Soft sediment creatures of Tuas

Here is the third post on my Tuesday Tuas shore trip. Previously, I have blogged about the gorgeous gorgonians and also the lively coral reef and coral rubble creatures around Merawang Beacon.


Another habitat of Tuas will be the soft sediment shore that has seagrasses and algae cover. Despite being located beside Schering Plough, the shore is well monitored and looked after. Team Seagrassers from Schering Plough do monitor the seagrasses there regularly.


There was a proliferation of the Halimeda seaweed at the soft sediment habitat of Tuas and that supports a number of creatures.


Like the Thorny sea cucumbers (Colochirus quadrangularis) in red (left). There are also the Black long sea cucumber (Holothuria leucospilota) which is less frequently found here compared to the coral rubble.


Like the coral rubble, there are also mats of zoanthids that dotted the shore.


The first record of the plain sand star (Astropecten indicus) at the Tuas shore! All of the previous sightings were only the painted ones (Astropecten sp.). These sand stars seems to be restricted to shores bounded by the Straits of Johor...hmm.


I found this elegant looking Glass anemone (Doflenia sp.). Unfortunately, I didn't get a good capture of this pretty anemone, see Ria's post for a nicer photo :-)


The Nparks team sighted this Spearer mantis shrimp (Harpiosquilla sp.) which is colourful with shades of blue, yellow and green.

Armed with sharp spines, the pincers extend and retract much faster than an eye blink and the sharp spines impale soft, fast-moving prey like fish and prawns.


Hiding near a rock crevice is a hairy crab (Family Pilumnidae). They are usually found at southern shores so I think it's my first time seeing them at northern shores.

I do feel that Tuas shore is like a combination of the northern shores and southern shores to a certain extent because there is a good mix of coral reef and soft sediment creatures.


An Estuarine sea horse (Hippocampus kuda) was sighted among the Halimeda seaweeds! It's always a special find to sight the charming sea horse.


Also found among the hard Halimeda seagrass is Diamond tuskfish (Halichoeres dussumieri/nigrescens). We later brought this distressed wrass back to a tidal pool. We were careful in handling this fish has sharp teeth and can give a nasty bite!


Free from poaching pressures, the shore was dotted with numerous gong gongs (Strombus canarium)!


On top of peacock anemones which I didn't found time to photograph, there are also huge Haddon's carpet anemones (Stichodactyla haddoni).

Soon I found something special which has been also sighted before by Samson the last trip.


Despite the numerous common Cake sand dollar (Arachnoides placenta), there shore also is home to the much rarer Laganum sand dollar (Laganum depressum) which I definitely preferred more.


If I'm not wrong, these are the yellow horned sponge which are not common at other shores except Tuas.

Now it is time for corals! Both hard and soft.


We have the ever resilient Zebra coral (Oulastrea crispata) that can be found even at the most beat up shore.


There is also the larger colony of boulder coral (Porites sp.) submerged at the deeper levels of the shore.

How about the softies?


I saw this leathery soft coral that looks quite different from the smoother surfaced encountered at our southern shores.


The colony is usually thick, disk-like with a highly ruffled edge. In some, there are many bulbous or short finger-like projections. A check with the wildfacts page revealed that this is the starry leathery soft coral.


Soft corals are aplentiful especially for the Spiky flowery soft corals. They are very common only at Tuas and the spikey soft coral do house a lot of different tiny creatures. Only if I have all the time of the low tide to look closely at them. :-)


It was a treat to have many of the Ball flowery soft corals at Tuas. They are usually numerous only at remote shores like Beting Bronok. Don't you think they look like cauliflower?


The soft coral was a great hiding place and there was a tiny colourful brittlestar just within it!


Sometimes they can be rather colourful with stunning red colours.


More of these cute little ball-like soft corals.


Last but definitely not the least, a special find by Ria. A Melibe nudibranch (Melibe viridis)!


The melibe is a large nudibranch that has an expandable hood which it uses to trap small prey.


There's just so much in this narrow stretch of shore that escaped reclamation! The trip ended with a glorious sunset and a terrible thunderstorm.

How can both sunset and thunderstorm come together? Find out why in my upcoming last post of the Tuas series of blog posts. I will share with you some nice landscape photos of this lovely shore.

Lively Merawang beacon

Just off the coast of Tuas is Merawang beacon that stands on a rocky outcrop.


As I have always said in many blog posts, do not judge a book by its cover. Never think that the rocky outcrop is lifeless and boring by just looking from afar until you go and take a closer look yourself.


For the first time, I got to touch the towering beacon after wading in deep waters to get there.


Just near the base of the beacon are different kinds of barnacles, a first sign of life.


At the coral rubble surrounding the beacon are huge mats of zoanthids (Palythoa tuberculosa).

Tuas is well known to have plenty of hydroids (Class Hydrozoa) which we do not really know of its detailed indentification. They can inflict painful burning stings which takes a long time to recover. Therefore, it is important to be fully covered with long pants.


This looks like the fluffy hydroids.


This one looks like the stinging hydroids.


And this pretty pink one looks like the candy hydroids.


Interestingly, there a Green mussel (Perna viridis) stuck on a mat of Melted chocolate ascidian.


Also on the ascidian are many Sponge synaptid sea cucumber. They are small and numerous!


