It was another hunting seeking session at Pulau Semakau. The low tide time seems to get earlier and earlier (there goes my beauty sleep...). I reached the Marina South Pier at 0430 hrs *gasp* (even worse than army days!). As there were less volunteers this session, I was on my own for the hunting seeking session.
At the Mangrove area, there seemed to be quite a lot of Cerithidea cingulata, Batillaria zonalis, Clypeomonus zonata. From the ID chart, the difference seemed to be the patterns on the shell but I was still rather unsure on how to differentiate them.
A Dog Whelk was spotted next crawling along the mangrove shore.
There were lots of Acorn worm in the area as well.
As I moved on towards the sandy area, there were a couple of Sand-Shifting Sea Star in the area.
The seagrass area proved to be a really challenging area to hunt for any species, It was really back breaking trying to sieve through all the seagrass. Spotted a Sea Cucumber (not too sure if it was an Ocellated Sea Cucumber or a Dragonfish Sea Cucumber) in the midst of all the seagrass.
I also spotted some greenish stuff on the seagrass. (Will need to find out what that is)
I collected a what looked like a juvenile swimming crab along the way. It was missing a cheliped.
I was also quite surprised to find Black Long-Spined Sea Urchin hidden amongst the dead corals. Usually I will find it in abundance whilst diving off Tioman and simply brush if off but I was fairly happy to be able to spot it in Semakau. First time I saw sea urchin here!
I was pretty amazed by the size of the Sandfish Sea Cucumber. It was really huge and blended in very nicely in the sand.
Tried to take pictures of a Red Egg Crab but it eluded me.
At the reef edge, I spotted a Glossodoris atromarginata.
I observed that one can find these nudibranch more at the reef edge while the Jorunna funebris are more commonly spotted in tidal pools in the coral rubble area.
A Phyllidiella nigra was also seen near the reef edge.
Met up with the rest of my students at the reef edge and headed back to the mangrove area together with them as the tide was coming in. A few surprises awaited us as we walked back.
Surprise Number 1
One of my students spotted an Upside Down Jellyfish.
It was really great to see how these students have developed in their knowledge of these intertidal organism. Think some of them are even better than me in identifying these organism. The Chinese have this saying ‘Qing Chu Yu Lan, Shen Yu Lan’ (not too sure if I got this saying correct). How apt!
Surprise Number 2
KQ spotted a fish and initially thought it was a dead fish. I walked over and to my surprise it was a juvenile frogfish!
Never thought I would see one during an intertidal walk. My only encounters with them are during my dives. It’s rather amazing to note the biodiversity Semakau has to offer!
To round off the hunting seeking session, the iconic Knobbly Sea Star was spotted!
All in all, it was great hunting seeking sessions!
Yeah well,mine is a forced developement because I go there too often.As for the upside down jellyfish(scientific name Cassiopea,it's quite distinctive from the hellfire anemone because of the markings it has on it's ''bell''.It's also one of the first organisms I found when I first came to Pulau Semakau,so I usually have no trouble finding and identifying it.
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