A very pregnant papa seahorse was among the first things I saw when I arrived at 5am on Changi.
This shore is teeming with seahorses, fishes and echinoderms! I haven't been here since
July 2010!
There were three other seahorses on the shore too! I think at least one of them was also a pregnant father. The
Estuarine seahorse (
Hippocampus kuda) is thankfully still quite common on Changi. Like other seahorses, it is the father that carries the eggs and 'gives birth' to live young. For this reason, seahorses don't spread very well to other shores. So it's important not to harm or remove the seahorses on Changi, if we would like to continue to see them here.
There were also lots and lots of
Seagrass pipefishes on the shore today. There are times when we see lots of these pipefishes and other times when we see none. Like seahorses, it is the papa pipefish that carries the eggs. Do the papas come to the seagrass meadows to release their babies? Changi seems to be a great place for dads!
This shore is packed with marine life. Different animals huddled together in amazing colours, shapes and patterns!
There were lots of fishes of all kinds. The
Longspined scorpionfish (
Paracentropogon longispinis) was particularly plentiful! But I was attracted to this pretty
dragonet (Family Callionymidae).
And here's another intriguing fish. I don't know what it is.
This flatfish that might be a
Tongue-sole (Family Cynoglossidae). I've not seen a tongue-sole with this banded pattern before.
This stretch of Changi is teeming with echinoderms of all kinds. Sea stars are particularly plentiful in number and variety. Today, we saw lots of
Biscuit sea stars (
Goniodiscaster scaber) tiny to very large,
Cake sea stars (
Anthenea aspera) from bright orange to more subtle colours. I didn't come across any
Painted sand stars or
Plain sand stars.
Kok Sheng found this special
Luidia sea star (
Luidia sp.) which has so far only been seen at Changi and Chek Jawa.
How nice to see two different kinds of feather stars! The
blue feather star and for the first time for me, a
black feather star on Changi.
There are many different kinds of sea cucumbers here too! Today I saw lots and lots of
Thorny sea cucumbers (
Colochirus quadrangularis), many
Warty pink sea cucumbers (
Cercodemas anceps) and many
purple sea cucumbers, many buried
ball sea cucumbers (
Phyllophorus sp.) and
Smooth sea cucumbers. Also some
orange sea cucumbers and one
beige sea cucumber.
Once again, I saw this strange sea cucumber that I saw nearly a year ago. I still haven't figured out what it is. It is hard and rather plasticky. Its short fat tube feet have bright orange tips.
Kok Sheng saw a large gathering of
Black sea urchins (
Temnopleurus sp.) and Chay Hoon found a
Pink sand dollar (
Peronella lesueri).
Changi is also special to me because of the many kinds of sea anemones that live here. There were many small to medium sized
Haddon's carpet anemones (
Stichodactyla haddoni). Most had tiny
anemone shrimps in them, and one had a large larger
Five-spot anemone shrimps (
Periclimenes brevicarpalis).
There were also many of these
Tiny carpet anemones (
Stichodactyla tapetum) which are not baby Haddon's carpet anemones but a different species.
One reason the Changi shores are special is that this is the only place so far that I know of where these
Tiger anemones are commonly seen. The anemone has yet to be identified.
There were many
Swimming anemones (
Boloceroides mcmurrichi), also this strange
striped sand anemone which seems to have a bright orange body column, and
Peachia anemones (
Peachia sp.).
I saw many
Slender sea pens (
Virgularia sp.) of various patterns and colours. The strange
Sea pencil I've so far commonly seen only on Changi. There were also many
Spiky sea pens (
Scytalium sp.).
There were many colourful
flowery sea pens (Family Veretillidae) too.
Often, a pair of
Painted porcelain crabs (
Porcellanella picta) will settle on a sea fan. Today I saw a sea fan with FOUR of these porcelain crabs!
There are also lots of
cerianthids (Order Ceriantharia) on this shore. Commonly called peacock anemones, these animals are NOT true anemones which belong to
Order Actiniaria. On Changi, the black fluffy
Phoronid worm (
Phoronis australis) is often seen with these cerianthids.
All kinds of other animals are found near and on cerianthids. Like this pair of
spidery crabs that I almost missed.
There were also many small
Ball flowery soft corals!
Where there are hard surface, the shore reminds me of Beting Bronok which we visited
yesterday. Clumps of colourful marine life of all kinds settle on these hard surfaces.
Colourful
sea fans (Order Gorgonacea) of all kinds grew on the hard surfaces! I saw more sea fans on Changi than I did at yesterday's trip to Beting Bronok.
Kok Sheng pointed out that the sea fans had lots of
tiny colourful brittle stars (
Ophiotela danea)! I also noticed when I got home that there was a little
spindle cowrie on the sea fan too.
There were of course, lots of crabs of all kinds. But what I found most intriguing was these medium sized crabs which don't look familiar to me. They look like
swimming crabs (Family Portunidae) but I'm not sure what they are.
Chay Hoon alerted me that there were lots of
Bushy slugs (
Polybranchia orientalis) on the shore today. They are well camouflaged!
Here's a look at a Bushy slug which was in shallow water. It's bushy 'leaves' have parted to reveal the body in the centre with the pair of tentacles.
We also saw many
Geographic seahare (
Syphonota geographica), while Chay Hoon of course finds lots more interesting slugs.
I saw one
Miliaris cowrie (
Cypraea miliaris). In the past, I used to see more of them on this shore.
I also saw a
Seagrass octopus! This kind of octopus looks and behaves differently from the ones we usually see on reefs.
I also came across a small patch of what seems to be
Hairy spoon seagrass (
Halophila decipiens). A species of seagrass that was discovered in Singapore only in 2008! The predominant species on this stretch of Changi is
Spoon seagrass (
Halophila ovalis).
In the light of dawn, we noticed these furrows in the seagrass meadows. Were these made by feeding dugongs?
Here's more furrows. On the horizon is Chek Jawa on Pulau Ubin, where we also saw dugong feeding trails
last month. Wow! Do dugongs also visit the seagrass meadows on Changi?
As we were going home, Ivan pointed out the
Oriental pied hornbills that flew onto some trees nearby. We quietly looked for them and found them eating the juicy looking fruits on this tree. I'm not sure what tree this is but I think it's NOT a native tree.
There is a trash line on the low water mark. Colourful marine life have settled on the trash!
Today, I saw one man with a plastic bag and a stick collecting from the shore. Fortunately, we didn't come across any abandoned driftnets or fish traps. Although there is some abandoned fishing lines on the shore.
This Changi shore is very special and I should try to visit it more often. Alas, there are not enough low tides to visit all our shores as often as I would like to! Tomorrow, another predawn trip to another stretch of Changi!
Other posts about this trip
- Kok Sheng with colourful Sea apple sea cucumber, bright orange slug and lots and lots of other creatures.
