This morning, a small team come across a wide variety of nudibranchs, sea slugs and flatworms!
Along a small stretch of Changi Creek shores that was recently impacted by months of construction of a new seawall.
The small piles of rocks were coated in corals, sponges and animals such as
fanworms have settled among them.
There were lots of large healthy patches of
Zebra coral, dotted with some sponges. I even saw one small colony of greenish
Anemone coral! But I didn't see any flowery soft corals, which I did on our last survey in
Jul 2017.
Such encrustations are food for flatworms, nudibranchs and other slugs. Today we came across some surprising nudibranchs that are usually found in the South and not in the North such as
Chromodoris lineolata. There were also some
Spangled flatworms and a
Purple spotted yellow flatworm. In the seagrass areas, there were many
tailed slugs.
I came across this nudibranch that I've not seen before. Check out
Jianlin's facebook album of the awesome nudis and slugs he saw (more than I did). People often don't believe me when I say that we often see a wider variety of nudibranchs on the Northern shores than among the reefs of our Southern shores. But it is often true!
There were also lots of seafans on the point of Changi Creek!
There were a good variety of sea fans:
Candelabra sea fans,
Gnarled sea fans,
Skinny sea fans,
Sea whips and one with purple polyps that I haven't seen before.
Jianlin found an Ovulid among the seafans!
At the rocky area at the western end of this shore, there were still many small clumps of
Button zoanthids and
Melted chocolate sponge covered large areas. But I didn't see much other sponges, and no sea fans. In
Jul 2013, I saw a sea fan garden there.
There were other cnidarians too on the shore. The shore was soft and silty and there were many
Common cerianthids. I didn't see any sea pens though. There were many
Haddon's carpet anemone on both the rocky areas and seagrass meadows. Other anemones seen were many
Banded bead anemones on the high shore, a few
Tiger anemones, one stranded
Swimming anemone and some
Ball-tipped corallimorphs.
Changi shores are echinoderm heaven. And today, I saw a good variety of sea stars. I saw many
Biscuit sea stars large and small, two medium sized
Cake sea stars, many
Rock stars on the rocky shores, one
Painted sand star and for the first time in a long time, a
Spiny sea star with orange tipped arms. I only saw one small
Eight-armed sand star (in comparison to the many large ones I saw on the opposite shore in
Jun 2019). I also saw two
Blue feather stars.
There were also many sea cucumbers.
Pink warty sea cucumbers were the most common. But I also saw many large and small
Garlic bread sea cucumbers. There were also many
Ball sea cucumbers in the sandy areas. I only saw a few
Thorny sea cucumbers, one
Orange sea cucumber, two
Beige sea cucumbers. I also saw one
White sea urchin and a few
brittle stars.
This shore is heavily harvested, so it was nice to see one
Noble volute and many
Gong-gong snails. Empty shells were taken over by
Orange striped hermit crabs. There were a few small
fan clam shells, some tiny
Window pane shells and a
Large cockle. It was a relief not to see any of the clams that had taken over another part of Changi in
Feb 2019.
The seagrasses are doing well. Those along the Creek were fresh and green without any epiphytes. Mostly
Spoon seagrass with large and small leaf blades. This
Velcro crab has attached Spoon seagrass to itself!
In
Jul 2017, I saw
Needle seagrass for the first time here. Today, these seagrasses seem to be doing very well.
The seagrass meadows and rocky area at the mouth of Changi Creek seems to be doing well. The last time I surveyed this shore was in
Jul 2017, seven month after the shore was hit by the
300-tonne oil spill in the East Johor Strait. At that time, it was recovering very well.
I was frankly quite surprised as massive construction was going on this area for many months. This is what I saw in Oct 2018.
In Nov 2018.
And in Jan 2019.
I'm so glad these shores survived and are doing well. Our shores are quite tough it seems!
Photos by others on this trip
Jianlin Liu
Others on this trip: Jianlin Liu, Leon.
