Hidden world of Punggol beach

With the upgrade waterfront area at Punggol beach, it has attracted many families and cyclist to this small stretched. Despite the numerous human activities going on here, the marine life at Punggol beach is as many as the beach visitors. Often, most of them goes unnoticed and unappreciated by humans.

Punggol Beach and Jetty

Even on a not so low tide, a vast patch of rocky area to the right of the jetty is exposed for families to bring their children down to search and explore the place for marine life. 

Very well hidden in tiny pool, if not noticed carefully, are tiny anemones. The colours of the tiny anemones are very close to the sandy substrate it is on. These are probably the banded bead anemones (Anthopleura sp.)

Banded bead anemone

Banded bead anemone

Suspicious jerking snail shells suggest a hermit crab in it and it was noticed to be foraging for food. On the shore of Punggol beach, the banded hermit crab seems to be the dominate ones. Hermit crabs are to look at and may be pretty for children to keep them as pets. However wild animals dies quickly in captivity. It is good enough to observe these cute animals in the wild and leave them where they belong to.

Foraging banded hermit crab

Frontal view of the hermit crab.

Spreading all over the rocky areas and the jetty pillars, the bunches of glassy looking strands are actually the glassy branching bryozoans. Unfortunatly, I am not able to provide an exact common name for the orange sponge.

Glassy branching bryozoans with orange sponge and delicate feathery green seaweed

Orange sponge, some covered by bryozoans.

During last year's comprehensive marine biodiversity survey, a sea slug was found on these bryozoans. On this trip, many of the sea slug was seen. The Okenia pellucida is the species of sea slug found on the bryozoan.

Okenia pellucida, on bryozoan

Very well hidden are the brittle stars, which are hardly seen in the day as they are very shy animals.

Brittle star

Crawling around on the encrusted rocks are tiny crabs of various species, some of which scurry into hiding when sensing motion nearby. Of the crabs I managed to observe was this. I didn't manage to get a clear shot of the dorsal view

Underside of the crab

Other crabs seen on this trip:

Moon crab

The team also found another type of sea slug - Beaded nudibranch (Hoplodoris nodulosa).

Beaded nudibranch (Hoplodoris nodulosa)

Rhinophores

Feathery gills

I also saw two types of bristle worms on the shore, one of which could be a fireworm. Bristleworms are difficult to identify to species level without a close look at the head.

Bristleworm

Fireworm

At the edge of the rocky patch on the shore, I noticed a patch of seagrass. However the tides was not low enough for me to take a closer look at them. Towards the end of the trip, I found a stand of broken seagrass caught on a washed up branch. It looks similar to a spoon seagrass (Halophila ovalis), but it has longer leaf blades. Could it be the hairy spoon seagrass (Halophila decipiens)?

Patch of seagrass

The seagrass I found caught on a branch.

During the trip, I saw a young boy walking towards the water and later he was seen to be pulling the ropes attached to the fish trap. It turn out, there were actually two fish traps placed. Shortly after, he was joined by an adult, who seems to be his father. They checked the fish traps, probably removing the catch, threw the traps back into the water and left.

Boy pulling the rope.

Examining the fish trap.

The marine life at Punggol beach is what I would consider, a hidden world, with all the human activities going on. Life during the day may be less exciting as compared to night, but it is still as interesting.

Posts by others on this trip:
Kok Sheng - Colourful sponge garden at Punggol
Ria Tan - Colourful Punggol rocky shore

Eggy, Crabby, Feathery Punggol

Today marks the start of another series of crazy wake up time to check out our shores in Singapore.
A small team visited Punggol Beach on a very early morning.

The Punggol beach I knew was a rocky beach with whiffs of funny smell coming from somewhere.
Never have I expected this stretch of beach to come alive during a low spring tide.
The team covered both sides of the shore from the jetty.

When I reached the shore, Ria was so excited to show this beaded nudibranch (Hoplodoris nodulosa).

