It's the last trip to Cyrene reef for the year. We had great weather and sea conditions today.
Cyrene reef is a submerged reef located in an industrial triangle consisting of Pulau Bukom, Jurong Island and PSA Pasir Panjang Port.
The team had fun finding many exciting critters on Cyrene.
My first find will this this interesting small crab.
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| The crab is slightly bigger than the seagrass. |
We usually do not take much notice of small crabs and always assuming that they are the same. However today I understood the importance of close examination. There are many tiny crabs moving around and many of them looked different and interesting. It takes a lot of patients to look at small things.
There were many types of shrimps on the reef as the tide receded. Some shrimps will burrow into the sand when disturbed or senses danger. Some shrimps, like the
ornamented snapping shrimp (
Alpheus sp.), have their own burrow to hide into. Some shrimps dart around in the water very quickly so that it could not seen the direction it disappeared to.
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| Sand burrowing shrimp |
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| Ornamented snapping shrimp cleaning its entrance |
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| This snapping shrimp is a good friends with the fish |
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| Another type of shrimp |
There were plenty of
synaptid sea cucumber and they come in different patterns and colours. In the dark, we could observe the sea cucumber feeding using its feeding tentacles.
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| Synaptid sea cucumber feeding |
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| One of the feeding tentacles putting food in |
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| Another synaptid sea cucumber of a pinkish colouration with white stripes |
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| Another synaptid with tiger stripes |
Nearby the first synaptid sea cucumber that I spotted, there was a sponge filled with many tiny brittle star and a lonely
fan worm was nearby. The brittle stars are probably the
tiny in-a-sponge brittle star (
Ophiactis savigny).
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| Tiny in-a-sponge brittle star |
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| Fan worm |
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| Yellow-banded damselfish |
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| Pygmy squid |
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| Spotted black flatworm |
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| Spotted black flatworm (underside) |
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| Starry flatworm |
Strangely I found an
isopod each on the underside of a
knobbly sea star (
Protoreaster nodosus) and a
pentaceraster sea star (
Pentaceraster mammilatus). I am not sure why they were they. Perhaps they were just clinging on for hiding?
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| Isopod on the underside of a pentaceraster sea star |
There were just too many things to find and see. I decided to neglect the knobbly and pentaceraster sea stars today. However I did took some details shot for a record.
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| Top view of the pentaceraster sea star |
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| Underside surface of the pentaceraster |
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| Tube feet of the pentaceraster |
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| Side profile of pentaceraster |
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| Top detail of a knobbly sea star |
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| Surface details of knobbly |
Kok Sheng managed to find a small
cake sea star (
Anthenea aspera). This sea star is not commonly found on Cyrene.
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| Top view of the cake sea star |
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| Underside view of the cake sea star |
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| 3 blue dragon nudibranch |
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| Closer look at one of the blue dragon nudibranch |
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| Sea grape slug, showing part of its body |
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| Sea grape slug moving away |
I did not take much notice on the snails. Some just happened to be within my line of sight. I saw a
common whelk (
Nassarius livescens) burrowing out of the sand probably looking for decaying matter, and a
margined conch (
Strombus marginatus robustus).
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| The whelk has just burrowed out of the sand |
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| Underside of the whelk |
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| Whelk with its siphon |
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| Underside of the margined conch |
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| Close up on the conch. They have cute eyes! |
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| Margined conch shell, top view |
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| Wiggly sand star anemone? |
Not very sure about the actual identification but it retrached very quickly into the sand when it senses movement nearby. For a moment I was wonder where it had disappeared to after a blink of eye. With patient waiting the fellow was back up again. I quickly took a few shots of it and later confirmed that it retracts into the sand.
There was another unknown creature. My guess is some kind of peacock anemone.
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| Unknown animal |
There are just simply too many to blog about. Majority of the team members stayed within a small working area for the duration of the trip as there were simply too many things to see. My plan of walking to the beacon failed as I stayed with them, looking for more stuff. Luckily, Ria took a visit to the beacon area and blogged about her sightings.
The next time I visit Cyrene would be next year and I would miss travelling on Alex's boat until November.
Tomorrow I will be visiting Big Sister's Island. Hope that I get to see seahorse.
Post by others on this trip:
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