This morning, I saw lots of huge
Eight-armed Luidia sand stars at Changi! My first time seeing this.
The shore was NOT taken over by clams (a relief) and seagrass situation seems similar to our last survey. We saw lots of colourful marine life.
The sea stars were very large! My foot next to one for scale. I stopped counting after I saw 30 individuals. I saw them at the point which seems to now be mostly bare sand. I only counted those I could see on the mid shore, there are probably many more in deeper waters. I'm not sure why there is such a large number of them.
These sea stars can move quickly and some were quite active, flailing their arms and 'walking' quickly on the sand. They are predators. So there must be a good source of their prey for there to be so many of them in such vigorous health.
But these sea stars are also very fragile. If they feel threatened, they can purposely drop off or fragment their arms. I saw a patch of arm fragments. Not sure what happened.
There were also many other creatures on the shore, especially echinoderms. There were a lot of
Pink warty sea cucumbers and some
Thorny sea cucumbers. I saw a few
Sea apple sea cucumbers,
Garlic sea cucumber,
Ball sea cucumbers. I saw several large
White sea urchins, widely scattered. I didn't see many sea stars: a few tiny to small
Biscuit stars, in the sandier areas, a few
Plain sand stars. I didn't see any
Common sea stars. During our last survey in
Jul 2018, we saw lots of feather stars and Black sea urchins. I didn't see any today.
The ground has become very firm and is no longer soft and silty. I saw a few
Common cerianthids, some small and large
Haddon's carpet anemones, on
Big hermit hitching anemone, one
Common peachia anemon. But no
Tiger anemones. I saw many
Sea Pencils, and some
Flowery sea pens. I didn't come across other kinds of sea pens. I also saw one small
Ball flowery soft coral.
I saw one pair of
Mangrove horseshoe crabs. On our last survey in Jul 2018, we saw many more.
It was good to also see one
Big-head seagrass octopus. It was hiding in a broken glass bottle. Unfortunately, these creatures are heavily harvested by fishermen for bait. This morning, there were four people out with buckets and a headlamp slowly searching the shore. We didn't get a chance to chat with them to find out what they were collecting.
It was a relief to see that the shore was not taken over by clams like another part of Changi that we surveyed in
Feb 2019. Although there were some
Fan clam shells, they were small and scattered. There were some thin sheets of
Little black mussels on the rocky areas. I saw two
Calf moon snails, a
Hairy sea hare and a
Spotted sea hare.
The seagrass situation seems similar to what we saw in
Jul 2018. The meadows were mostly
Spoon seagrasses (large and small leaf blades) with scattered and patches of
Needle seagrass (narrow leaf blades). I didn't come across
Fern seagrass. The small patch of
Smooth ribbon seagrass where the pipes used to be are still there, first observed on our
Jun 2016 survey. But I didn't see clear dugong feeding trails today.
The rocks in front of Changi Point Ferry Terminal were covered in corals and sponges!
There were lots of
Zebra corals on all the rocks on the lower shore.
There were also some colourful sponges and other encrusting marine life on the rocks.
Nudibranchs feed on such animals so it's great to see
Atagema intecta (black blob near black sponges - does it eat the sponge?) and a well camouflaged
Thordisa villosa - spotted by Shawne, Bravo!
The tide turned at sunrise!
Let's hope these interesting shores remain well until we can visit again in a year's time.
