Today is Dr Daphne Fautin's Sea Anemone Workhop which starts in a few hours time. But the tide is very low at 4am, so a small contingent headed out to focus on sea anemones of Changi that Dr Daphne would like to feature in her workshop.
One of them is this sea anemone with red spots on the body column. It looks like a strawberry! They are very common on Changi and Dr Daphne thinks it might be a new anemone! We will find out during the workshop!
This is what the 'Strawberry' anemone looks like with its tentacles expanded. It is large with striped tentacles so I called it the
Tiger anemone. Soon, we will find out its true name!
The other sea anemone that Dr Daphne would like to feature in the workshop are
Peachia anemones (
Peachia sp.) which have a long smooth body column. But I think this one is another kind of anemone.
There are lots of other anemones on Changi! This strange
fat anemone with short tentacles is sometimes seen stuck on shells occupied by hermit crabs, also on living snails and small stones.
I have no idea what sea anemone this is.
Another mystery anemone with a bright orange body column.
The rest of the Army also find an anemone stuck on seagrass, some
Ball tip anemones which Dr Daphne thinks might be
corallimorphs, and several other strange anemones.
There are lots of cerianthids on Changi which do look like sea anemones. But while sea anemones belong to
Order Actiniaria, cerianthids are not true anemones and belong to
Order Ceriantharia. There's a little swimming crab next to this bright green cerianthid!
Of course I get distracted by other things on this rich shore. Is this the usual
Painted porcelain crab (
Porcellanella picta) that is often seen on our sea pens? Or something else?
Wah, there's a sea cucumber hitching a ride on this swimming crab!
I also saw a
Blue-spotted stingray (
Dasyatis kuhlii). This is why we shouldn't step into murky water! Also so that we don't trample on marine life that we can't see.
I saw also saw a very long
ribbon worm!
Oops, it's almost time to head out to St John's Island for Dr Dahpne's workhop! This is so exciting!
The rest of the team have much better posts of the rich marine life on this shore:
- Kok Sheng sea fans and awesome creatures that live among them!
- James with much better photos of the sea anemones and other critters such as pufferfish!
