Sisters Island with Dr Dan

Wildfilms had a special day out at Sisters in the company of Dr Dan Rittschof from Duke University and his students, all just flown in from the U.S. This is the third year that we've had the honour of being out in the field with Dr Dan. And we all looked forward to it!


Ron was Guide in Attendance and gave an excellent introduction to our favourite shore, despite the desultory drizzle. While Dr Dan shared interesting sexy stories about crabs and hermit crabs. To find out more, you'll just have to join one of Ron's guided walks at Semakau or Chek Jawa! We've got a lot of good stories from Dr Dan to share with our visitors now.


The wildfilms crew quickly found a spider conch. James alerted us to a Blue-spotted fantail stingray (Taeniura lymma) trapped in a pool. And of course, myriad worms and slugs were discovered and discussed. But what Dr Dan REALLY wanted to see what a Giant Top Shell (Trochus niloticus). Ron found one and I found another, but he wasn't impressed. They weren't big enough!


As the tide fell, we waded out to the reef flat just outside the sea walls. Lots of corals and other reef life to explore!


And what do we have here?! Dr Dan with a bowl of sea cucumber! Both were discovered on the shore (bowl and cuke).

It's the Long black sea cucumber (Holothuria leucospilota), commonly seen on our reefs. We explained that some Singaporeans have a rather cruder Hokkien common name for the creature...ah hem. The poor sea cucumber didn't quite like being in a bowl and started to eject white sticky threads, a defensive behaviour. So we put it gently back under the rock where it and its friend were hiding. The threads stuck to Dr Dan's fingers for some time after.

After a little tour on the outside of the seawall, we stopped for a bit of a snack on curry puffs ("What's a curry puff?" our new friends ask. After struggling to describe it, it was decided the best way to find out was to just eat one!) And lovely home-made biscuits Dr Dan got from Siva.

The drizzle had stopped and after a glorious sun set, it was time to head out for Round Two and to check out the night shift on the reef.

The wildfilms crew tend to focus on slugs and ignore things with a back bone. But the sharp-eyed students were determined to find a stonefish.

And what fishes they found! Dr Dan spotted at least three of these strange eel-like fishes. And one of them was eating an octopus!!



In a few minutes, it gobbled down the octopus that was obviously alive and kicking (with all eight arms) . I have no idea what kind of fish this is!

All kinds of prickly, icky, scary, fuggly fishes were closely observed to ascertain whether they were stonefishes. Mostly beginning with someone yelling in the dark "Is THIS a stonefish?" It was quite unnerving. It got even more disturbing when suddenly everyone started spotting stingrays around them. It was a sign to move out to shallower waters. Where MORE fishes were discovered.


This prickly fish is a flathead (Family Platycephalidae). It's probably the Fringe-eyed flathead (Cymbacephalus nematophthalmus), because it has delicate golden 'eyelashes'.

Toadfishes, scorpionfishes were also examined with morbid fascination. Meanwhile, glittering silversides, needle-like half-beaks, blue damselfishes, cardinalfishes and other fishes flashed by.


Two cute little pufferfishes were also seen. They were probably the Yelloweye puffer (Arothron immaculatus), which we've not seen before!


It takes experience to be able to handle slippery, jumpy fishes without hurting them. Putting them in a pot helps everyone have a closer look without trampling or stressing the fish too much. Dr Dan calmly shows us how it's done.

On the way back, we got to see the Lunar New Year fireworks over the city. What a wonderful night out!

Thank you Dr Dan and new friends for showing us a new side of our Sisters Island!

More photos and stories of our outing on Siyang's urban forest blog and Ron's tidechaser blog