Pulau Semakau: Echinoderm Hunting : Tuesday, 22 April 2008

:: Ria invited us on a trip to Pulau Semakau on Tuesday, in the wee hours of the morning, with Dr Lane, the expert in Echinoderms (sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers etc) to look for echinoderms on our shores. We were tasked to find uncommon echinoderms but it was the usual suspects that we found (at times, we were distracted by other things..Semakau has that effect on you)::

:: Us intrepid volunteers making our way to Semakau ::


:: Our first knobbly sea star (Protoreaster nodosus) spotted by myself. And it is rather huge ::


:: SiJie, Vyna and I were walking and we saw this fish. Its a flat head or a crocodile fish. We thought it was dead ::


:: Chanced upon this rather large flat worm ::


:: Dawn slowly approaches ::


:: Another knobbly sea star, this one found by Marcus. And right beside it was a sea cucumber which had its innards split open. We reckon that some fisherman came by and were collecting these benign creatures and this unfortunate fellow fell out. Such a bloody waste! ::


:: A mushroom coral (Heliofungia actiniformis). It is not a sea anemone::




:: Lucky for us the ominous rain clouds stayed above mainland Singapore. And those, my friends, are the petrochemical industries that make our country rich..but at what price? ::


:: Good Lord! Some moronic fisherman left his brain behind! Actually its a brain coral (Family Mussidae).::


:: Contrary to what some people think (ha!), I spotted this chunky Sandfish sea cucumber (Holothuria scabra) first, then realised that there were two mating nudibranchs on top of it. They are Chromodoris lineolata ::


:: Nearby, I spotted a polka-dotted nudibranch (Jorunna funebris) and right beside it, another pair of Chromodoris lineolata mating. Gee, at least some creatures are having wanton sex. ::


:: Hard and soft corals. Semakau is rich in coral species, as you can see ::


:: This stunning peacock anemone reminds me of its flora name sake: the french anemone ::


:: This is a type of nudibranch: the black phyllid ::


:: A synaptid sea cucumber curled around these bulbous sponges ::


:: Robin taking a shot of a sea cucumber, while a pulsating jellyfish swims by ::


:: My favourite neon pink sponges ::


:: Nope, didn't see any Nemos or shrimps under this sea anemone (Stichodactyla sp.) ::


:: A gorgeous flat worm. Looks likes its in PJs ::


:: i thought this sponges were rather interesting looking. Like 3 aliens or like an art piece that one might find at the Venice Binnale. Or like that tourist attraction in Blue Mountains, Sydney Australia, the 3 Sisters::

:: After a long morning, we took the fast craft back to mainland and it was time for Vyna, Helen and myself to open the Team Seagrass booth at Singapore Polytechnic's G-pop event, in celebration of Earth Day! ::


:: Helen getting SOME interest from someone .... ::


:: ...and girls from Hwa Chong Junior Collage, with our cool new stickers, designed by Siti.::



:: Our booth was by far the most informative, fun and exciting one at the event. We had a baby dugong (whom I named Bruce) on loan from the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity, thanks to Sijie .(Okay, I am biased)::


:: A close up of poor baby bruce. Baby Bruce was found inside his mother, whom died either from a fish net strangulation or was bludgeoned to death by boat propellers. Yes, she was found on Pulau Ubin ::

:: Tomorrow we get to go to Cyrene reef with Dr Lane and everyone else again! Woot! ::

Go wild on a landfill: Pulau Semakau: 20 Feb 2008

:: It was a great day to be away from the insanity of concrete hive. Clear blue skies, gusty breezes beckon on Singapore's only landfill, Pulau Semakau. So while poor Charmaine has chewed her fingers to stumps due to the Singapore Fashion Festival 2008 press conference at Victoria Theatre, I made my obligatory appearance there, left, and met up with Kenerf to head to Marina Pier to get on the boat to Semakau with the other TeamSeagrassers. ::

::From afar, the concrete jungle. ::