Hoplodoris nodulosa

At that moment, all my gears where still in my bag. A quick setup and I was on my way to documenting my shore findings, including the above nudibranch.

The rocks are really alive with many critters. Though I may not be able to see them but I can hear all sorts of sounds coming from them. Those who have been to Punggol beach would know that the rocks there are covered with green mussels (Perna viridis) and nest mussels (Musculista senhousia).

Green mussels with lots of colourful blobs nearby

Nest mussels with a crab

There were also many drill snails found on rocks and many of the rocks had snail eggs on them. The eggs comes in various shapes, sizes, colours and arrangements.

Drill snails

Some of the snail eggs I saw

Egg laying in progress?

Plentiful on the shore are stone crabs (Myomenippe hardwickii). Many of the stone crabs I saw were hiding below the big rocks on the rocky side of the beach.

Hiding stone crabs

A poor fella lost one of its pincer

On the rocky side of the shore, I saw many black sea urchins (Temnopleurus toreumaticus). The ones I saw were all alive. This is my first time seeing sea urchins with my own eyes. The sea urchins camouflage themselves with all sorts of items found on the shore.

Black sea uchin

Underside of a black sea urchin

Leaf wannabe urchins

Nest mussel wannabe urchin

Newspaper wannabe urchin

Found on the big rocks also were sponges of different colours and worm snails. I was wondering what those funny tubes with "doors" were until I read Ria's post.

Orange sponge

Worm snails

I also saw a stranded snapping shrimp at the big rocks area in a small stream. It was kind enough to pose on both sides for me.

Right profile

Left profile

Then I rescued a badly injured brittle star further up the shore where It was drier. It had only had three arms to move and was struggling badly. I used a small container, scooped it up and placed it in a shallow pool nearby. It disappeared quickly when placed in the pool.

Futher down towards the bigger piles of rocks, I found a pair of purple climbing crab fighting and three onch slugs before heading to the other side of the jetty.

Peaceful purple climbing crab

Crab fight!

Onch slug

On the other side of the jetty there were plenty of brittle stars on this part of the shore.

Brittle star

I saw a bristleworm. Kok Sheng later turn over one the rocks and he found many of them.

One bristleworm

Many bristleworms!

While observing the many snapping shrimps moving in and out of their borrows, I noticed an octopus. It was making an attempt to catch the snapping shrimp but failed miserably, causing a few shrimps to jump out of the water. I only managed to capture the octopus when it when back to his hiding hole.

Sad octopus with no food

The cutest animal seen today was the sponge crab. Mei Lin spotted one next to the one I saw. I was wonder what is that moving object until Mei Lin asked me to flip it over and told me it's a sponge crab.

Mysterious moving object

Flip it over and you get a sponge crab. So cute looking.

A snail was seen eating up a bivalve. It looked like it was swallowing the whole bivalve whole.

Snail eating a bivalve

There were very small kite butterflyfish (Parachaetodon ocellatus) seeking shelter in the shallow pools.

Kite butterflyfish

The team found another beaded nudibranch we saw at the start of our trip and then a rose nudibranch (Dendrodoris fumata).

Another beaded nudibranch

Rose nudibranch

A sea star was found. It is the crown sea star (Asterina coronata).

Crown sea star

Throughout the trip, I saw 3 of my best friend - the striped hermit crab. One of them was even clinging onto another empty shell, making sure that no other hermit crab takes it away.

Striped hermit crab

"This shell is mine!"

The shore of Punggol beach is very alive. There is so much to see on this shore.
The good thing about this beach is that there are washing up facilities at the toilet nearby.

We reached the shore in darkness, we left the shore in darkness.
Tomorrow will be another crazy morning wake up session.

Read about what others saw:
Loh Kok Sheng - God's wonderful creation
Marcus Ng - The annotated budak
Mei Lin - Psychedelic Nature
Ria Tan - Wild Singapore