Chinese New Year Intertidal Escapade

A quick break from typing more on the next group of animals that comes after the Sponges. 

First and foremost, allow me to wish all of you Happy Chinese New Year and so happens that it coincides with the low tides. My actual plans were to cover much of Changi on the 22nd and 23rd but the rain on the 22nd forced me to abort the trip half way. Nonetheless, I returned the following day and I decided to pick up from where I had left off and I did not regret it. The following photos are from the Changi trip on both days. Mind you, this's the first time I went there during the day so I was surprised with the amount of things I managed to find.

 Underside of the Salamacis sp. urchin. The area near the jetty was littered with these cute urchins

Fan shell that got detached from the ground 

This's one reason why you should not collect sea shells. These hermits were fighting one another for the premium house! 

That's one hermit that I've not seen before. A break from the common blue, orange and Diogenis sp. hermits 

Another reason why you should not collect sea shells. Some snails lay their eggs on them! Empty ones though 

Bursatella leachii - a sea hare

Noodles anyone? Well, they're sea hare eggs to be exact 

 Eggs

MORE EGGS! Its a good sign to see eggs on the sea shore. Tells us that the animals are still able to continue to increase or maintain their population. Guess Singaporeans should do their bit as well and have more BABIES!

The following set of photos were taken by my friend. It was raining and I did not want my 500D to go through the rain test again

I almost stepped on this Mangrove Horseshoe. Look at how well camouflaged it is. FYI... the teslon (the tail) isn't use for whipping or anything of that sort. Its used to right itself up if its over turned

Here's another reason for not collecting things off the beach.... EGGS on Salamacis sp. test 

Not exactly sure what's this 

Solen vagina - Razor clam.... Now you guys DON'T get any funny ideas... That IS the name of this clam 

The next few pictures are pictures of one sea slug. Waiting to see what my professor says about it 

That ain's a GIANT AMPHIPOD! It's the GILLS! AHAHAHA! 

For all of the beauty, there's the beast. Unfortunately, in this fairy tail, the beast remains beastly 

 I'm not entirely sure what bivalve is this. One thing for sure is that it was still alive when I returned it back to the sea

Me and my friend covered all the way to Carpark 5! And we didn't even feel tired!

That was it than for the escapade on the 22nd and 23rd. The following day I had a family outing. My dad suggested going to Punggol and my mom asked me to get the directions to Punggol Point. It was only later I realised that she meant to say Punggol Waterway but I told her that "lets just go see what's there at Punggol Point. If there's nothing, we can always turn back"

Lo and behold, the choice to go to Punggol Point paid off. By the time we reached there it was the start of the low tide. Families were out and about scavenging along the shore with their plastic bags, so did my sister and me. Albeit we scavenged with our cameras. The following were what I managed to find during that trip 

Its an onch that has sand particles all over it. I was hoping to see more of them though but didn't 

Had to prop it on the Rhizophora sp.  propogule to get the portrait shot 

 Again I see EGGS!

 AND MORE EGGS!

Surprisingly, one may think that Singapore's waters and beaches are devoid of life. Seeing how developed these areas are or how close they are to factories and ship yards. Its no surprise that some of you thought that way. I have to admit that I was once having the same thoughts as well. But going through NIE's Biology course, Project Semakau, exploration walks and volunteering at Ubin, pretty much helped me to take notice of these animals. 

To me, every intertidal trip, regardless if its for "work" or as an escapade, is like going to a theatre performance. The curtain raises and it's cast perform for us the play that they have been rehearsing. Each time, a different performance is being put up even if it's by the same cast and crew.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

SPONGEBOB SQUARE PANTS!

Well it is indeed true that Spongebob lives under the sea, sadly, he's just a made up character. But there are sponges that live in sea and no, they do not live in pineapples. Believe it or not, sponges are animals. If you were to look at them at the microscopic level, they're made up of 5 types of cell. Now I could bore you guys with all the technical mumbo-jumbo but I'll spare you guys the torture. The picture below shows it all.

Now don't be afraid of the foreign names you see here. As promised, there are only 5 cell types present in the sponge, namely

1. Pinacocyte: Cells that form the surface that faces the seawater outside
2. Porocyte: Cells that line the pores on the body
3. Choanocyte (collar cells): Cells that face the interior of the sponge. These cells posses a tail or flagella that beats around thus generating a water current to suck in the water through the pores and absorb the food particles
4. Archeocyte: These are amoeba like cells that are found in the interior and they move around the sponge transporting the food. They can also change to the other cell types if any of them are damaged or die
5. Sclerocytes: Cells that produce glass-like spines (spicule) that poke out of the sponge's body. These spines are used to protect the sponge from other animals. These spines also break easily so DON'T GO AROUND TOUCHING THEM WITH BARE HANDS! 

