I was guiding with the Sea Slugs group yesterday. I had a great time, as usual! On this trip, we got to see the huuuuge animals! And we also saw three different types of flatworms and "recruited" them into our group.

What we saw at the Intertidals:

(a) Huge Oscellated Sea Cucumber
(b) Ball Moon Snail (!)
(c) Fiddler Crabs at the Bakau Trees
(d) Sandfish Sea Cucumber
(e) Common Sea Star
(f) Oysters
(g) Sponges (Pink, Blue, Yellow, Brown)
(h) Hairy Crab x 3
(i) Flatworms x 3 types (Beige flatworm, Orange-Striped flatworm, Persian-carpet flatworm) (!)
(j) Knobbly Sea Star
(k) Polka-dotted Nudibranch
(l) Giant Carpet Anemone with Anemone Shrimp
(m) Synaptid Sea Cucumber
(n) Giant Clam x 2 (juvenile & adult)
(o) Many casts of the Acorn Worm
(p) Eggs of the Spiral Melongela
(q) Pimply Leathery Coral
(r) Smooth Leathery Coral (!)

& the same Bracket fungus was there at the logs! Brown spores were present again. How interesting...

Will post again with photographs soon (I hope).

So today we went to Beting Bronok, an reef of our Northern Shores. It's the only remaining one we have in the North, sadly.

So what did we see? The reef was really rich, we saw the following:

1. Cake Sea Star
2. Many Biscuit Sea Star
3. 2 Butterfly Fishes
4. Filefish
5. 2 Eels
6. Big Catfish
7. Bailer Snail (!)
8. Pencil Urchin
9. Hydroids (!)
10. Sea Pen (!)
11. Sea Squirt (!)
12. Knobbly Sea Star
13. Flatworms
14. Nudibranches (Yellow-foot nudibranch, and more)
15. Sea Cucumbers (ID later)
16. Sponge Crabs
17. Onyx Cowrie
18. ______ Cowrie (ID later)
19. A large Noble Volute
20. Glass Anemone

Mr Garden Snail from Eunice Soh on Vimeo.

A Snail Video :)

The Singapore Botanical Gardens is really a very good place for beginner photographers, like me to hone photography skills. Though everything there is pretty much man-made/man-planted, it's still teeming with life. The place is in abundance of insects, beautiful plants and birds as well.

Once again, Sir Stamford Raffles, who was an avid naturalist, was the one who initiated the idea. However, after his death, the garden dissipated. Fortunately, it was revived again by an Agri-Horticultural society in 1859.

This year, the SBG celebrates its 150th anniversary, that's a mighty long time! Indeed the garden has changed a lot, now it's even equipped with a basement food court and botany library.

For your viewing pleasure, I hope. I shot these with my telephoto lens 75-300mm and trusty old Canon 350D.


The Bee at the Pond. Bees are great subjects as well, a pretty common subjects in my 'list' :) :)

The male Olive-backed Sunbird. They came in swarms where the heliconias (they are plants related to gingers) were! Around 8 - 10 of them around. There was also the Crimson Sunbird, which was a first for me. Didn't manage to capture its photo.

The Stork-billed KF which is very huge (in fact, the largest KF in Singapore). This one was particularly huge as well.

The female Olive-backed Sunbird again.

A grasshopper! This shows of the grasshopper slightly hidden, as if it were playing peek-a-boo with us :) It has added a tinge of mystery.

A dragonfly that taken in an oddly-framed photo. Usually, for insects, we tend to take parallel to plane of the insect, so that you can see the full body. I guess this shot is for aesthetic purposes. I like how it looks like a 4-legged spider of sorts. And the background's pretty nice and clean.

And the veination of the fern. An early ancestor of the higher plants. I always love the backlitting of the veins such that it shows! Another technique you can employ whenever taking photos, because they always produce beautiful results. It's a reason why you should start nature photography early, to catch the morning sun which is not too harsh and just right!

Saw a couple of common birds - yellow-vented bulbuls, pigeons, mynas etc.; and even pigeons building nests on a man-made object o.O; some others even saw the pied fantail, magpie robin, collared kingfisher.

It was a rainy morning, but the clouds soon cleared and we began our transect.


Peanut worm. Ms Wang found it, she mentioned it's really rare to see them around.


A close up.


This is S., he was digging the seagrass, with a beautiful (but faint) rainbow at is back. He's using a grey suction cup to scoop the seagrass up. It's a very innovative equipment.


This is a Monitor Lizard that was spotted. Really shocked to see it in the salt water area! I've yet to find out which Monitor Lizard it is...


After a tired day's work, H. & S. :)

Today was guiding at Semakau... Truly a hot day yet it was enjoyable. I got to do my first public walk and a small group (Mangroves) made up of five ladies (girl power!) For all the animals I've seen, you can click here.

We boarded the boat at around 6 am and reached the island 45 minutes later. Soon, we began the short walk along the along the road leading to the forest. It's nicknamed: the F1 Race Track - because it really resembles a race track.

