I saw four
Copperband butterflyfish (
Chelmon rostratus) on our trip yesterday! Three tiny and one was medium-sized.
Although it was rather 'quiet' we see other colourful and interesting marine life too!
Often overlooked, masses of teeny tiny
Dubious nerites (
Clithon oualaniensis) in a bewildering variety of colours and patterns.
I checked under stones and it's lively down there! Lots of little snails, clams, keel worms, onch slugs and this pair of
snapping shrimps (Family Alpheidae).
The
Haddon's carpet anemones (
Stichodactyla haddoni) in the now large Ribbon seagrass meadows seem to be doing well and many had
Five-spot anemone shrimps (
Periclimenes brevicarpalis)!
Crustaceans out and about included a large and handsome
Spotted orange hermit crabs (
Dardanus megistos), many
Swimming crabs (Family Portunidae) of all kinds, small
Spotted moon crabs (
Ashtoret lunaris), a
Red egg crab (
Atergatis integerrimus)! Also many small
Flower crabs (
Portunus pelagicus). There were also many shrimps small and large especially after sunset.
What a surprise to see this small
Swimming anemone (
Boloceroides mcmurrichi) stuck to a rock.
Not too many fishes were out and about so soon after sunset. And most were too deep in murky water. But this little
Silverside (
Atherinomours duodecimalis) seemed attracted to my torch and I managed to take a good look at it.
Oh, another humungous nudibranch! It's
Discodoris boholiensis which I seem to be seeing regularly now at Tanah Merah.
And this is a flatworm, the
Spotted black flatworms (
Acanthozoon sp.) which I've also been seeing recently at Tanah Merah.
The fan worms seem to be doing well. There were many of them, both the brown
banded ones and
orange ones. Some were found in clusters like this bunch.
I also saw many snails: a small colourful
Pink moon snail (
Natica zonalis), a medium sized
Dolphin shell snail (
Angaria delphinus), many conical
Spotted top shell snail (
Trochus maculatus) and lots of
Dwarf turban snails (
Turbo bruneus).
There are lots of signs of life on the sandy shore. Crab holes, some Acorn worm casts, and this series of little claw marks punctuated by spots where digging has been going on. I realise this is made by foraging
Ghost crabs (
Ocypode cerathophthalmus).
The hard corals seem to be doing well but were hard to photograph in the murky water. I also saw a large cluster of
Button zoanthids or colonial anemones (
Zoanthus sp.) (long photo on the right).
Oh, a mangrove seedling has settled in the middle of the lagoon!
The seagrasses are doing very well! The two large patches of
Smooth ribbon seagrass (
Cymodocea rotundata) had long leaf blades. The small patch of
Tape seagrass (
Enhalus acoroides) in the middle of the lagoon seems alright with long leaf blades! The patch of
Sickle seagrass (
Thalassia hemprichii) had rather chomped leaf blades though, and I didn't come across any
Spoon seagrass (
Halophila ovalis).
Marcus said he saw many
Common sea stars (
Archaster typicus) although I missed seeing them.
The upper shore was totally clear of plastic trash! But crude oil still remained on large areas of the low shore.
Just beneath the sand, crude as fresh as the day it landed more than a year ago. Producing sheen in the water. The lagoon had a sheen of oil in large parts, and I could see a haze of hydrocarbons in the water as I tried to photograph through it.
Marcus took great photos of the amazing variety and number of insects and spiders found in the vegetation by the shore!
The shore is usually much livelier during predawn trips. Alas, the morning low tides are still many months away.
More about the oil spill
on this blog and on the
Oil spill facebook page.
