickly through the use of its byssal muscles. At 10-15cm, it is the smallest of the giant clams. Therefore, their burrowing behavior can help this small giant clam species to protect itself from predators such as sea stars and butterflyfishes.
The Burrowing Giant Clam relies heavily on the photosynthesis of the algae growing in its mantle which is brown in colour. They seem to have wavy 'lips' at the opening edge of the bivalve shell where the mantle lies.
Giant clams are known to have eye-spots at the edge of its mantle but I am not too sure if the brown dots here are the eye-spots. Maybe Mei Lin can help me clarify this.
Giant clams have often been overfished and the burrowing giant clam is listed among the threatened animals of Singapore, due to over-collection. This partly explains why we do not see them often in our shores on top of probably they are well camouflaged out of water. This is only my second time seeing this species in the wild. My first was at Raffles Lighthouse last year.
More Hantu-ey finds of the day to be posted soon when I catch up with my lost sleeps and time. Watch out for this space!
It's another predawn morning and a gang of die-hard shore explorers proceeded with the trip to Pulau Hantu while bad weather were happening at many locations of Singapore.
Thankfully, we are fortunately blessed with good weather, so much that we can see constellations of stars on one end of the sky!
Wow, is this the stars that I was describing to you from the sky above Hantu? No no no... The "starry" spots on the black background belongs to...
This marine flatworm that looks almost totally black from the top! It is something totally new to me as I've never seen such a flatworm before.
What is more fascinating of these "starry" spots on the surface of this seemingly black boring plain flatworm is that the spots come in an assortment of different colours, i.e. purple, yellow, green, blue, pink, brown and the list of colours goes on! I only found this out when I zoomed in photographs taken of this critter. Isn't God's creation wonderful, down to the details?
Talking about being colourful, the reefs at Hantu are filled with colours, with different types of marine sponges thriving together. Here we can see three species of sponges with tiny brittlestars living within the brown one.
During the predawn, the animals are usually having a party at the reefs. Fishes are swimming everywhere. Even when I was taking a photograph of this anemone coral (Goniopora sp.), a Tropical silverside (Atherinomorus duodecimalis) also swam past.
There are many different hard corals that one can find at Hantu's reef including the Acropora coral (Acropora sp.).
Even within or between the coral colony, there are living creatures like the tiny coral scallops!
There are also other coral species with coral scallops in between. This coral is probably the Carnation corals (Pectinia sp.).
I am not too sure what is this greenish branching-looking coral colony but it probably is the Branching pore coral (Porites sp.).
This type of disk coral is particularly pretty as compared to the more commonly found ones and this is probably the Encrusting disk coral (Turbinaria sp.).
Hantu is a nice place to spot mushroom corals like this Mole mushroom hard coral (Polyphyllia talpina).
Another longish mushroom coral will be this Tongue mushroom hard coral (Herpolitha sp.). Strangely, I didn't encounter any of the Circular mushroom hard coral but it was a relief that the others did saw them around the reef.
So much for the corals! Now the reef associates :-)
Today's there are really many red feather stars! Every few steps, we will encounter them.
Geraldine even found one above the leathery soft coral!
Despite the abundance of the red feather star, I also saw one black feather star.
And another in beige and brown colour.
This creature is no feather star and is much bigger than the feather star (around 30cm in diameter). This scary looking creature is a rare sea anemone called the Haekel's anemone (Actinostephanus haekeli).
The tentacles are studded with bumps. In fact, Ria saw that one of its tentacle was position at the mouth of the anemone. What is happening? Is it feeding on its own tentacle.... it sure looks evil. :P
Another anemone, but a much way smaller one, will be this Shy glass peacock anemone that I have took notice for the first time too. This peacock is easily overlooked because it is near transparent.
While I was slowly threading within the thickly covered reef, I spotted this Long-spined black sea urchin (Diadema sp.) which I have not seen for a while already.
Though the spines looks real dangerous, it actually only feeds on seaweed, grazing these from dead corals or rubble areas. It may also trap tiny suspended food particles with its long spines, transferring these to the mouth with tube feet.
Another echinoderm that can be found at Southern shore reefs will be this Stonefish sea cucumber (Actinopyga lecanora). The common name is as such because it looks like a smooth stone when disturbed; bloating up into a rounded, smooth shape and retracting its tube feet. However, when relaxed, the animal can be quite long and thin.
Geraldine later spotted this pretty spider conch (Lambis lambis). At first, she wasn't sure what it was since it is usually well camouflaged from the top. Only when you turn it around, you can see the pretty pinkish and white shell interior.
Ah huh! I caught this Blue swimming crab (Thalamita sp.) red handed eating on this venus clam. Janette has recently also started a blog and shared with us her two finds of the mosaic crab feeding (with literally its red pincers aka "red handed") on the common sea star and a sea urchin! It is called Nature calls. :-)
There were a couple of cool fishy finds like this tiny Longspined scorpionfish (Paracentropogon longispinis) which is small and well camouflaged. Even Geraldine also didn't see it when I pointed it to her. She thought I was showing her seaweed.
A much larger fish that I also found will be this one that I don't know what is it. But the stripes on its fins are very beautiful!
The remaining time of the Hantu exploration was spent within the lagoon itself.
And I spotted yet another mushroom coral, this one is the Sunflower mushroom hard coral (Heliofungia actiniformis). Their thick cylindrical tentacles looks like thick noodles. Haha!
Surprisingly, I saw this Thorny sea cucumber (Colochirus quadrangularis) which is rarely sighted at the Southern shores, though very common in the north.
There are many carpet anemones around the lagoon and this particular Giant carpet anemone (Stichodactyla gigantea) has a stranded False clown anemonefish (Amphiprion ocellaris).We later gently help the anemonefish back into the anemone with seawater.
And just before we had to leave, was a climax of the day.
I found this Spotted-tail frogfish (Lophiocharon trisignatus) at the tape seagrass! Often well sought after with divers, they can be also found at our intertidal shores of Singapore! And I particular like this frogfish in really cool lime green colour. 
If you look closely, the frogfish has a bait or a lure at the top of the head to attract prey within striking distance. It is capable of 'sucking' small fishes into its huge mouth simply by opening it.
Wow, that was a great Hantu predawn trip exploring one of the best accessible reefs in Singapore. Great that we avoided the thunderstorm again..! :-) Can't wait to return to Hantu again.