The Notables

Stonefish Sea Cucumber (Actinopyga lecanora)

Sea cucumbers are relatives of the sea star- they have the five-point radial symmetry, though they do not resemble their relatives very much! Also, they have tube feet all around its body to help it move about. They usually move about to feed on the detritus found in the sand.

In order to breathe, they pump in water via their anus through what is called the "respiratory trees", which enables the oxygen to be absorbed. The water is flushed out the same way. It is often hard to tell the difference between the head and the anus because they look pretty much the same!

When stressed, sea cucumbers can become soft or even hard. This is due to its mutable tissues which enable it to soften or harden. In order to protect itself, the sea cucumber is poisonous to eat and are able to 'vomit' their internal organs when provoked. In reproduction, these single-sex animals release sperm/ eggs into the nearby water and external fertilization takes place.

Juvenile Brown-spotted Moray Eel (ID?)

Still awaiting ID but it is definitely an eel. This was spotted by one of the participants! Wow, a keen eye. This little fish was about 10 cm in length at the most.

Eels have no dorsal and anal fins, and only have one long, ribbony tail fin. They tend to like to hide in rock crevices and holes, like this one here. So most of their body length is actually unexposed!

Juvenile Cushion Star (Culcita novaeguinea)

This sea star is usually found in the deeper waters and less frequently in the intertidal areas. Like all sea stars, it has a five-point radial symmetry and has a central mouth on the underside. In addition, it is a haemaphrodite (which means its both male and female) but it cannot self-fertilize. The juveniles have arms that are better defined than their adults.

Oysters

They are filter feeders that do not move at all. This means that when the tide comes in, the gills of the oysters filter food particles from the sea water. They remain stationary on rock substratum for as long as they plant themselves there at the larval stage. They are bivalves, as they have two parts to the shell.

Spider Conch

These spider conches are very beautiful and have spikes along its shell, which is why many people love to collect the shells of these animals, resulting in the loss of many of these conches. ): The conches only develop the spikes as they grow older; and these spikes are like 'weapons' that intimidate predators.

On the other hand, the conch itself is a predator. It hunts on small animals. To move about, it uses its foot to help it 'jump'.

Bracket Fungus that was releasing spores

They usually grow on logs.

Carpenter Bee

Some information on it on my other blog post here.

On reflection, today's trip was really enriching because I got to learn from my participants as well, one who is well-versed in the ins-and-outs of Semakau & is a diver, and the other who took a natural history module of Singapore. ;) Also learnt to stop and take a look at the animals/plants all around!

Some photos taken today, compiled into a contact sheet;

For other accounts, you can read:-
1. KS's blog entry here
2. SY's blog entry here
3. JL's blog entry here

Credits
http://www.seawater.no/fauna/Pigghuder/sjokjeks.htm
http://www.wildsingapore.com/wildfacts/echinodermata/asteroidea/culcita.htm

Location: Pulau Semakau
Date: 12 June, Friday
Time: 7+ am onwards

Sand bar

(a) Fiddler Crab
(b) Gobies & Shrimps
(c) Creeper Snails
(d) Nerites
(e) Sponges
(f) Small Hermit Crabs
(g) Bakau Tree (Mangrove)
(h) Oysters
(i) Snapping Shrimps
(j) Fanworm, of brown colouration
(k) Small Noble Volute
(l) Beaded Anemone, Banded

Seagrass lagoon

(a) Synaptid Sea Cucumber
(b) Spider Conch
(c) Giant Carpet Anemone

Coral rubble

(a) Mushroom Sunflower Coral
(b) Marine Spider
(c) Octopus
(d) Hairy Crabs x 6
(e) Stonefish Sea Cucumber
(f) Juvenile Brown-spotted Moray Eel (ID?)
(g) Juvenile Giant Clam
(h) Cowrie
(i) Sand-sifting Sea Stars, there were many small ones
(j) Knobbly Sea Stars x 2
(k) Juvenile Cushion Star
(l) Hard Corals
(m) Zoanthids

Reef Edge

(a) Seahorse
(b) Nudibranch - Polka-dotted Nudibranch (Gymnodoris funebris), Pimply Phyllid Nudibranch (Phyllidiella pustulosa)
(c) Flatworm - Blue-lined Flatworm (Pseudoceros species)
(d) Red Swimming Crab

Other non-intertidal creatures

(a) Carpenter Bee
(b) Bracket Fungus that was releasing spores

*The new way I'll blog now for my exploratory/guiding trips:

- Part (I) of the trip will be a checklist of the items we seen, even the common
ones, the interesting ones will be highlighted in RED, according to their habitat.
- Part (II) of the trip will be a photograph collection of the interesting/notable/new creatures that we found on the way.
- Scientific names will be Italicised and in brackets next to the common name.
- Questionable IDs will have a tag like this: (ID?)

That way, I'll learn more (I think) haha. :)