:: My 2nd time on the island. My first can be found here and here. This time round, I teamed up with Ria (again) and we were given the ardous task of monitoring with a "botak", whistling quadrant (above) at Site 3. Under Ria's stewardship, I learn how to ID more species of sea grasses, namely the Sickle seagrass (thalassia), Needle seagrass (halodule uninervis) and Ribbon seagrass (cymodocea rotundata). Read more of our ordeal here. ::

:: The tides was still relatively high as we arrived rather early so we decided to head of to explore other bits of Semakau like the mangrove area. ::

:: Left: A lone mangrove sapling on the mudflat. Right: Telescope creeper snail (Telescopium telescopium). ::

:: Decided to stalk the sandbar and found these fiddler crabs. Right: The male fiddler owns a bigger and brighter claw to attract the attention of a female crab (left) by waving it around in the air. And the bigger and brighter the crab's appendage, the higher the chance he gets to fertilise her eggs. So really, you can say that female fiddler crabs are size queens. ::

:: After monitoring, we went to explore the coral rubble area. We stubbled upon this giant anemone (stichodactyla gigantea), and there was bivalve of sorts growing besides it. ::

:: Up close look of the anemone's tentacles and mouth/anus. ::

:: A noble volute (cymbiola nobilis) laying eggs. This pretty snail has fascinating markings on its shell, as if a drunk, in a moment of inspiration, decided to paint mountains with a chinese paint brush on the shell. The volute has a striking vermillion & black foot. ::

:: Loads of fan worms in the shimmering rock pools.::

:: Found this flatworm. It does look like a nudibranch at first. Many flat worms mimic nudibranch as most species of nudibranchs are poisonous, flat worms benefit from this mistaken identity and gets to live another day ::

:: The polka-dotted nudibranch (Jorunna funebris) Ria spotted a pair mating!.::

:: A spider conch (lambi lambis)! Have always wanted to see one. Its comical beady eyes looks like something out of an alien movie. Its rather rare in Singapore waters as it used to be eaten and probably is still consumed in other countries. ::

:: Colonial anemones or zoanthids. After Kusu Island, I grew rather fond of them cause they are so pretty and unassuming. The one on the right looks like a bouquet of daisies as its tentacles come out to feed. ::

:: Flowery soft coral, hard corals, dead men's fingers, mushroom...so many of them on Semakau...would you believe this is a landfill. In fact, there are still areas of Semakau waiting to be explored. ::

:: A shocking pink sponge. Seems to be like the one I photographed the last time I was there. Hmmm. ::

:: Frilly Anemones, its tentacles like antiquated Victorian lace ::

:: Honestly, I would be just happy to sit and watch the sky turn to dusk, as the clouds float by amongst the crazy clolurs of the sky. (Okay, fine I didn't get to see the knobbly sand stars, thats why I was looking at the sky...And Chay Hoon told me subsequently that there was one along the path i was walking. Damn!) ::

:: Lucky for us, we didnt get the swarms of mosquitoes which usually descends upon us as we leave the beach. We even had a bus come pick us up, saving us the long walk back (though the walk back was really nice in the evening the last time I was there). Doesn't seem like we are in Singapore eh? ::

::  When we arrived back at the visitor centre, the garbage barge was just coming in, carrying the burnt remains of our concrete jungle's filth. Its HUGE! ::

:: Once again, I had a lovely time on Semakau and can't wait to be back. If you wish to volunteer for team seagrass, click here. We need all the help we can get! And chances are, you may get to meet NParks celebrity scientist extraordinaire and Polar chicken pie model, Siti (above)! She is SUPER FRIENDLY (she's the first who showed me the ropes to sea grass monitoring when I first joined TeamSeagrass last Oct on Sentosa) and if you want to get into her good books, just get her muffins from Shunfu Mart or make her a batch of piping hot strawberry waffles, topped with nuttella ice-cream. And because of that, she might even give you Site 3 when you monitor on Semakau...right Siti?? ::