On 29 Oct, 2015, we visited Tanjong Rimau, Sentosa. It's been two years since I last explored this shore. The waters off Rimau has always been surprisingly clear despite its proximity to mainland. This allowed me to take several lovely underwater shots. We ended the trip with a sighting of the rare Smooth-eyed ghost crab (Ocypode cordimanus). My first time seeing it!
After a two-years hiatus, we are finally back at the special reefs of Serapong which is located at Northern Sentosa.
On 1 May 2013, Ron, Agnes and I visited the natural shores of Tanjong Rimau and we saw several interesting critters such as flatworms, crabs, a chiton, pygmy squid and also hard and soft corals. We also crossed over to the reclaimed shores off Siloso Beach and came across marine life encrusted by the side of the pontoon as well as common sea stars on the sandy shore.
As usual, I was on my usual rounds of looking high and low for the elusive
Galloping sea star (Stellaster equestris) on the Sentosa shore.
I'm excited to be back at Serapong, a special reef of Sentosa, after about close to a year since our last visit!
Chay Hoon spotted a juvenile Hollow-cheeked stonefish (Synanceia horrida) on our trip to Sentosa shore last Saturday!
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!
I was back at Sentosa's Tanjong Rimau last Wednesday with my colleagues recceing the shore for student visit in the future. And it was also their first time there! :)
As tide was a bit high and the rain was drizzling, we spent most of our time at the high shore and rocky area. Tanjong Rimau is home to magnificent coastal cliffs and landforms. A great place for both living biology and geography lessons to take place.
After Chay Hoon's first sighting of the charming Galloping sea star (Stellaster equestris) and the subsequent finding of yet another one by Ron at Sentosa, my every trip now to Sentosa is strongly driven towards the mission to find this elusive star. Furthermore, I have never seen this sea star before. :(
Thus, here I am back at Sentosa! It was nice to be blessed with clear weather as it was raining the whole day. Thank God for that. We were treated to a nice evening sunset in the form of pinkish glows in the sky.
It's the last morning tide trip before the lower low spring tide switches to evening. Which means no need to wake up at unearthly hours until March next year! :-)
Together with Allen, Shuyi and Joo Yong, we had a good look at Sentosa's natural shore and reef. There are 3 objectives in this trip. First is to recce the shore for future field trips with students, second is to check out the bleaching event and third is the mission to find the elusive Galloping sea star which has been sighted twice by Chay Hoon and Ron!
I would say there are about 70-80% of the corals that are unbleached. Most of the bleached corals are only partially bleached like this hard coral above. It is possible that this hard coral is recovering through zooxanthallae restoration back to the coral.
On Saturday, I was out at Tanjong Rimau, Sentosa with NIE friends to look at the area for our field trip project. It was their first time on our shores so I was excited to share our marine habitats with them.
The soft coral can get quite big and here is a group photo of Dominique, Janet and Xinyi with the coral.
Today I was out at Sentosa with a small group of friends from NIE. We are there for our field trip project for a Biology class. I'm quite exhausted today, so will only blog the exciting find first.
As usual, I was flipping rocks to look for creatures underneath and I saw a number of the usual cowries.
It was until later that I flipped yet another rock and found this cowrie-looking snail. At first glance when it was out of water with its mantle fully covered, I really thought it was a cowrie.
I'm back to Sentosa! And this time we are off to explore a long stretch of this rocky shore which is definitely coupled with a good "foot reflexology course".
With the charming natural coastal cliff at the background, my attention yesterday evening was mainly focused on the underside of rocks and among the bloom of Hairy green seaweed (Bryopsis sp.).
After a quick look at the Siloso islet just nearby, I decided to also spend the remaining time of the shore time over at Tanjong Rimau.
Tanjong Rimau is probably the last remaining natural reefs off Sentosa. Extensive reefs used to cover most part of Sentosa until they were buried or reclaimed for development. Just during 2007, The northern reefs off Sentosa North were buried for the Integrated Resort. I am nevertheless thankful that all is not lost where ordinary Singaporeans can still visit Tanjong Rimau to experience the true underwater world in the wild and natural setting.
Tanjong Rimau is considered my first love but it's the first shore I visited during low tide in 2006 that spurred me the interest in marine biology and our shores of Singapore. I remember my first visit was for a Sentosa Seagrass Transect in 2006 where I was blown away with the variety of fabulous marine life found.
So much of reminiscing the past, today I met Abby and her friends on the shore! It's so cool to be out on the shores because I might just bump into people I know.
The waters at the reef look clear with no signs of oil spill. Marine life looks good as usual!
There were quite a number of crabby finds like this Red egg crab (Atergatis integerrimus). Though they are red like chilli crab, red egg crabs are poisonous to eat where their toxins are not destroyed by cooking.
Talking about being poisonous, no other crab in Singapore compares to the Mosaic reef crab (Lophozozymus pictor) because it is the most poisonous crab of Singapore! There were several documented deaths caused by eating this crab.
How about crabs that are not red? I'm sorry but colour is not a good indication of the levels of poison. This Brown egg crab (Atergatis floridus), like other Xanthid crabs, is poisonous and should also not be eaten.
Moral of the story, don't just eat anything you pick up from the shore!
There were a couple of nudibranchs found including this commonly sighted Polka-dot nudibranch (Jorunna funebris) that one won't get bored looking at it because it is just so cute.
Abby and friends found this special Phyllodesmium briareum nudibranch (about 1cm only) that we have only seen it intertidally at Sentosa. Its feeds on soft corals.
What is special about this nudibranch is that addition to feeding on soft corals, it has a symbiotic relationship with zooxanthellae (brown algae) within the skin of its body to make food. Thus, this slug can also be considered as 'solar powered' and can receive extra nutrition from the photosynthetic products.
