Cyrene in the dark

Although Cyrene lies in the middle of an industrial triangle, it still has some of Singapore's most amazing shores. A very large team surveys on a predawn low tide.

It was a relief to see that the Knobbly sea stars seem to have recovered from the mysterious injuries we saw in Feb 2026. The corals seem to be alright. Although most of the centre was bare sand, there is still lush seagrasses near the beacon area. But we sense the shore remains rather quiet. The rest of the team saw giant clams and other interesting marine life.  I will update when they have uploaded their photos.

During our survey here in Feb 2026, we noticed a large proportion of Knobbly sea stars had lost the top five knobs. It seems the knob fell off, rather than being bitten off by predators. The cut is clean and sheer. So possibly the sea stars self amputated their knobs, the same way that they can do with their arms? Today, I saw 17 Knobblies near the beacon area, and most of them had complete sharp and pointed knobs. Although a few had bluish tips and flattened tips, none had sheer cut knobs. Seems the rest of the team also did not see freshly amputated knobs. Will update with their observations later.

Updating with photos of Knobblies seen by Loh Kok Sheng (28), Marcus Ng (19) and Zen Xuan He (7). Seems most are 'normal' with well formed knobs. But there were quite a few with 'split knobs' - two tips or even two small knobs where one large one usually is. There were also some with a rather 'messy' arrangement of knobs near the top. We shall keep an eye on this situation.

As usual, the rest of the team make all the special finds. A night trip means lots of octopus, also squid and cuttlefish. There were also many interesting flatworms we have not seen before. Colourful reef crabs and fish are also less shy at night. Small urchins were also seen. Kok Sheng saw one live Giant clam, Zen found the dead shells of a Hippopus hippopus clam which we have never seen alive on our shores. Unfortunately, the big Giant clam near the beacon is dead, and another dead one was also seen.

There's never been a lot of hard corals on Cyrene since we first started surveying it. Most of them are boulder shaped and there are some large colonies. I had a brief look at the corals on the eastern end today. Similar to our last survey in Feb 2026,  May 2025 and Jul 2025 today I didn't see any bleaching.

Near the beacon and around the eastern tip of Cyrene, there remains many large Leathery soft corals of various kinds. As well as some Asparagus flowery soft corals, Sea mat zoanthids and small clumps of Spiky flowery soft corals. Similar to our last survey in Feb 2026, May 2025 and Jul 2025 today I didn't see any bleaching.

Much of the centre of Cyrene is mostly bare sand. I hardly saw any animals there. But perhaps the rest of the team did, I will update with their sightings.

Sand has covered most of the center of the flats. There were not many animals, but Kok Sheng saw several Key-hole sand dollars - which we seldom see anywhere else. Seems like the usually more abundant Cake sand dollar are missing? There were still some Common sea stars, and one Orange sand star. Kok Sheng also saw a heart urchin that burrows in sand.  A brown sea cucumber and some predatory snails that are only common on Cyrene: Orange-mouth olive snail and Egg-white moon snail. There were also many of the more common moon snails.

More updates from the team about what they saw on western Cyrene (it is huge, so one person can't do the whole shore in one tide). Dylan saw a Giant clam that the rest seemed to have missed. So we saw 2 giant clams this trip! They also saw many Knobbly sea stars. There are still corals here, mostly boulder shaped of the commonly seen varieties. As well as leathery soft corals and other anemones and cnidarians. Seems they didn't see any that were bleaching. Sam saw glowing ostracods, each with a worm. We have no idea what is happening. Also sightings of squids large and tiny and the usual reef life. Plus bonus spotty jellyfish at Keppel Marina.

From the team that checked out the western end seagrasses seem to still be doing well here.

Seagrasses on the eastern end start to appear towards the reef edge, where they are still covered even at low tide. 

Seagrasses are growing well towards the beacon area in the east. With a mix of common seagrasses. Tape seagrasses remain very sparse and cropped.

Today, I saw a few of what seems to be dugong feeding trails. These trails are formed when dugongs chomp up seagrasses including their roots, leaving a shallow meandering furrow of about equal width and depth. Every survey since 2021, we see dugong feeding trails on Cyrene. 

Although it lies in the middle of an industrial triangle and major shipping lanes, Cyrene has some of Singapore's most amazing shores. We had surveyed in Jun 2024 for impact of the Pasir Panjang oil spill a few weeks prior and did not see any signs of oil. While Cyrene seems to have pulled through both this oil spill and mass coral bleaching that happened in 2024, it seems to be growing more quiet. We shall monitor closely and hope it will recover.

Posts by others on this survey

Marcus Ng


Anya Gaur


Jianlin Liu


Zen Xuan He


Loh Kok Sheng


Rui Quan Oh


Jason Ooi


Lon Ong Voon


Jaeden Lim


Samuel Lau


Dylan Seng


Others on the survey: Lester Tan, Muhd Nasry, Ian Mun, Faith, Zheng Hao