Changi Over 2 Days

I helped conducted 2 workshops at Changi Beach on 9 & 10 Feb for some MGS students, and these are some of the stuff we encountered during the trip.


We found one hairy sea hare (Bursatella leachii). This sea hare is seasonally abundant, and sometimes we can find hundreds, if not thousands of them on places like Chek Jawa.


One of the groups found this bamboo clam, also known as a razor clam. It is about the size of my middle finger.


For both days, we found an olive snail!


Several moon snails (Polinices didyma) were spotted prowling around the sand, probably seeking for little shells to feed on.


I was quite happy to see this helmet shell (Semicassis bisulcatum) for the first time! Guess I hasn't really been paying much attention to snails until the mollusc workshop for Project Semakau recently :P


The noble volutes (Cymbiola nobilis) we found here were really huge! While it's rather slow moving, it's a fierce predator of other snails and clams.


Some of the noble volutes were found were dead ones though, occupied by the orange striped hermit crab (Clibanarius infraspinatus).


One of the groups also find a very small but pretty pebble crab! This crab can burrow very well, and can disappear into the sand in an instance.


Amantis shrimp also decided to pay us a visit on both days!


We also found this sea cucumber which I have seen several times, but still don't know what species it belongs to.


The pink thorny sea cucumbers (Colochirus quadrangularis) were in season, and there were lots of them every where. So were the white salmacis sea urchins, but unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of them.


Apart from several sand stars, a group of students found this juvenile biscuit sea star (Goniodiscaster scaber) too!


This pretty flatworm (Pseudobiceros gratus) delighted many of the girls when it started swimming by flapping its sides.

We ended the workshops with the girls doing a short exercise to answer a few questions on shore ecology and conservation. Was really glad that the girls got most of the answers correct. Hopefully this workshop will allow them to better appreciate the little nature treasures that Singapore has got left! :)