We explore a part of Changi that we haven't visited for many years, and are stunned by some amazing sightings!
Like this fat juicy looking
Sea apple sea cucumber (
Pseudocolochirus violaceus). Its bright colours warn of its toxic nature so don't touch it or bring it home!
The most astonishing sighting for me was a
Common sea star (
Archaster typicus), my first time seeing one on Changi! Sadly, this sea star is no longer as common as it used to be, although it is still the most widely distributed of our sea stars.
Like the rest of Changi, this area is full of all kinds of echinoderms. I also saw an
Eight-armed sea star (
Luidia maculata), but it only had six arms.
As usual, there were many
Biscuit sea stars (
Goniodiscaster scaber) large and small. I saw one small
Cake sea star (
Anthenea aspera) and several
flat-armed brittle stars.
Also abundant on the shore were large
Black sea urchins (
Temnopleurus sp.). I also saw many large
White sea urchin (
Salmacis sp.) and one tiny
Thorny sea urchins (
Prionocidaris sp.).
There were lots and lots of
Thorny sea cucumber (
Colochirus quadrangularis) and many
Pink warty sea cucumbers (
Cercodemas anceps). There were also lots of
Thumbs up sea squirts (
Polycarpa sp.).
Also abundant were
Ball sea cucumbers (
Phyllophorus sp.), usually buried with only their feeding tentacles sticking out. Also many
Orange sea cucumbers buried in the soft silty sand and
Purple sea cucumbers.
There were many
Haddon's carpet anemones (
Stichodactyla haddoni) here, and a
Kite butterflyfish (
Parachaetodon ocellatus) was swimming very close to one. I've seen this intriguing behaviour several times elsewhere too.
One of the carpet anemones had a
Five-spot anemone shrimp (
Periclimenes brevicarpalis), while many had
tiny anemone shrimps. I also came across several
Tiny carpet anemones (
Stichodactyla tapetum).
I saw several small yet-to-be-identified
Tiger anemones, one
Peachia anemone (
Peachia sp.), one
Plain anemone (
Paracondylactis sinensis). Also some
Swimming anemones (
Boloceroides mcmurrichi). There were only a few
Cerianthids (Order Ceriantharia) also called Peacock anemones although they are not true sea anemones.
There were many of these
Slender sea pens (
Virgularia sp.), more than I usually see at Changi. Finally, I got a closer look at the delicate polyps that make up this colonial animal.
There were also some
Flowery sea pens (Family Veretillidae) and a few
Sea pencils.
I saw one uprooted
Common sea pen (
Pteroides sp.) and it was teeming with tiny
Painted porcelain crabs (
Porcellanella picta) and one
Colourful tiny brittle star (
Ophiothela danae).
I even came across one nice large
Candelabra sea fan.
This looks like a
Sally-light-foot crab (
Grapsus albolineatus) but somewhat different from the ones I usually see. It ran away before I could take a closer look at it.
The shore was teeming with
Swimming crabs (Family Portunidae) of all kinds. I saw one with
banded legs (
Charybdis annulata) that disappeared rapidly among the seaweeds. There were also many
Striped hermit crabs (
Clibanarius infraspinatus).
I was surprised to see many
Miliaris cowries (
Cypraea miliaris), usually seen in a pair. I haven't seen these in large numbers at Changi for a long time. I also saw one
Onyx cowries (
Cypraea onyx) . As usual, there were lots of
Ovum cowerie (
Cypraea ovum) too.
There were lots of
Fan clams (Family Pinnidae) on the shore and I noticed they had different coloured bodies. There were also some
scallops (Family Pectinidae) and lots of other clams were seen on another portion of the shore that I didn't get to explore.
There were many
Pink moon snails (
Natica zonalis) and I saw one
Tiger moon snails (
Natica tigrina).
I came across two tiny
octopuses. Some parts of the shore were covered in a soft layer of
nest mussels (
Musculista senhousia).
Among the seaweeds were many
pipefishes! Chay Hoon finally spotted our first seahorse sighting in a long long while at Changi.
On the rock parts of the shore there were tiny patches of
Zebra corals (
Oulastrea crispata). Also various
sponges of all shapes and colours.
Alas, I also came across many bunches of abandoned fishing lines and remains of driftnets.
I tried to drag out as much of the abandoned fishing lines and nets as I could.
I came across patches of healthy looking
Spoon seagrass (
Halophila ovalis) with large leaves, and nice growths of
Fern seagrass (
Halophila spinulosa). There was a bloom of
Sea lettuce (
Ulva sp.) blanketing the shore, so I'm not sure how extensive this seagrass growth is.
I haven't visited this part of Changi for years and I'm glad to see that it is doing well. Chay Hoon and Peiyan did another part of the shore, while Marcus did yet another part. So the small team really covered a lot of ground on this trip.
MORE shore trips at ungodly hours in the week ahead. Can't wait to see what we will find!
Posts by others on this trip
- Marcus shares spoon worm and other strange finds on another stretch of Changi that he did.
- Chay Hoon shares nudis and more on facebook.
