03 January 2018

Corallimorph Hunt Day 1: Pulau Ubin

Day 1 on the hunt for corallimorphs! A soggy survey at Pulau Ubin's awesome living rocky shores in the rain.
Surveying Pulau Ubin in the rain
I'm so glad Ren Min is taking up the challenge of working on the corallimorphs of Singapore.


We arrived in the rain. But the tide waits for no one, and since there was no lightning, we're off to find those corallimorphs.
Surveying Pulau Ubin in the rain
The natural rocky shores of Pulau Ubin are teeming with life.
Living rocky shore at Pulau Ubin South
First, to find the corallimorphs...a bit hard to find them from among the many other blobs on the rocks, especially in the rain.
Living rocky shore at Pulau Ubin South
Hurray, we found lots of corallimorphs. They come in different colours. We don't know if they are the same or different, which is why we are lucky to have Ren Min and the team of scientists helping her take a closer look at it.
Here's what the animal looks like when it is submerged and has its tentacles expanded. It is the Ball tipped corallimorph. Corallimoprhs are kinda like sea anemone, but more similar to hard corals, but not hard corals. It's complicated.
Ball-tip corallimorph
There were also lots of other colourful corals, anemones, zoanthids, sponges and ascidians.
As well as Onyx cowries and Miliaris cowries. I saw two Spiral babylon snails burrowed into the sand. And there were many coils of eggs on the rocks which look like limpet eggs.
As usual, many large Biscuit sea stars and one Cake sea star. I saw several small feather stars and colourful sea cucumbers. Also, many sea fans. It was pretty much what I saw on the survey here a few weeks ago in Dec 2017.
There is also some small patches of Spoon seagrasses here. They seem to be doing well.
Seagrass meadows at Pulau Ubin South
Alas, the fish traps were still seen on the shore.
Fish trap on Pulau Ubin rocky shore
As usual, it stops raining when the tide turns and we have to end the survey.
Pulau Ubin Jetty at sunset
In a few hours, the Corallimorph Hunt continues at Pulau Hantu!

During low spring tide, lots of other people are also checking up our shores.

Marcus Ng explored a part of Changi


And Chris Wong explored another part of Changi

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