Hairy Day at St John's Island

Hairy sea hares were EVERYWHERE today on the reefs of St. John's...

Ming Sheng spotted them first. Tiny ones all over the shore, very sorry-looking as they were out of water. (Eeks, I wondered how many I already stepped on). This one fluffed up when we placed it in a pool of water and zoomed off under a bit of seaweed.

It has hairy bits sticking out, and lilac spots all over.

Ming Sheng soon spotted a bigger one...

It has a striped foot! And much bigger dots that are bright blue.

This sea hare is seasonally abundant. It's the first time we've seen it on the Southern Shores. We saw an explosion of these beasts around the same time last year, while we were at Pulau Ubin. They're everywhere for about a few weeks, then never seen again all year. They are Bursatella leachii. Quite slimy, they release a purple ink when handled.

We look at stones real carefully (as always...for you-know-what). Blossoming among the colourful stones at St. John's are lots of sea anemones in shades of green; from pale to flourescent.

If you look closely, you can see their tentacles are strangely decorated in branching bits, unlike other sea anemones, which have smooth tentacles. I've seen these anemones in all shades of brown, green and even dark brown ones with pink tips.

Sea anemones are not well studied, so I still don't know what it's Scientific Name is. But since it is everywhere, and we've gotten friendly with it, I just casually call it the "Branched tentacle sea anemone".

For me, the highlight of the day was a tiny little flatworm, just coming out from under a stone for the start of its 'day' (flatworms are night party animals).

and a looong Ribbon worm. It was at least 40cm long! And looked like it wore striped pajamas. Here's short piece of it. It's a worm guys, the rest of it looks exactly the same.

Ribbon worms belong to Phylum Nemertia (quite different from the bristleworms we see more often, which belong to Phylum Annelida).

Nermerteans are fearsome predators. A Ribbon worm has a proboscis that is prehensile (can grip things!) and retractile (pull it back). Some are armed with a piercing stylet that can inject a toxin. If the prey is worm-shaped, it may be swallowed whole. If not, the worm inserts part of its digestive system into it and sucks up the victim's juices. Ooo...not a worm to mess about with. I've seen Nemerteans that are more than a metre long on some of our Northern shores! Fortunately, they don't eat people.

I'm sure the rest of the team saw other interesting creatures too!