Strange anemones at Kranji

I found the strange mangrove anemone with branched tentacles at Kranji. Hurray!

On her previous trip to Singapore, Dr Daphne found a strange anemone with a grey body column and branched tentacles, among the very many anemones with a 'flowery mouth' that we see in our mangroves. She is curious to find out more about this anemone.

These are the mangrove anemone with a 'flowery mouth'. There were lots and lots and LOTS of them on the shore today.

I was dismayed when I woke up at 2am to see thunder, lightning and rain! But an hour later, it stopped raining and I quickly headed out to Kranji Reservoir Park. The full moon was peeping out among the clouds and I had the whole shore to myself. After looking very hard, I was glad to find these special anemones with branched tentacles!

These beautiful anemones with branched tentacles are not as plentiful as those with 'flowery mouths'. I hope these are the anemones that Dr Daphne is interested in.

There were also other tiny pretty anemones that I generally group under what I call the moustache anemones. These were mostly attached to something hard, plastic litter, stones and little snails.

Some of these anemones are not so tiny. Some have delicate stripes on the oral disk. Looking for the branched tentacled anemone, I looked at every single anemone on the shore.

The water is surprisingly clear! Here's an anemone with a 'flowery mouth'.

There were many Mangrove horseshoe crabs (Carcinoscopius rotundicauda) on the shore! Many were in pairs. I saw about 10 of them in pairs.

Also abundant on the shore, many different kinds of worms. Including this very long very red ribbon worm. Ribbon worms are fierce predators!

There were also many tiny silt flatworms squirming on the soft silty mud.

I also saw this tiny Shadow goby (Acentrogobius nebulosus).

There were many tiny shrimps.

It's amazing what we can find on our shores!

I'm looking forward to learning more about these anemones during Dr Daphne's Sea Anemone Workshop which starts tomorrow!