Just minutes from Sentosa Cove, lies the natural reefy rocky shores of Pulau Tekukor.
So glad the corals and seagrasses seem to be doing well. And Giant clams and colourful marine life still there. Kelvin also flew the drone for special perspectives on this shore.
Kelvin
flew the drone for spectacular new perspectives on this shore!
Our first stop, we pay respects to the Giant clam near the landing point. It is after all, the second day of Lunar New Year!
The 30cm
Fluted giant clam near our landing point is still there. It looks okay. Today, I saw the other clam that Richard found
Mar 2024. It is also about 30cm. It was pale in the center which made me worry because Giant clams can also bleach. But I noticed in Richard's photo of it last year, the pale center was also there. Hope it will stay okay.
As usual, the rest of the team make all the special finds! Liz found the
'Jolly Green Giant' nudibranch which we have not seen for a very long time! Other favourite slugs were also there. As well as some special crabs like the
Mosaic crab and
Curry puff crab. And the
Twin-barred brittle star too!
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Collage of photos by the team.
Links to their albums at the end of this post. |
There is not a wide variety of animals on Pulau Tekukor, but a lot of a few kinds of animals. Zoanthids remain the most abundant animals on the shore. Thick
Sea Mat zoanthids and carpets of tinier
Button zoanthids continue to cover large stretches of the eastern rocky areas. Also abundant are
Long black sea cucumbers, plus small ones which are only commonly seen here. Also, many
Giant carpet anemones - no 'Nemos' sighted but did see
Peacock-tail anemone shrimp,
Frilly anemones,
Giant top shell snails. Also some crabs common on rocky reefy shores like the
Ferocious reef crab and
Floral egg crab.
I have never seen a lot of hard corals on this shore. But there are a few large ones and they seems alright today. I saw the usual sprinkling of small colonies of the boulder-shaped common hard corals, some quite well-formed. As in the past, I saw some small to medium sized
leathery soft corals. I didn't see any hard or soft corals that were bleaching. This situation is similar to our last survey here in
Mar 2024 which was before the
global mass coral bleaching event. So hopefully, this means most of the corals on the shore made it through?
The western shore of Pulau Tekukor is part of the Sisters Islands Marine Park. There are good growths of seagrasses on the shore that faces the Sisters Islands.
Sickle seagrass still covers a large part of the middle of this shore, with fresh green leaf blades. The patch of
Tape seagrass had male flower bracts (I didn't see any male flowers) and leaves were longish (about 20-30cm). I didn't see any
Spoon seagrasstoday. Overall, the seagrass situation is very similar to what I saw in
Mar 2024. There is a bloom of
Bryopsis seaweed on the western and eastern shores. The
sargassum seaweed bloom is starting to abate.
Pulau Tekukor's undeveloped eastern half has some of the last natural cliffs cloaked in natural coastal forests in Singapore. They seem to be doing well. I didn't take a closer look today because there were monkeys on the shore. Let's hope the shore stays safe until we return next year.
More photos by others on the surveyKelvin Yong's drone footage
Liz LimJianlin LiuRichard KuahOthers on the survey: Marcus Ng, Vincent Choo, Fiora Li, Isaac Ong, Samuel Loh.
