Many first time sightings for me of colourful fishes on Tanah Merah's oil-slicked shore early this morning. I think this one is a juvenile Angelfish (Family Pomacanthidae). I've never seen one before!
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| Mystery fish no. 1 |
Also lots of common fishes, as well as other marine life.
Another first time sighting for me, this colourful large fish which I think is some kind of
grouper (Family Serranidae).
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| Mystery fish no. 2 |
I saw two of these beautiful fishes! I love the pink eyelids and pretty colours. I have no idea what they are. Perhaps a kind of
wrasse (Family Labridae) or parrotfish (Family Scaridae)?
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| Mystery fish no. 3 |
And a baby
Scissortail sergeant (
Abudefduf sexfasciatus). So far, I've only seen this fish once at the reefs of Sisters Islands.
There were lots and lots of
damselfishes (Family Pomacentridae). Many of the little striped ones are
Bengal sergeants (
Abudefduf bengalensis), although perhaps some of them are something different. There were many larger dark blue ones lurking among the rocks. They might be the
Three-spot damselfish (
Pomacentrus tripunctatus).
This pretty little electric blue damselfish is among my favourites. It's possibly the juvenile
Three-spot damselfish (
Pomacentrus tripunctatus).
I also saw many
filefishes (Family Monacanthidae) of various colours and patterns. They were all quite well camouflaged!
There were also many little
gobies (Family Gobiidae) which are quite pretty when you take a closer look at them!
I also saw two small
Chocolate hinds (
Cephalopholis boenak), another tiny grouper that I don't know, and five medium-sized
Painted scorpionfishes (
Parascorpaena picta).
There were also many little colourful
Cardinalfishes (Family Apogonidae).
Huddled together in a pool were these three little
Freckled goatfishes (
Upeneus tragula).
Some of the other fishes seen include: A little
Copperband butterflyfish (
Chelmon rostratus), a tiny
Black eeltail catfish (
Plotosus canius), a little blue
halfbeak (Family Hemiramphidae), a baby
Cresent perch (
Terapon jarbua), many
Whitings (Family Sillagenidae) and lots of tiny
White-spotted rabbitfishes (
Siganus canaliculatus).
I saw this fat
cuttlefish quietly paddling about at the water surface.
I'm delighted to come across many
Common sea stars (
Archaster typicus) in mating position. Besides those in this photo, I saw 8 other pairs in mating position and another 10 individuals alone.
The two patches of
Smooth ribbon seagrass (
Cymodocea rotundata) are still doing well. They are dotted with many small
Haddon's carpet anemones (
Stichodactyla haddoni) . Today, I saw one carpet anemone with many
anemone shrimps (
Periclimenes brevicarpalis)! Usually, there is only one pair of male and female shrimps in each anemone. This anemone had two males and females, and in the water nearby were another male and female wandering around the seagrasses. What's going on? I have no idea!
Today I saw about 6 tiny
Pink moon snails (
Natica zonalis) near one another, busy bulldozing through the sand.
There were also many crabs out and about on the shore. Many large
Flower crabs (
Portunus pelagicus) and countless little flower crabs. Several large
Mud crabs (
Scylla sp.). And many other kinds of
swimming crabs (Family Portunidae). Some females had their large flappy underbelly bits out, carrying eggs?
How nice to see many little
Spotted moon crabs (
Ashtoret lunaris) out and about on the shore. This is the first time I've seen so many here since the oil spill. There were, as usual, many busy
Ghost crabs (
Ocypode cerathophthalmus) on the sandflats, and
Purple climber crabs (
Metopograpsus sp.) on the rocks. I also saw one
Velcro crab (
Camposcia retusa).
It was nice to see many hermit crabs out and about on the shore. Besides the usual orange coloured
Striped hermit crabs (
Clibanarius sp.), I saw one blue coloured one. I saw a few
Banded hermit crabs and many many tiny
Tidal hermit crabs (
Diogenes sp.).
The corals on this shore seemed fine. As usual, the most abundant hard coral here are
Favid corals (Family Faviidae).
There are also several large colonies of
Pore corals (
Porites sp.). All the hard corals seemed alright and were not bleaching. There are not as many coral colonies and varieties in this stretch of Tanah Merah, compared to the other stretch further south.
I saw this intriguing bubble of eggs. Hopefully, whatever creatures these are will hatch and grow up normally on the shore.
I saw many
Acorn worms (Class Enteropneusta) today. Some were still 'spitting' out coils of grey sand.
The circle of
Tape seagrass (
Enhalus acoroides) and patch of
Sickle seagrass (
Thalassia hemprichii) were still there. From what I saw, the most abundant seaweed on the shore were
Mermaid's fan (
Padina sp.) on the rocky seawall, with only a few strands of
Sargassum seaweed (
Sargassum sp.) here and there.
Ivan also saw a nudibranch, moray eel and other exciting finds!
It was too dark to take photos of the upper shore. But I could still smell crude oil in some spots. And there was scum in large parts of the water and among the seagrasses.
We started work at 4am and the tide turned rapidly at 6pm. The weather also suddenly turned wet. We got the briefest glimpse of sunrise as we left the shore.
It is possible that I saw so many fishes and other animals today simply because we visited at night when the fishes are less shy. The tide was also a lot lower than
my last visit here. But I am very happy to see so much life on this shore!
More about the oil spill
on this blog and on the
Oil spill facebook page.
