There are lush seagrasses growing at the mouth and even inside a canal at East Coast Park!
I saw five species of seagrasses! And a wide variety of animals. Singapore's marine life is astonishing in establishing on reclaimed land.
There were
Spoon seagrass, both large and small leaved;
Needle seagrass, both broad and narrow leaved;
Noodle seagrass and some
Tape seagrass. I also saw
Sickle seagrass which I didn't see on our last trip. I didn't cross the canal so didn't check on the
Smooth ribbon seagrass that I saw there on our last trip in
Apr 2016. Among the seagrasses were a lot of
Slender pink pom pom seaweed.
Today I saw a lot of tiny to small fishes. Not surprising as seagrass meadows provide shelter for such fishes. These include many tiny to small
filefishes,
White spotted rabbitfishes. I saw one small
Bar-tailed flathead, a
Brown goby and
Black-spotted goby, and a
Longspined waspfish. The rest also saw a
Hollow-cheeked stonefish and a
Blue-spotted stingray!
There were a lot of
Flower crabs from tiny to small ones. I saw one
Blue swimming crab and one
Moon crab.
There were also tiny hermit crabs and small
Orange striped hermit crabs.
There were many small
Little red-nosed shrimps. I saw one
Ornamented snapping shrimp and one
Penaeid shrimp.
I only saw one medium sized
Haddon's carpet anemone that seemed a little stressed. It was raining earlier, perhaps all the freshwater flowing down the canal? I saw one small
Striped bead anemone, while Nick saw a
Peachia anemone. Just like last year, we also saw one
Fat-armed jellyfish. But I didn't see any cerianthids or sea pens on this trip.
I saw this feathery animal and thought at first it was a feather star. Fortunately, I didn't touch it and took a closer look. It's a
Stinging hydroid. As usual, there were tiny shrimp living int it.
I saw one medium-sized
Knobbly sea star, and one
Bottlebrush brittle star. Kok Sheng saw many more different kinds of sea stars.
There were many tiny to small
White sea urchins. And I think I also saw
Black sea urchins. Abel saw some Cake sand dollars.
Some parts of the seagrass meadows were dotted with
Tiny red sea cucumbers!
There was a patch with many
Bazillion snails and
Dubious nerites. I saw one
Triton snail, one
Spotted moon snail and several
Spiral melongena snails. I didn't see any Gong gong or other Strombid snails. There were still many large
Fan shell clams.
On the seawall, there were the usual limpets, barnacles, Periwinkle snails, Drills and oysters.
We didn't see any otters today, as we did
last year. The tide turned just after sunrise and the water was murky with runoff from the rain earlier so I couldn't take seagrass videos like I did last year.
It's amazing to see life return to reclaimed shores such as these. I hope they can continue to thrive.
Posts by others on this trip
Others on this trip: Debra Tang and Tan Thong Meng, Nicholas Yap.
