The colourful underwater gardens on Pulau Ubin have returned!
Missing since
2015, it was a relief to see sea fans, feather stars and other colourful marine life on our favourite Ubin rocky shore.
We arrived very early to catch a super low spring tide which allowed a glimpse of the wonderful variety of sea fans that settled on the rocks. There were a large number of colonies and variety of sea fans than what we saw on here on our last survey in
Aug 2015. And unlike that survey, today, most of the sea fans were not succumbing to fouling animals and plants.
There were lots of sea fans in small to larger colonies on the rocky shore.
Besides the usually common sea fans like
Candelabra sea fans and
Gnarled sea fans., I also saw several colonies of
Flat branch sea fans,
Skinny sea fans,
Sea whips and others that I've not seen before.
It was particularly nice to see several colonies of
Asparagus sea fan, which I have seen in large numbers in the past at Beting Bronok.
Other animals that settled on the rocks include many small colonies of
Pink flowery soft coral, some small clumps of
Candy hydroids, and small clusters of
zoanthids. I saw many
Blob ascidians, also many
Thumbs up ascidians and
Yellow clustered ascidians. I also saw many clusters of
Ball-tip corallimorphs in many different colours. There were not many sponges. I saw a few clumps of
Prickly ball sponge, some patches of
Elegant branching sponge, many clumps of
Rainbow sponge. There were many patches of
Melted chocolate sponge.
Such 'reefy' areas usually host a large variety of special animals. There were many large
Biscuit stars. There were patches of
Zebra coral, tiny clumps or scattered polyps of
Cave corals and a few patches of N
eat hexa coral. I saw many
Haddon's carpet anemones on the soft shores and near the rocky shore, as well as the usual
Banded bead anemones.
In this small pool of water, are two feather stars and many brittle stars as well as sea anemones and other critters.
There were a great many feather stars on the shore today. Mostly
Blue feather stars, and a few
Black-and-white feather stars as well as
Brown feather stars.
Flatworms eat ascidians and other immobile animals, so it was not surprising to see many of them today. Most were
Blue spotted flatworms, I saw two pairs of
Blue spotted flatworms, and one
Pleasing flatworm.
Today, we saw many
Onyx cowries which appeared to out number the usually more common
Ovum cowries. I saw one with eggs under the foot. Alas, I saw another which had lots of barnacles on its shell, which shouldn't ordinarily happen as the mantle keeps the shell clear. So I wonder how that happened.
There were many tiny
Sponge synaptid sea cucumbers, a few
Thorny sea cucumbers and some. In the soft silty ground, there were many
Ball sea cucumbers. I also saw one
Crown sea star.
I saw a humungous
8-armed sea star on the soft silty area. There isn't much seagrass on the shore. On the soft shores, I saw some
Spiky sea pens and
Flowery sea pens.
There was one small
octopus. The rest of the team also saw a
Rose nudibranch, a small
Sponge nudibranch.
Alas, I saw several fish traps laid on this rich reefy area. In fact, on almost every trip to this shore, we see fish traps.
Some were laid in deeper water. But those that we could reach we disabled.
Inside one of the traps was this tiny little
Hollow-cheeked stonefish., still alive. There were also some filefishes (dead) and a small eel tail catfish (alive) and many small crabs.
Kok Sheng first brought us here in
Dec 2009, and we returned in
May 2010,
Dec 2010 and
Dec 2012. During those surveys, the rocks were coated in colourful sponges, ascidians, soft corals and sea fans. They were quite bare on our last survey in
Aug 2015. So it was good to see a return of the underwater garden here.
I'm so glad the marine life has returned!
Photos by others on this trip
