The artificial reclaimed shores at East Coast Park teem with interesting marine
life!
Just in front of NSRCC East Coast, there is a huge sand bar full of sand dollars
and snails. Seagrasses are also growing lush here with fishes and crabs. These
have all taken root naturally, without any human planting.
I arrived early and a portion of the huge sand bar was already exposed. The
most abundant animal visible on the sand bar are
Cake sand dollars. They dot the sand in the hundreds!
A living
Cake sand dollar
is purplish brown, covered with fine hairs. When it dies, all the hairs fall off
leaving a white skeleton. Buried living sand dollars often leave circle of 5
holes on the surface of the sand. Sand dollars can move! Using their fine hairs,
leaving a trail on the sand surface. I also saw a the skeleton of the less
commonly seen
Thick edged sand dollar
that was so long dead that a sponge and seaweeds were growing on it.
Most animals on the sand bar are buried, leaving tell tale signs on the
surface. Little sand balls on the shore are created by
Sand bubbler crabs: big balls from digging out their burrows, and smaller balls after they
process sand for edible bits. They create a 'rosette' of sand to seal up their
burrow against the incoming tide. The crab itself is tiny and resembles a ball
of sand!
Many animals are buried in the sand. There were many
Straw tubeworms
on the shore. Washed up, were many broken pieces of their tubes.
Acorn worms
deposit coils of 'processed sand' on the surface while the long worm remains
buried.
Richard spotted a
Fig snail! It is rarely seen in Singapore because sandy shores that they prefer are
rare. Apparently, they eat worms.
It was great to see small patches of living
Button snails. These snails are often just beneath the sand surface, leaving typical dots
on the sand. You can gently reveal the snails, then cover them back again
after having a brief look.
Fierce burrowing predators hunt Button snails! The moon snails leave larger
trails. Today I saw many Ball moon snails and one Lined moon snail. Olive
snails leave more streamlined trails usually with a long narrow gap. Today I
saw many Weasel olive snails.
There are lots of tiny
Tidal hermit crabs, and a few bigger
Orange-striped hermit crabs. They leave typical tracks on the sand that resembles a zipper. Inside the
medium to large shells occupied by hermit crabs, there are white
Flat slipper snails, and sometimes, even
tiny porcelain crabs. It was nice surprise to see a
Land hermit crab
on the high shore. These crabs are usually rare on the mainland as they are
'cleaned up' and disposed together with the trash that washes up on the high
tide line. The structure of the sand bar and the situation there seems similar
to our last survey in
Feb 2019.
Seagrass meadows have also taken over the area nearer the canal. This is only
exposed at much lower tides, which happened today after sunset. There are
patches of dense Spoon seagrass with large leaves, and Needle seagrass with
broad leaves. I didn't see other species today.
It was challenging to survey the seagrass in the dark. But I got glimpses of a
seagrass pipefish, a goby and a rabbitfish! There were also lots of small
swimming crabs, a few tiny carpet anemones. There were a few
Little red sea cucumbers sparsely distributed among the seagrasses. The only Pink warty sea cucumbers I saw were on the sand bar clinging to tubeworm
tubes. I saw more animals during a lower tide in daylight in
Feb 2019.
Today, there was only one man and child on the shore during the low tide. Nice
to see them taking time to explore the beach. These precious memories will stay
with young ones long after they have grown up.
What is the future of these shores?These living
East Coast shores are precious because they
may be reclaimed in the
2013 landuse plan by the Ministry of National Development released in response to
2013 Population White Paper.
The blue outlined areas are "Possible Future Reclamation". The plans
include massive reclamation along the entire East Coast.
James KohArjun Sai KrishnanOther surveys on this dateVincent Choo was at Punggol
Richard Kuah surveyed Sentosa Tg Rimau on 19 Nov
Richard spotted a
Fig snail! It is rarely seen in Singapore because sandy shores that they prefer are
rare. Apparently, they eat worms.
Fierce burrowing predators hunt Button snails! The moon snails leave larger
trails. Today I saw many Ball moon snails and one Lined moon snail. Olive
snails leave more streamlined trails usually with a long narrow gap. Today I
saw many Weasel olive snails.
