I saw lots of Fire anemones today among the seagrasses of Beting Bemban Besar!
One of our largest submerged reefs, it was great to see fresh green seagrasses in the middle of Triple B, as we affectionately call it. It was also a relief to that there was not much bleaching seen on the reefs here.
I saw several Fire anemones on a brief survey of this humungous shore. Anything with the word 'fire' in their common name probably has a very nasty sting. None of us have touched it to find out just how nasty it is...
The seagrasses formed many small patches that were more dense. While there was clumps of fluffy seaweeds among them, the seagrasses were mostly free of epiphytes. But I didn't come across many creatures living among the seagrasses. The situation is somewhat similar to our last survey here in
Aug 2018. Here's a brief video clip.
Similar to my last visit in
Aug 2018, I saw some small patches of
Noodle seagrass. I also saw
Spoon seagrass (small and large leaves),
Needle seagrass (narrow and broad leaves),
Sickle seagrass and
Serrated ribbon seagrass.
There were many clumps of
Tape seagrass with longer leaves (about 30cm) in the middle of the reef flat as well as among the reefier edge. There were some though, with cropped leaves. I had also seen some seagrass growths on the southern end of Beting Bemban Besar in
Nov 2018. So perhaps the seagrasses are returning to this submerged reef? And perhaps they will then return to Pulau Semakau too?
There were not many animals among the seagrasses. I saw a snapping shrimp, an Orange striped hermit crabs, live Tellin clam, a dead Heart cockle and the skeleton of a
Thick-edged sand dollar. There were moon snail trails in the sand. I saw more animals among the seagrasses during our last survey in
Aug 2018.
There were many
Giant carpet anemones among the seagrasses, but I didn't see any
Haddon's carpet anemones, which are more typically found among seagrasses.
I also checked out the western reef edge briefly for the coral bleaching situation. This shore is not as rich as Terumbu Bemban which lies just opposite. But there are still many interesting corals. Here's a brief video of some.
I saw many clumps of
Branching montipora corals, though they are not yet the dense field that used to be here. After the mass coral bleaching in 2016, during our last survey in
May 2017, I observed that only about 20% survived. Today, there seems to be more colonies. They were alright. I saw some
Acropora corals and most were alright although one was very pale.
I saw a small cluster of
Circular mushroom corals they were pale or bleaching. There were also some
Tongue mushroom corals. They were not bleaching.
I saw some
Cauliflower corals, they were not bleaching. I saw several
Sandpaper corals, they had pale edges.
Anemone corals and
Small goniopora coral were particularly abundant, all were alright except or one or two with pale polyps. I saw a few
Brain corals and they were alright.
Most of the
Disk corals I saw were alright, although a few were pale. Most of the
Flowery disk corals were pale.
Some rare corals I saw included a
Cabbage coral (stressed), several
Anchor corals (not bleaching), a few
Pebble corals (oddly coloured), a few
Carnation corals (pale).
I only saw one
Galaxy coral (pale). The
Boulder pore corals were mostly alright although a few were pale or pink. As usual, I saw a lot of
Merulinid corals, and only a few were pale and I saw only one small one that was bleaching.
The
Leathery soft corals were mostly alright, with several large colonies.
Although I came across this bunch of smaller ones which probably 'fragmented' from a bigger colony?
One of the Giant carpet anemones I saw was very pale but the rest were okay. Most of the Frilly anemones were alright except one that was very pale. I saw some Sea mat zoanthids with pale patches, and some clumps of bleaching Broad zoanthids. Let's hope the recent wet weather will cool things down so the marine life will stop feeling the heat stress.
Beting Bemban Besar is indeed huge. We have to make several trips to actually survey a good portion of it. This shore is rather tricky to land on. We are glad to have a safe trip and to avoid the rain again!
More photos by others on this trip
Jianlin Liu
Lisa Lim
Teo Say Chong
Others on this trip: Chay Hoon, Geraldine, Say Chong.
Meanwhile,
Liz was at Pulau Semakau with TeamSeaGrass. Here's what she saw.
