Clams have taken over most of a stretch of Changi beach, forming a dense firm mat.
There is also suddenly a lot of Fan shell clams, as well as Window pane shells. But there is still good seagrass cover, and some of the usual animals are still abundant.
It was alarming to see that much of the shore has been taken over by these clams. I don't know the identity of the clam, but I have seen this before on some of our other shores, though not in such dense mats. These do not look like the
invasive clams that took over at Kranji.
Here's a video of the extent of the clams. I'm not really sure what is happening.
There is suddenly also a lot of
Fan shell clams, similar in size, so perhaps of the same age?
Here's a video of the Fan shell clams.
There was also a lot of
Window pane shells. I did notice many small Fan shell clams and Window pane shells during our last survey in
Aug 2018.
I also saw a few other clams that I don't often see. There were also many
Hammer oysters.
There were also many snails. I saw several
Noble volutes, some
Gong gong and
Black lipped conch, one
Miliaris cowrie. Kelvin spotted the empty shell of a
Baler snail, we saw a live one here on our last survey in
Aug 2018. There were lots of egg capsules including some
sand collars. I didn't see any live
Babylon snails, but did see a shell occupied by a hermit crab.
I only saw one
Biscuit sea star and couldn't find the
Common sea stars. I saw a few
White sea urchins and
Black sea urchins, all small. There were a lot of young
Garlic bread sea cucumbers, and lots of
Thorny sea cucumbers and
Pink warty sea cucumbers. I saw one
Ball sea cucumber. There were also lots of little
elbow crabs,
tiny Flower crabs.
Jianlin saw a large
Knobbly sea star.
There were also many
Haddon's carpet anemones and I saw one
Geographic sea hare. Here's a clip of some of the marine life on the shore.
When we see a leaf or shell or debris 'walking' around, it usually means there's a
Leaf porter crab under it!
The seagrasses are still growing well on this shore. I came across lots of
Spoon seagrass,
Fern seagrass and
Needle seagrass with narrow leaves. For the first time, I saw a lot of Needle seagrass with broad leaves. But I didn't see the
Smooth ribbon seagrass and
Noodle seagrass that I saw during our last survey here in
Aug 2018,
There were a few people on the shore with plastic bags collecting marine life. We did not come across any traps or nets.
How strange to see lots of golf balls here.
The high shore is cleaned every day so there isn't much litter. As usual, many mangrove seedlings wash up here, including some rarer species.
This Changi shore can change very drastically between our surveys. I hope it remains safe until we can return again.
Photos by others on this trip
Jianlin Liu
Kelvin Yong
Meanwhile,
Richard Kuah surveyed Coney Island on 18 Feb and the shore looks good.