Absorbent and yellow and porous is he....

SPONGEBOB SQUARE PANTS

Yes, like the cartoon counterpart, real life sponges are porous and somewhat absorbent (I'll come to this later) though they come in a variety of colours aside from yellow. First lets look at why they are porous

The picture above is a slightly zoomed out view of the earlier picture. As you can see, the sponge's body is riddled with pores and that's how water and food substances enter the sponge. When the food is in the central cavity, it is taken in by the collar cell. This mode of feeding is called filter feeding. They don't have a mouth nor an anus. All they have are holes from which water enters the body and a large hole (at the top) where water leaves. The basic principle of the sponge resembles to the one above though the larger the sponge gets, the more central cavity it has. But regardless what, the basic design principle is the same as above.

When it comes to colours, they can range from being dull to the colourful. The few pictures (taken from my Facebook) below says it all

 @ Semakau

 @ Semakau

 In the photo above, the green tubes are the sponge

@Changi

@Sisters 

@ Changi

You may wonder why they are colourful. There's a reason for that. Let's take a step back from sponges and consider the following animals. What to the following animals have in common - Bees, Hornets and Poison Dart Frogs have in common?

If you say these animals are colourful, you're on the right track. These animals have bright colours to tell other animals not to muck around with them or you'll get it. In the wild, bright colours can be a form of defence even if it does not hide them. It tells other animals that they are poisonous and that you are going into a world of pain and suffering if you muck around with them. Similarly, for sponges (SOME sponges), they do employ some form of poison, one way or another, as a form of defence in addition to the spicules that they have. By doing so, it is hoped that predators stay away from them. Despite that, there are some animals that still eat sponges and they include some of your sea slugs. If you're wondering what sea slugs are, you've got to wait for it.

So enough of the sponge's biology. How about its uses to us humans?! Like its namesake, it IS ACTUALLY used as a bath sponge, usually Spongia officinalis. Of course the spicules of S. officinalis have been removed prior to using it. Aside from that, they're piquing the interest of biomedical researchers. John Faulkner from Scripps Institute of Oceanography commented that organisms that uses chemical for defence are of great interest. In another article, it was suggested that sponges may hold the key to fight malaria and in that article as well, it was commented that Japanese scientist are investigating the use of compounds extracted from sponges to fight breast, colon and urinary cancer. 

Thus this marks the end of the blog's first official post, on sponges. Before I go off, there's a summary of the post - 

1. Sponges are animals and they are made up of 5 types of cells. Each having their own specific function
2. The body of the sponge is lined with pores that allow water and food substances to enter and they feed via filter feeding
3. Sponges can be dull looking or be very colourful. They use the colours to tell other animals that they can be poisonous. In addition to poison, they also have spicules to protect themselves

In the next post, I'll be talking about one of the more beautiful animals of the sea. Despite being beautiful, they can pack a nasty sting...

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha hargh wh...arire harrrigh

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Mentioned articles -
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100628124601.htm

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/sponge-abstract.html

Spongebob lyrics - 

http://members.outpost10f.com/~lindax/spongebob/spongebob%20lyrics/spongebob%20squarepants%20theme.html

Sponge diagrams - 

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/porifera/pororg.html

http://runningstrong-biologylibrary.blogspot.com/2010/05/sponges.html

All other information comes from my personal lecture notes and concepts that I know and understand

Finally I'm back...

Finally back after a long hiatus. Been thrown from one circumstance to another. Due to that, I pretty much stopped blogging. But now, I'm going to start blogging again.

One reason being the fact that its encourage that us Semakau guides maintain a blog to practice presenting to the non-technical audience as well as to share things with one another. Though this is mostly for Singapore's natural heritage, I'll also include in some rants so as to add a little bit of variety to the blog.

I must also courageously admit (bah... Nisemonogatari's word play in episode 1 between Arararagi and Hachikuji has rubbed onto me) that I am no expert on any of the posts here but one thing for certain is that I'll only post about things that I know. Nothing more.

Photos on this site are mine, unless or otherwise stated. They're mostly taken during exploratory walks in certain areas in Singapore and for some, during surveys with NParks and/or Raffles Museum.

For now, to commorate the "relaunching" of this blog, or "re-entry" back into blogging, the first few posts will centre around the different phyla that you can find in Singapore