Special shells at Cyrene

Today, I was back on Cyrene with Jeanette and her team to film this wonderful shore.

The small team of volunteer surveyors found two Fluted giant clams, possibly the Money cowrie (that I've never seen before), signs of dugong and other other interesting marine life!


Although it lies in the middle of an industrial triangle and major shipping lanes, Cyrene has some of Singapore's most amazing shores.

Juria found two large Fluted giant clams!

Victor found a pair of cowries I've never seen before. I think they are the money cowrie. Recent estimates suggest that half the cowrie species in Singapore have been lost. More about our cowries.

Russel also saw lots of interesting marine life.

For the first time, we landed on the eastern end of Cyrene, where it is rockier and reefier. It was good to see some large corals and that they were not bleaching.

Although I didn't get to survey the area thoroughly, I glimpsed a few kinds of corals. Many of the Boulder pore corals were pale and some had grey spots of recently dead tissue. But other corals seemed alright.

There are also seagrass meadows here.

We saw some possible dugong feeding trails, but not as many as in the western end of Cyrene. I also checked out the deep pool that used to be full of seagrasses, it is still rather bare.

As Richard saw on our last survey here a few weeks ago, there more Knobbly sea stars gathered on the eastern end of Cyrene than where we usually find them, on the western end. Also, there seems to be much fewer of them. There is ongoing reclamation at Jurong near the western end of Cyrene. Is that a reason for this situation?

I was busy trying to be helpful to Jeanette for the filming so I didn't get to take many photos. So I'm grateful to the rest of the volunteers for sharing their finds and photos.

Photos by others on this trip

Russel Low


Photos by Victor Toh.

Others on this trip: Juria, Yi Feng.