Double S - Stonefish and Sekudu

Have you heard about the story of Pulau Sekudu? Or the legend of why the tiny island near Chek Jawa is named after a frog? Let me show you.

Happy frog rock on Pulau Sekudu

Though it is not very convincing, but I am sure with some creative thinking, you will be able to see a happy frog looking at you. The eye spots on this rock is not natural and it was painted on by fishermen who used to come here to fish in the past. Now, the island is under restricted access and you will need to obtain a permit.

Here is the other side of the frog rock. It looks like the frog has a moustache and missing a top hat. 

The highlight of the trip for me would definitely be the hollow-cheeked stonefish (Synanceia horrida) spotted by Germaine from NParks. It was her first time visiting Pulau Sekudu, have been warned many times from many people about stonefish since her undergrad years studying horseshoe crabs and today, she found the stonefish. In fact, there were two stonefish today within stone throw from each other.

Stonefish 1

Stonefish 2, slightly smaller

Obviously the stonefish weren't not happy to see us while we got excited over them. Their grumpy faces remain as grumpy as ever. The spotted of the stonefish actually reminded us to be careful when walking on the reefs. No where is safe and as you can see, the stonefish really looks like a piece of ordinary stone. Beware, they have 13 dorsal fin spines, acting like hypodermic needles that injects venom when you step on them. It is a very painful experience.

Raised dorsal fin spines

Stonefish is one very grumpy fish, staying very still and looks exactly like a rock on the reef.

Arriving pre-dawn, I did my usual route of going south then east round the island. As usual, the sea lettuce seaweed is every where on the island and it hides many tiny animals such as crabs, amphipods, isopods and many swimming anemones. The thick layer of seaweed definitely provided a good hiding place for these tiny animals.

Juvenile crab?

Common elbow crab

Amphipod

Marine isopod

Swimming anemone (Boloceroides mcmurrichi)

In these seaweed pools, you can still find other animals such as sea cucumbers, bigger crabs, snapping shrimps.

Purple sea cucumber

Garlic bread sea cucumber (Holothuria scabra)

Stone crab (Myomenippe hardwickii)

Flower crab (Portunus pelagicus)

Snapping shrimp at burrow entrance

Snapping shrimp

I did not get to see the Sekudu knobbly sea stars today, which a few of my friends did encounter, but I came across one orange crown sea star, one painted sand star and a few biscuit sea stars.

Crown sea star (Aquilonastra coronata)

Crown sea star, underside

Rather injured looking painted sand star (Astropecten sp.)

Biscuit sea star (Goniodiscaster scaber)

There were a few orange-striped hermit crabs around.

Orange-striped hermit crab

Oh look, a yellow cuskeel (Dinematichthys iluocoteoides). This fish is usually very skittish and swims into hiding very quickly but today, the fish was rather friendly and stay around for some time before it decided to hide. The cuskeel looks very graceful when it swims.

Yellow cuskeel, when spotted

Closer look at the fish

Hiding cuskeel

This predawn trip works till after sunrise and all of us had enjoyed the golden hour moment on Pulau Sekudu with beautiful background of Chek Jawa, Pulau Tekong and Pengarang, Johor, with arriving planes.

Sunrise on Pulau Sekudu

After capturing that beautiful moment, which we did not enjoy yesterday at Chek Jawa, we continued our survey.
The noble volutes (Cymbiola nobilis) seems to be in egg laying season as they were seen laying eggs yesterday at Chek Jawa and today at Pulau Sekudu.

Noble volute laying eggs

Chay Hoon showed us this beautiful nudibranch, which we also saw it on our previous survey trip last year.

Cow nudibranch (Goniobranchus tumulifera)

With solitary fan green seaweed around, there will bound to be some super tiny strawberry slug (Coastasiella sp.) and I found one. They are really difficult to photograph.

Strawberry slug

On the high water mark, there are a few mangrove trees and some interesting snails can be found along the branches or leaves.

It is really a wonderful day at Pulau Sekudu, with beautiful sunrise and the special find of two stonefish. This trip is made possible with permission from NParks and I am grateful for the opportunity. Also thanks to Chay Hoon for the transport arrangements.

Until we meet again, Pulau Sekudu!

Posts by others:
Ria - Sunrise survey of Pulau SekuduKok Sheng on his FB
Marcus on his FBRussel on his FB
Ivan on his FB

The Coral Garden of East Coast

Tucked in the far end of the recreational beach at East Coast Park, is a hidden garden. At one of the lowest spring tide of the year the corals quietly peered through the crushing waves along the row of rock bunds, probably placed for a particular reason or use, as the Sun gets ready to rise.

The slowly exposed plate coral against the choppy waves.

Next to a rock wall, boulders of favid corals began to expose themselves too.

Favid coral

However, the disk-shaped (Turbinaria sp.) and plate-like (Montipora sp.) corals appears to be more common along this area.

Other than the corals, which surprised both Kok Sheng and Ria when they first did this shore very recently, there were also patches of seagrass such as the Spoon seagrass (Halophila ovalis) and the Tape seagrass (Enhalus acoroides).

Long blades of the Tape seagrass

Ria found small patches of the Noodle seagrass (Syringodium isoetifolium), which are also long, further west of the shore, where Kok Sheng went to explore and found many lovely critters playing among the seagrass.

Image from Ria Tan

I wasn't play much attention to critters as I too focused on walking along the slippery rocks and quite a number of animals took advantage of the murky water to avoid being seen or photographed. I did stop at some points along the way and saw a few critters, including my first sighting of the saron shrimp and I saw at 4 them at one spot.

Saron shrimp

Another saron shrimp

I came across one red egg crab (Atergatis intergerrimus) and a few swimming crabs.

Red egg crab

Swimming crab, busy eating

There were quite a number of the large arabian cowrie (Mauritia arabica) on the rocky areas.

Arabian cowrie, overview

Arabian cowrie, underside

On the high shore, a horn-eyed ghost crab (Ocypode ceratophthalmus) thinks that I didn't see it. The "horns" on its eyes have just started growing so the "horn-eyed" is not very obvious. When disturbed, the ghost crab speeds off on the sand and buries itself quickly. They are stealth moving animals hence the term "ghost".

Half buried horn-eyes ghost crab

Horn-eyed ghost crab

It was a tiring first pre-dawn trip of the year for me with many rock balancing acts. More eastern coral explorations tomorrow morning. Kok Sheng has found more critters in his blog.

Posts by others:
Kok Sheng - Rich reefs and seagrasses of East Coast shore
Ria Tan - Rare plants at reefy East Coast Park

First visit to Tuas Merawang

Yesterday evening, a group of shore explorers went to check out the shore at Tuas.

Panoramic view of the shore at Tuas

We are very grateful for the kind staff at MSD Pharma (Singapore) Pte Ltd, who helped to make this trip possible.

The Amazing Frog Island, Round 2

We are back at Sekudu again for the second survey trip with a difference of two days. This time, I get to see the whole island in daylight as we worked past sunrise. Even a second visit within such a short time span can bring interesting findings such as this shortnose boxfish (Rhynchostracion nasus), which is the time time I am seeing it.

Shortnose boxfish

The boxfish has a very tough boxy body. It was so intriguing to feel its boxy body. Having said that, we should not be touching marine animals on the shore as some of them do sting or are poisonous to us.