Egg blobs at Pandan mangroves

Eew, what are those wobbly blobs of jelly all over the mangrove mud?!

I was out with the Mega Marine Survey volunteers at Pandan mangroves this afternoon. The first thing we noticed were these blobs everywhere.

Dr Tan Koh Siang from the Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) explains that they are possibly the eggs of some sort of slug. I took a closer look at the blob in his hands and indeed, there are lots of tiny dots embedded in the blob. Wow, I wonder what kind of slug they are?!

Andy shared a video clip of the egg blobs with tiny creatures stuck in them!

Today, I took a break from documenting the action and decided to attempt to help actually find stuff in the mud.

There were lots of tiny crustaceans on the mud flats, not too many worms. And I saw a tiny horseshoe crab.

Later on, I found a much bigger Mangrove horseshoe crab (Carcinoscopius rotundicauda). It was embedded in the mud! I didn't know they do that. Well, it was certainly a lot cooler down there!

We saw lots of other stuff, and as usual, had fun in the mud.

More about the trip and what we found on the Mega Marine Survey blog.

Here's more of what I saw at Sungei Pandan on an earlier trip a few months ago.

Here's a diagram of the Sungei Pandan mangroves from the Guide to the Mangroves of Singapore.

Sungei Pandan, 1987 from the Guide to the Mangroves of Singapore

More about Sungei Pandan and the Pandan Reservoir in Kwok Chen Ko's The Forgotten Mangroves of Sungei Pandan.