Today's special find for me is the
Blue-elbow hermit crab! There was lots to see in this narrow but crowded Changi shore.
Our shores are so rich because there are animals that live on animals that live on animals!
The hermit crab had a
Big hermit-hitching anemone stuck on the shell that it was occupying.
There are many burrowing animals that live on this silty sandy shore teeming with
Spoon seagrass. On the left is the feathery feeding tentacles of a buried
Ball sea cucumber. On the right is an orange
Cerianthid, ringed by the delicate feathery furls of
Phoronid worms that live with the Cerianthid. As usual, there are a lot more Cerianthids here than other Changi shores.
Further along, another Cerianthid, with a little
Ball flowery soft coral.
I saw a
white snapping shrimp that only lives in these soft corals
There were many beautiful Cerianthids aka Peacock anemones of various colours. As well as
swimming crabs of various kinds. I also saw some
Tiger anemones, and various other burrowing sea anemones.
A small crab was nibbling on this white stuff, which looks like remains of a jellyfish.
This is a
Straw tube worm peeking out of its tube.
We saw several
Big-head seagrass octopuses. They were rather small but active. Pei Yan saw one carrying eggs!
I saw many tall
Slender sea pens that were sticking out of the ground. Next to this one was a buried
Orange sea cucumber. I also saw a few
flowery sea pens and
Spiky sea pens and one
Sea pencil. There were also some
Thorny sea cucumbers and many more
Warty pink sea cucumbers. Pei Yan found a
Sea apple sea cucumber.
A little
Spearer mantis shrimp scooted around in the murky water. I saw many tiny and some large
Biscuit stars, a few
sand stars. But we didn't see any other special sea stars.
Today, there were also many large
Geographic sea hares and their pink 'bee hoon'-like egg strings. I also saw one
Calf moon snail and some small
Fan clams. There were many large
Haddon's carpet anemones and many of them had a pair of the usual
anemone shrimps.
Today, I couldn't find any
sea fans. I also didn't see any large mats of
Nest mussels or any
Fern seagrass. None of us saw an
Estuarine seahorse, although we did see a lot of
Seagrass pipefishes.
It was a short low tide and as the sun rose, the tide turned.
Sadly, all our beaches are trashed. Even this one which is cleaned everyday. Among the trash, large clear plastic bags, gunny sacks, many wrappers of snacks.
We had a quick look at another stretch of sandy shore. There is a lot less seagrass here today than when I last saw it in
June 2013.
A neat arrangement of fishing and other gear, probably preparing for the high spring tide.
Alas, elsewhere, there were signs of inconsiderate park users.
My last trip to this shore was in
June 2013.
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