This Nudibranch Is ???.....

See reply from Dr Bill Rudman of The Sea Slug Forum

WOW At Pulau Hantu!!!.....

First leisure dive of the year! Joined The Hantu Bloggers diving at Pulau Hantu's North Jetty this morning.

There's only one word that can express what we saw today. It's WOW!!!

Of course, thanks to Hui Bing (my buddy and volunteer Reef Xplore's guide) for finding some of the amazing stuffs.

So I shall not keep you waiting.....Here's what we saw:


SHARK!!! Yes finally, a shark for me at Pulau Hantu!!! I was simply speechless and excited! Never been so close with one in the wild underwater.

It's about a meter long. I have to take the head, body and tail separately cos I don't have a wide angle. But still managed to get a shot of the whole fish after I back off abit. So what kind of shark is this? Anyone can help with the ID?



Then, it's my first encounter with a BIG Cuttlefish! It's about 50cm long!




And here's the amazing part; It was depositing her EGGS (the white stuffs) into spaces among a coral! Gosh!!!



Next is a juvenile Longfin Batfish. Wonder if it's the one that Debby had captured on video during last Hantu Bloggers dive?



When we were at the jetty's pillars, we saw this Seahorse! It's tummy looks swollen. A pregnant Seahorse Papa?



There's a lot of Flatworms out and about today.



And a pair was mating!



Flatworms are hermaphrodites. This mean that each flatworm has both male and female reproduction organs or in another words, produces eggs and sperm. So when two flatworms mate, they exchange sperm and both become fertilized. Some flatworms, such as the above Pseudobiceros hancockanus, engage in penis (it's the white thingy that you see sticking out from the underside of the flatworms) fencing. The two will fight and try to pierce the skin of the other with their penises to be the first to inseminate the other. The loser will then have to carry and nourish the eggs.

And of course, a good Hantu dive for me must be completed with my favourite Nudibranchs. And today is a fruitful day.



Here's the phyllidia ocellata (orange one), phyllidia sp, pteraeolidia ianthina(Blue Dragon Nudibranch), flabellina sp, glossodoris atromarginata (yellow one) and a dermatobranchus sp.

Then it's bornella sp.



and a video showing how it swim.



Last but not least, Hui Bing and I came across two unidentified Nudibranchs. This one by Hui Bing and it's less than 1cm long.



And towards the end of my second dive, I saw this one.





Anyone would like to shed some lights one their ID?

A Soul Lost At Sea.....

May you R.I.P.

Deepest condolences to the family.

新年快樂!!!.....

祝大家：新年快樂，萬事如意。

Picture from http://www1.americangreetings.com

Miao From Ubin.....

A cat underneath the Sea Almond Tree near IK. :O)

How's Chek Jawa?.....

There was a Chek Jawa public walk this afternoon and so I took the afternoon off to go guiding. But it turned out that there were more guides(Mr Wong, Kaifen, Poh Lian, Ron and me) than participants (in fact, one family only). So, we engaged in a conversation as to who should do the guiding. I suggested to Ron that he should do it because even he said no now, he will still ends up guiding (those of you who were at the Pulau Semakau nightwalk will know what I mean). Eventually, Poh Lian was assigned to guide the family. And the rest of us got to play!:O)

Anyway, today was my first visit to Chek Jawa since the mass death episode. So I was anxious to see how's Chek Jawa is doing. Has she recovered?


We saw this Carpet Anemone at the area where we usually shown them to the public. But it's still not in healthy colour and it felt very slimy.


We then noticed that the Seagrass Lagoon near the route that we usually took to the Sandbar is covered with more sand. Also, the Sandbar is still barren without the Carpet Anemones and Ball Sea Cucumbers.

Then we found something that got us excited! Yes, another Carpet Anemone. But this one is healthier and it stings!



No Common Seastar yet to be seen though. But there's a lots of this jelly like thingy around. Looks like some kind of egg capsule.



Over at the Coral Rubbles, looks like the area is slowly recovering because it looks greener instead of the blue and black stuffs that we have encountered last month. There were fishes too! We found Catfish, Pipefish and this Diamond Wrasse.



Am glad that there was a "rock concert" going on under some rock because we found a Rock Star!


Think Chek Jawa is slowly picking up her pieces. Really hope that she will regain her beauty and charms us with her wonderful marine stuffs once again. :O)

Oh ya, and true enough, Ron ended up guiding the family at the Coral Rubbles.