Cyrene in the dark

Although Cyrene lies in the middle of an industrial triangle, it still has some of Singapore's most amazing shores. A very large team surveys on a predawn low tide.

It was a relief to see that the Knobbly sea stars seem to have recovered from the mysterious injuries we saw in Feb 2026. The corals seem to be alright. Although most of the centre was bare sand, there is still lush seagrasses near the beacon area. But we sense the shore remains rather quiet. The rest of the team saw giant clams and other interesting marine life.  I will update when they have uploaded their photos.

During our survey here in Feb 2026, we noticed a large proportion of Knobbly sea stars had lost the top five knobs. It seems the knob fell off, rather than being bitten off by predators. The cut is clean and sheer. So possibly the sea stars self amputated their knobs, the same way that they can do with their arms? Today, I saw 17 Knobblies near the beacon area, and all of them had complete sharp and pointed knobs. Although a few had bluish tips, none had lost knobs. Seems the rest of the team also did not see amputated knobs. Will update with their observations later.

There's never been a lot of hard corals on Cyrene since we first started surveying it. Most of them are boulder shaped and there are some large colonies. I had a brief look at the corals on the eastern end today. Similar to our last survey in Feb 2026,  May 2025 and Jul 2025 today I didn't see any bleaching.

Near the beacon and around the eastern tip of Cyrene, there remains many large Leathery soft corals of various kinds. As well as some Asparagus flowery soft corals, Sea mat zoanthids and small clumps of Spiky flowery soft corals. Similar to our last survey in  in Feb 2026, May 2025 and Jul 2025 today I didn't see any bleaching.

Much of the centre of Cyrene is mostly bare sand. I hardly saw any animals there. But perhaps the rest of the team did, I will update with their sightings.

Seagrasses start to appear towards the reef edge, where they are still covered even at low tide. 

Seagrasses are growing well towards the beacon area in the east. With a mix of common seagrasses. Tape seagrasses remain very sparse and cropped.

Today, I saw a few of what seems to be dugong feeding trails. These trails are formed when dugongs chomp up seagrasses including their roots, leaving a shallow meandering furrow of about equal width and depth. Every survey since 2021, we see dugong feeding trails on Cyrene. 

Although it lies in the middle of an industrial triangle and major shipping lanes, Cyrene has some of Singapore's most amazing shores. We had surveyed in Jun 2024 for impact of the Pasir Panjang oil spill a few weeks prior and did not see any signs of oil. While Cyrene seems to have pulled through both this oil spill and mass coral bleaching that happened in 2024, it seems to be growing more quiet. We shall monitor closely and hope it will recover.

Posts by others on this survey

Marcus Ng


Anya Gaur


Jianlin Liu


Rui Quan Oh, Marcus Ng, Jianlin Liu, Loh Kok Sheng, Jaeden Lim, Jason, Dylan, Sam Lau, Lon, Zen Xuan He, Lester, Nasry, Ian Mun, Faith, Anya, Zheng Hao