Glorious Hantu!
It was a gorgeous blue-sky afternoon and beachfleas and wildfilms were back on the shores! What a welcome change from the rather drippy and damp outing at St. John's the day before.
At first glance, the Hantu shore doesn't look very promising. With the industrial installations at Pulau Bukom in the background.
And work on the reclamation of Terumbu Bayan is ongoing.
The massive sea wall is steadily being built out of giant rocks and huge piles of sand.
But just around the corner, outside the seawall, the reef flats are teeming with life! Leathery corals weird and wonderful flop all over the coral rubble.
Sijie's sharp eyes spot a little drama, as a ribbon worm snags a shrimp much larger than itself! This seemingly harmless worm has a prehensile stinging proboscis that can paralyse its prey and grip it tight. The prey is then consumed whole...eeks. Within seconds, the shrimp stopped struggling and its eyes turned opaque. We didn't stay to watch the end of the gruesome scene.
We also startled a swimming crab chomping down on its freshly caught lunch. A rather large and pretty halfbeak! The fish was still alive!
The ground is thick with living animals. Everywhere, there are flowery carpets of tiny little colonial anemones of various colours and sizes.
A variety of corallimorphs also coat the rubble. They come in a dazzling variety of patterns and colours!
Soft and hard corals grow side by side.
Tiny little mushroom corals no bigger than a 20-cent coin cluster next to larger ones. Mushroom corals are hard corals that become free-living as adults. That is, they are not attached to the bottom and can actually move around, but slowly.
Here are two other kinds of mushroom corals. They are also commonly seen on Hantu's reefs.
A variety of colourful corals crowded the reef flats. All very much alive!
There was a request for a giant clam. And soon, we spotted one.
No trip is complete without the obligatory slug sightings. Among those seen were a phyllid (left) and the enchanting Glossodoris atromarginata (right) with its constantly rotating feathery gills.
Meanwhile, other team members spotted octopuses, a huge ball of baby eel-tail catfishes, more Giant reef worms, and anemone shrimps in the many large anemones on the reefs.
Chay Hoon (of course) found a frogfish which promptly became the star of the video shoot. In a supporting role were various little fishes that played the part of the frogfish's dinner. The little frogfish could really eat a lot! Other performers included a pair of octopuses quarreling over a hairy crab. Ron and Helen found a snake in the grass on the way back! See Ron's tidechaser blog for all the gory details!
What a fabulous day out at Hantu! Let's hope the reclamation off the island goes smoothly and things settle down so that this delightful reef can recover quickly.
At first glance, the Hantu shore doesn't look very promising. With the industrial installations at Pulau Bukom in the background.
And work on the reclamation of Terumbu Bayan is ongoing.
The massive sea wall is steadily being built out of giant rocks and huge piles of sand.
But just around the corner, outside the seawall, the reef flats are teeming with life! Leathery corals weird and wonderful flop all over the coral rubble.
Sijie's sharp eyes spot a little drama, as a ribbon worm snags a shrimp much larger than itself! This seemingly harmless worm has a prehensile stinging proboscis that can paralyse its prey and grip it tight. The prey is then consumed whole...eeks. Within seconds, the shrimp stopped struggling and its eyes turned opaque. We didn't stay to watch the end of the gruesome scene.
We also startled a swimming crab chomping down on its freshly caught lunch. A rather large and pretty halfbeak! The fish was still alive!
The ground is thick with living animals. Everywhere, there are flowery carpets of tiny little colonial anemones of various colours and sizes.
A variety of corallimorphs also coat the rubble. They come in a dazzling variety of patterns and colours!
Soft and hard corals grow side by side.
Tiny little mushroom corals no bigger than a 20-cent coin cluster next to larger ones. Mushroom corals are hard corals that become free-living as adults. That is, they are not attached to the bottom and can actually move around, but slowly.
Here are two other kinds of mushroom corals. They are also commonly seen on Hantu's reefs.
A variety of colourful corals crowded the reef flats. All very much alive!
There was a request for a giant clam. And soon, we spotted one.
No trip is complete without the obligatory slug sightings. Among those seen were a phyllid (left) and the enchanting Glossodoris atromarginata (right) with its constantly rotating feathery gills.
Meanwhile, other team members spotted octopuses, a huge ball of baby eel-tail catfishes, more Giant reef worms, and anemone shrimps in the many large anemones on the reefs.
Chay Hoon (of course) found a frogfish which promptly became the star of the video shoot. In a supporting role were various little fishes that played the part of the frogfish's dinner. The little frogfish could really eat a lot! Other performers included a pair of octopuses quarreling over a hairy crab. Ron and Helen found a snake in the grass on the way back! See Ron's tidechaser blog for all the gory details!
What a fabulous day out at Hantu! Let's hope the reclamation off the island goes smoothly and things settle down so that this delightful reef can recover quickly.
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