Mollusca Day @ Terumbu Raya.....

We visited Terumbu Raya this morning. Think this my 3rd trip to this submerged patch reef just off west of Pulau Semakau. And what a Mollusca Day we had! From sightings of Sea Slugs to Clams etc.....

First up, Cephalopods.


A Octopus! Saw 2 of them today when it was already mid morning. Usually we get to see them more often at night and they tend to hide during daytime.


Two Pgymy Squids! They were feeding on a shrimp!


Came across two bundles of some Squid eggs.

Up next, the Bivalves/Clams.


A Burrowing Giant Clam (Tridacna crocea). I like the blue tints on its mantle!


A Fluted Giant Clam (Tridacna squamosa). Nice lined patterns it has!


James found an intact Bear Paw Giant Clam shell (Hippopus hippopus). The shell is more than 30cm across! This is probably the biggest and complete one that he had found so far.

And finally, the Gastropods.

Here are the naked ones, Nudibranch!




From top-dowm: the Pimply Phyllid nudibranch (Phyllidiella pustulosa), the Blue Dragon nudibranch (Pteraeolidia ianthina), Lined Chromodoris nudibranch (Chromodoris lineolata) and Polka-dot nudibranch (Jorunna funebris)

and the shelled ones.


Looks like a Ovum Cowrie.


A Tiger Cowrie! My first time seeing it at the intertidal! The other sightings for me are during divings at Pulau Hantu. How delightful to see such rare cowrie again!

Of course besides Mollusca, we came across other creatures too!



Flatworms!


A purplish Wiggly Star Anemone!


A Stonefish Sea Cucumber!


Mei Lin found this Purple Sea Cucumber which we commonly see them at our northern shores.


A tiny tiny False Clown Anemonefish at a Giant Carpet Anemone.


There were lots of the Blue-spotted Fantail Stingray.


Managed a shot of this Smasher Mantis Shrimp before it gone hiding into a hole.


It was a good day but unfortunately we also noticed a part of the reef that looks like it has been damaged by some boats running aground. There were "clean" coral rubbles and overturned coral heads.....Sigh.

Reef Surveys In May 2011.....

The reef survey by BWV ReefFriends started a bit late this year as there were no suitable dive windows in the earlier part of the year. Well.....better late than never, we had the first reef survey on 15th May at Pulau Semakau and the second one, last Saturday at Pulau Jong!

For Pulau Semakau, the site is located between the channel of Pulau Semakau and Terumbu Raya. It was my first time diving there. Thus, I was in for a bit of a surprise that the seabed at this site is at 6-7m only! Haha.....I was thinking that I was either at the reef flat when I was laying the transect tapes or my dive computer was giving me wrong depth. :p

Anyway, the visibility on that day was great! At least 4m!


And some of the creatures that I came across while doing my Line-intercept Transect (LIT) recording along the tapes:


The only nudibranch along the tapes. It's a Black phyllid nudibranch (Phyllidiella nigra)


Ha! I see you! It's a Cuttlefish!




Flatworms!


There were lots of Long-spined Black Sea Urchin around! Thus, one had to keep a lookout for them while swimming along the tapes while recording. If not, it will be nasty pains if you got 'punctured' by one.


A Whip Shrimp!


The False Clown Anemonefish was too shy! Kept hiding from the camera! :p


Looks like an Ocellated Pipefish. Saw two of them that day!


And lastly at Pulau Semakau, saw these Razorfish while I was reeling in the tapes.

For the second survey of the year, it was at Pulau Jong. The dive window was okay but the visibility was not as good as we had at Semakau. It was about 1-2m. Nonetheless, we managed to finish the survey in one dive and had an exploratory second dive.

What did we see? Here they are:


A Blue-spotted Fantail Stingray!





Hard Corals! In different kind of growth forms! Encrusting, column, branching and submassive (Top-down). The Staghorn coral (2nd pic from bottom) had lots of tiny crabs among it, can you see them? Alas, I also saw a small patch of bleaching Anemone coral (bottom pic).


There were a big patch of Anemones along one of my transect tapes!


This Featherstar/Crinoid was 20cm outside the counting range for Invertebrate survey.


The usual tiny Basket Star on a Sea Fan was spotted.


Someone else was on another Sea Fan! It looks like a tiny tiny swimming Anemone!


Someone was on this Sea Whip too. Can you see it?


It's a tiny Squid! Probably a Pygmy Squid!



Phyllid nudibranch big and small.


An Emma nudibranch (Hypselodoris emma).


A Ornate Leaf Slug (Elysia Ornata).


Another kind of Leaf Slug. It looks like a Woolly Leaf Slug (Elysia sp.)


A tiny Flatworm!


Along one transect tape, I saw what looks like a Celebes Sweetlips staying stationary at one spot. So I went closer to try to take a photo, but it swam away. Then, I saw these two Shrimps! Hmmm.....don't think I have seen them before! Ahhh.....they look like some kind of Cleaner Shrimps, so this spot could be a cleaning station! Guess what? After I swam away and went back to that spot, the Sweetlips was there again! But it was still too alert for me to get a picture.


Here's a closer look at one of the shrimps! Looks gravid!