Changi Beach on 24 Jun 2009

It's been a while since I last visited Changi Beach, and thus, I decided to visit it with a few other RMBR Nature Guides.


My favourite organism of the trip will be this Sea Apple (Pseudocolochirus axiologus),which is in fact a type of sea cucumber. You can see its tentacles extending out from its mouth, which it uses to gather edible particles in the water.


There were several of this pink sea cucumber (Cercodemas anceps) too.


Looking rather similar to the previous sea cucumber will be this pink thorny sea cucumber (Colochirus quadrangularis).


This little hairy purple sea cucumber was rather abundant. Not sure of the ID though.


A Holothuria notabilis sea cucumber.


We only found one pencil sea urchin (Prionocidaris sp.).


There were a few little black sea urchins (Temnopleurus sp.), and many of them had this worm-like organism near their mouths.


A few Salmacis sea urchins (Salmacis sp.) were also spotted.


I found a total of 8 eight-armed Luidia sea stars (Luidia maculata).


And this is one huge cake sea star (Anthenea aspera), which is about 20cm wide.


The biscuit sea star (Goniodiscaster scaber) is probably the most abundant sea star we saw during this trip.


A few orange-tipped sea stars (Gymnanthenea laevis) were also spotted.


Not all Gymnanthenea laevis come with orange tips though, like the one above, which also shows that not all of them come with 5 arms.


After a while, many sand stars (Astropecten sp.) also started appearing.


As the tide was really low, we found quite a few tube anemones too. This one has caught a little fish for breakfast...


Yet another stinging animal we saw will be this Haddon's carpet anemone (Stichodactyla haddoni). This particular individual was about 40cm wide.


We also found many sea pens among the seagrass.


I found a pair of coastal horseshoe crabs (Tachypleus gigas) trapped by a discarded fishing line.


Managed to release them eventually.


This velcro crab (Camposcia retusa) certainly is a master of camouflage, and has stuck many little stones and shells on its exoskeleton, which is densely covered with little hooked hairs, just like velcro!


This elbow crab (Family Parthenopidae) also managed to camouflage itself very well.


We found 2 spotted seahorses (Hippocampus kuda), and here's one of them.


Closely related to seahorses are these pipefishes, which blend in very nicely to the surrounding seaweed.


The geographic sea hare (Syphonata geographica) appears to be in season too.


And lastly, we also saw several octopuses.

Changi is certainly one of my favourite shores, and again it did not disappoint me this trip. Will certainly visit it again when the tide is low next month :)