Back to Beting Bemban Besar

It's dawn and we're back on Beting Bemban Besar! We're a little early and only a tiny sliver of the huge submerged reef is above water!
Where is Beting Bemban Besar?

Special sea anemones on Beting Bemban Besar

For the first time, I saw this elusive sea anemone! For a while, we were not sure if this sea anemone still existed on our shores. Until Marcus saw one at Pulau Semakau.
A review of some photos taken by others at Semakau revealed earlier sightings too. But this is my first time seeing it, and our first sighting outside of Pulau Semakau.

The Lion Finch: baby biter goes extinct

Once found throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa, the last two individuals of this charismatic species of bird were last seen in September 2009, in a Frangipani tree in Mrs Okeke’s back garden on the edge of Lake Naivasha, Kenya.
The Lion Finch, Leo fringilla, is listed as ‘Extinct in the Wild’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Once an extremely valuable commodity in the pet trade, the Lion Finch faced severe persecution following the discovery that its fiery temperament led to the loss of numerous infant extremeties.

Cyrene Reef with TeamSeagrass

Another early morning trip, this time to Cyrene Reefs with TeamSeagrass!
Cyrene is a submerged reef surrounded on three sides: by the heavy industries on Jurong Island (in photo above), the huge refineries of Pulau Bukom, and our world-class container terminals. Despite this, it has one of the best seagrass meadows in Singapore!

Checking up on Labrador

It's the first of the morning low tides for the year, and I thought I should see how our last mainland reef is doing.
And how nice to see life is still hanging on at this much beleaguered shore. There were lots of little Copperband butterfly fishes (Chelmon rostratus)!

Sex in the Sea: Singapore style

Our corals are about to massively have group sex! The Big Climax to this Orgy in the Sea is expected to happen anytime soon! Apparently either Thursday or Friday!!
Thanks to blog posts by Jun and Abby, I've learnt about the gathering of experts for the innocuously titled SECORE Workshop in Singapore (31 Mar- 8 Apr 2010).

Why is this exciting?

Wildfacts updates: February and March

It's been a 'dry' period as there were not many low spring tides in February and virtually none in March. So it's a good time to catch up on fact sheets on old sightings.
The visit by Dr Fujita, the brittle star expert, was a good excuse to do up a fact sheet on this commensal brittle star (Ophiomaza cacaotica) that lives in a feather star! We saw it once at Raffles Lighthouse many years ago.

5 Apr (Mon): Talk on pulmonate gastropods: air-breathing snails and slugs

An assortment of snails and slugs on our shores breathe air through modified gills or simple lungs. They are pulmonate gastropods. These range from the mangrove Belongkeng snails (Family Ellobiidae), rocky shore false limpets with their hat-shaped shells (Family Siphonariidae), to the cute little onch slugs which have no shells at all (Family Onchidiidae).
Find out more about these fascinating snails and slugs at this upcoming talk by Benoît Dayrat at NUS.

Portent of death on Chek Jawa?

I was out with TeamSeagrass for the Field Orientation, and was distressed to see many bleaching and yellowing carpet anemones.
From the Boardwalk to the Northern sand bar. Both those in water and those out on the sand bar. Big ones and small ones.

What does bleaching mean?