Beting Bronok on 20 April 2011

We visited Beting Bronok last month, but didn't quite had the time to blog about it until today! Not sure if it's a seasonal thing or what, but we did not see any Melo melo despite the very low tide. Checked with the TMSI team there, and apparently they had not seen one for a while also. We saw several shells though. Anyway, here are some of the things we saw...


Nepanthia belcheri, a sea star which I have not seen for a while...


The Goniodiscaster scaber were every where!


There were many small Anthenea aspera, but I was glad to see a few of these big ones - more than 20cm wide.


I only saw one Astropecten sp.


Two Protoreaster nodosus were seen.


The Salmacis sea urchins were in season.


Only a few Temnopleurus sp. were seen though.


Holothuria scabra, a rather common sea cucumber in our local shores which is also a good burrower.


Prionocidaris sp. - always rather abundant here.


An unknown nudibranch which I was too lazy too look up for its ID.


This nudibranch looks like a Hoplodoris armata to me.


Dendrodoris denisoni - one of the more commonly seen nudibranchs on our shores.


Notobryon sp. - have only seen this at Changi before this.


Found this Actinocyclus sp. laying eggs! Unfortunately it was caught by the low tide though.


Another nudibranch which I have not seen for quite a while - Thordisa villosa.


Bursatella leachii appeared to be in season too.


Several small octopuses were stranded high and dry with the low tide.


I also saw some cuttlefish eggs, but did not see any cuttlefish though.


My first time seeing this brownish flatworm here, though I had previously seen it on our other shores.


Pseudoceros indicus - quite common but often overlooked as it's rather small.


An unidentified sea anemone which had two different types of tentacles - yellow ones in the middle, which the rest were dull coloured.


Stichodactyla hadonni - a rather common sea anemone on our shores.


Not so common was this Actinostephanus haeckeli, which supposedly stings painfully.


Dendronephthya spp. were quite abundant on our northen shores.


Chrysaora sp. was also in season. Haven't heard of any divers who got stung by it this time round though.


Varuna litterata?


Bryozoans were every where!


Several moray eels and sharks were caught in this fish trap. Sigh... the TMSI people had problems with the fishermen before, so we didn't free them.

Generally it was a nice trip. Glad to be back here after 2 years!

Back to Beting Bronok

The original plan was to visit Raffles Lighthouse, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, we had to change the location to Beting Bronok instead. To be frank, I wasn't really disappointed with the last minute change, but was in fact rather happy as I had not visited Beting Bronok for the past 3 years.


We found at least 6 brown-spotted morays (Gymnothorax reevesii), most of them stranded in shallow tidal pools, and two of them were even stranded on dry land due to the low spring tide.


Pencil sea urchins (Prionocidaris sp.) were quite abundant here.


There is also a good population of knobbly Sea Stars (Protorester nodosus). I saw at least 20 of them.


The most delightful star find must be this red cake sea star (Anthenea aspera). While we found several cake sea stars here, this was the prettiest!


We also found a few Gymnanthenea laevis sea stars.


Like most of our northern shores, the biscuit sea star (Goniodiscaster scaber) can be found in large numbers.


At the sandy areas, many sand stars (Astropecten sp.) were spotted.


We have seen this sea cucumber many times on our northern shores, but still has not confirm its ID.


The sandfish sea cucumber (Holothuria scabra) is another sea cucumber commonly found here. It is also the sea cucumber that you can often find in Chinese restaurants. However, it is actually toxic, and need to be properly processed before they can be consumed.


I spotted a Haeckeli sea anemone (Actinostephanus haeckeli). A member of the hell's fire anemone family (Actinodendronidae), this anemone can give very painful stings. I have seen this previously at Changi beach and Semakau, though the one at Changi was green in colour.


One really nice thing about Beting Bronok is that there are lots of pretty soft corals.


The sandy substrate with lots of seagrass and seaweed also means there are lots of sea pens too.


Here's another sea pen. Sea pens are colonial animals with a primary polyp (the middle stalk) and secondary polyps (the feathery bits by the sides of the primary polyp).


Huge flatworms (Acanthozoon sp.) were easily found here, many of which were about the length of my palm, and several were stranded on dry land due to the low tide.


Also stranded on dry land were many octopuses.


The onyx cowrie (Cypraea onyx) is very common on this shore too. The shell of this snail is very smooth and pretty, and it is usually covered by the mantle, protecting it from being scratched. The mantle also repairs and helps build the shell.


Siyang spotted this frog shell (Bufonaria rana).


It took me a while to find this huge melon shell (Melo melo). This shell is often collect for food by fishermen, and the empty shell used to bale water. It is able to produce non-nacreous pearls valued by some collectors.


Several nudibranchs can be found here, including the blue dragon (Pteraeolidia ianthina).


Agnes found this pretty Cuthona sibogae nudibranch.


A nudibranch which I have not seen for quite a while - Thordisa villosa.


This huge Atagema spongiosa was about more than 10cm long.


The Polybranchia orientalis is a sap-sucking slug which can be really well-camouflaged if it's among seaweed or seagrass.


The hairy sea hare (Bursatella leachii) seemed to be in season, and we saw a number of them.


Noticed that I hardly post photos of clams, so I shall end this series of photos with a Venus clam (Marcia sp.).

All in all, it was great to be back on Beting Bronok!