While Geraldine and I were looking at a mosaic reef crab, the crab suddenly went underneath a rock to hide and "chased" out a Three-spined toadfish (Batrachomoeus trispinosus)!
Though somethings known for being ugly, I find its face quite cute to look at.
Tanjong Rimau is a good place to find hard corals!
Iwas searching for mushroom corals and my wish was granted when I saw this Mole mushroom hard coral (Polyphyllia talpina).
Of course, there are many different species of Favid hard corals (Family Faviidae) found at the reef in all sorts of pretty patterns.
Other hard corals spotted include the anemone corals (Goniopora sp.) at the top two photos. The bottom left photo is a pretty Brain coral (Family Mussidae) and the bottom right photo shows a Thin Disk corals (Turbinaria sp.).
There are also a good variety of soft corals at Tanjong Rimau like this Leathery coral (Family Alcyoniidae).
I found this colony of soft coral that I don't know of its identification.
And of course there is the stunning Omelette leathery coral at Rimau which gains the liking of visitors quite easily during Naked Hermit Crab Sentosa guided walks.
We walked up towards the beacon side and was relieved the pool of zoanthids are still doing alright.
Within the rock pool of zoanthids, there are also pretty banded fan worm.
The gang with me today were quite adventurous and gamely explored the area around the beacon. The terrain was rocky and was nevertheless a good massage for our soles.
The sky lit up with blue skies and when the sun shone unto the shore, it was a pleasant sight to see clear waters against the blue blue sea. Labrador Park is just across Rimau!
At Rimau, there are spectacular and breathtaking views of natural cliff formations. Unfortunately, not many know of such a natural beauty at the touristy island of Sentosa.
By the rocks on the high shores are many different kinds of Nerite snails (Family Neritidae).
There were sand banks as well which is full of life! There were several Cake sand dollars (Arachnoides placenta) crawling around.
And I am glad to also find some Common sea stars (Archaster typicus) as well!
Soon it was time to say goodbye to this lovely stretch of natural shore!
After hearing so much about the marine life at the artifical islet opposite Siloso beach from Ivan at his Lazy Lizard's Tales blog with his latest two posts of his trip there last Sunday here and here, I have been sort of convinced that reclaimed shores can still be worth a visit if left untouched for recruitment of marine life.
With a glorious sunrise, a gang of friends reach Siloso Beach, eager to check out this new shore.
It is amazing to find an wide assortment of soft corals growing by the sides of the bridge that leads to the islet off Siloso Beach.
Most of them are Flowery soft corals from the Family Nephtheidae. They can come in a variety of colours and that some of them harbour microscopic, single-celled symbiotic algae within their bodies. The algae undergo photosynthesis to produce food from sunlight.
This pinkish red flowery soft coral was found at the deeper waters.
Also attached by the side of the bridge will be this thumbs up sea squirt (Polycarpa sp.).
How about hard corals? Surprising I also found a couple of hard colonies at the deeper waters like this faviid coral.
A surprise for me will be two colonies of this Carnation coral (Pectinia sp.)!
By the side of the islet are rocky boulders. Beneath these rocks, one can also find living creatures like this colony of zoanthids.
By the side of the rocks, there are many snails like this pair of Toothed top shell snail (Monodonta labio). Monodonta means 'one-toothed'. Can you see the pointy single large tooth-shaped structure at the shell opening?
More snails spotted by the rocks include this Spiny drill that has a thick shell with blunt spines.
There are also several conchs on the sandy area. Like this Gong-gong or Pearl conch (Strombus canarium).
Another conch species that can be quite commonly found will be this rarer Black-lipped conch (Strombus urceus). It is named this way because of the black lips at the shell opening.
Such sandy and silty shore is usually home to many snails, out of which some are weird or unfamiliar looking. I chanced upon the shell of this dead cowrie on the high shores. It has a very nice pink shell! I wonder what species is this cowrie.
Another dead creature is this pink and purplish small crab that I also do not what is it.
But there are also alive crabs scurrying about on the shores. This Spotted moon crab (Ashtoret lunaris) is just so active in running about and burrowing into sand so quickly that it requires a quick reactiom to photograph this elusive crab.
Talking about crabs, there was a surprise find by Ze Lin. This is a juvenile horseshoe crab where its tail has yet to be grown out. But it's just so cute, because it is only about 1cm in diameter!! We have saw such a small horseshoe crab in Pasir Ris before. Pls note that horseshoe crabs are not true crabs, they are more related to spiders instead.
Another surprise will be the find of this Polka-dot nudibranch (Jorunna funebris). When I first found it, it was stuck on a dry rock and looks stressed out. I quickly put it in the water for it to recover from dessication.
Though Ivan said there was a huge colony of Common sea stars (Archaster typicus) at the islet, I was pacing up and down the whole shore but can't find it!
And when I was about to give up and proceed to another shore, I finally saw a colony of them! They are well camouflaged but once we saw it, the rest of the colony suddenly just "popped" into our sight. Bravo to find them!
It is heartening that many of them are mating! More stars to come!
The top special find of the day will be a rare sand dollar.
I didn't expect to find the rare Laganum sand dollar (Laganum depressum) in this artifical islet. So I was pleasantly surprise to find one of this sand dollar though I couldn't find more of it.
The underside is slightly purplish black in colour.
There was an oil spill during 1st May and I was worried if our marine life were affected. The beach still has some black stains which may probably be the remains of the spill. I'm glad that we could still find marine creatures still living on the islet.
In order to check the conditions of the natural reefs at Tanjong Rimau after the spill, we quickly later went over to take a look at the shore. More about the second part of the trip to Rimau here.