Another sea cucumber, this is the much bigger Black long sea cucumber (Holothuria leucospilota) that is quite common at the coral rubble area. They tend to be close or underneath rocks.


Feathery fan worms are aplenty too! There are both the orange and banded brown ones on the coral rubble.


If there is a hard substrate, sponges will not be a miss unless the shore is really atrocious. There are many weird looking sponges including this one. Probably we will get a better idea when Swee Cheng's sponge guidebook is released in the future.


Beside this blue sponge is this cute little thumbs up sea squirt (Polycarpa sp.) which indeed squirted water when I was observing it.

Most part of the coral rubble area was submerged but a view from the top reveals it simply like an underwater colourful garden full of sponges, soft corals, sponges, hard corals, sea fans etc.


And I was surprised to find this branching sponge that is as big as a potential sea fan. It is stunning. You can also see the soft coral (in brown) beside the sponge.


A closer look at this gigantic sponge reveals that it is a great hiding place for animals like the brittlestar. Can you spot it?

Unlike northern shores like Changi or Pasir Ris, there are many hard corals over at Tuas.


Like this magnificient disk coral (Turbinaria sp.). It does look like a disk from its shape.


This is another disk coral that is larger and in a greenish-grey shade.


A hard coral is a colony of many individual polyps. Each polyp is an animal and they are each very beautiful.


When submerged underwater, the tentacles are fully extended outwards and it looks really lively!

How about soft corals?


Soft corals are aplenty at the coral rubble as well like this pretty Pink flowery soft coral (Family Nephtheidae). Out of water it looks flaccid and rather lifeless.


But when submerged they look stunning, making the underwater coral reef garden more colourful!


As you noticed in this post, most animals spotted are immobile but I still managed to spot this Ornate leaf slug (Elysia ornata) crawling underwater.

The coral rubble and reef area surrounding Merawang Beacon is so exciting! Rarely can you find a mainland shore that is as stunning as this. Probably because this shore is protected from public access and therefore the reef animals and plants can thrive.

The Tuas shore also has other habitats like the soft sediment part of the shore which I will blog about it soon. Watch out for this space!

Gorgeous gorgonians of Tuas

Finally back at Tuas! After a two year wait, I could finally take a look at Tuas again and this is made possible by Sheryl and Helen of Schering Plough. Thanks to Ria for bringing me along for this trip.

My previous visit was during Feb 2007 where I didn't have my own camera but burrowed a camera with died out battery at that time. The tide was quite high at that time and it was not possible to cross the sea to get to the side of the Merawang beacon where the corals and gorgonians (Order Gorgonacea) can be found.

However the two year wait was worth it!


After wading in seawater full of hydroids up till upper thigh level, I finally set foot on the rocky coral rubble at the Merawang beacon! Welcoming me is this really pretty sea fan.


This huge pink sea fan is the biggest sea fan I've ever seen and it is really gorgeous!


I attempted to take an underwater shot because most sea fans are at a perpetual state of being submerged. With the crashing waves and stirred up sediments, it was really hard to take photographs above water.

If you look closely, you can observe the sea fan, you can individual polyps. The whole sea fan is a colony of polyps, it belongs to the same phylum as corals and anemones. It is suggested that sea fan polyps have few or weak stinging cells and feed on particles tinier than zooplankton.

More wild facts of the sea fans here!


A last look at this pretty sea fan before I move on to explore other parts of this rich area.

All the below photographs were taken underwater, thus they look like photographs from a diving trip though I did not swim or dive. That's the cool thing about intertidal trips.


Other than that large sea fan, there are many other smaller ones submerged like this yellow colour sea fan. Gorgonian colonies usually take on branching forms, but the branching is only along one plane. Just as flat as a sheet of paper and not like a bush.


I adore this stunning red sea fan!


And you can see the individual polyps in white studded on the branching colonies of this red sea fan.


I also came across some sea fans like this orange sea fan that have their tips covered with sediments or epiphytes. Not sure if it is a good thing or not.


Here is another orange coloured sea fan.


Sea fans are known to carry or inhabit other creatures like tunicates, barnacles, clams, snails (such as the ovulids), tiny shrimps, brittle stars, hermit crabs and gobies according to the Wildfacts page. This one had a thorny sea cucumber (Colochirus quadrangularis) on it! And interestingly, this thorny sea cucumber has a red blob on its pinkish body. How weird.

Suddenly, one of the Nparks friends called me and asked me what is the thing that look like a white rope.


When I went over, this was what I saw in the deep murky waters. It is a sea whip! It's my first sea whip encounter! And it is really like a white rope as it is thick.


Submerging my camera, I realized there are about four sea whips (two in this photo) around that area.


A closer look at this gorgonian reveals bumps on its cylindrical stem. Each bump should house an individual polyp which is not apparent here.

I love gorgonians and I don't know if you love them too for their beauty. However, gorgonians are becoming rarer to find in Singapore's intertidal shores after the wipeout at East Coast and flood over Beting Bronok. Changi still have gorgonians in deeper waters but it is not commonly seen. Perhaps one day we will only have to dive to see them if all the shores are one by one gone for coastal development.

I am so glad Schering Plough adopted this precious shore that was left untouched from reclamation. There's so much at Tuas that I've seen today and it will take a whole day to post everything at one go. I will think that separating in different posts will make my job easier and make the post more readable. Watch out this blog over the days for more posts on this fantastic shore.