Sunday, December 28, 2008

Fiddler Crab & other rare sightings

It was my first visit to SSLH, thanks to RMBR making this trip possible. After spending few weeks in the nature at foreign country, it is nice to visit our own nature back at Singapore. Is not my first time seeing this purple fiddler crab but is the first time seeing it in such a short distance! Photo on top is a male purple fiddler crab (Uca tetragonon)This is the female purple fiddler crab (Uca tetragonon)This is certainly my first sightings for this pseudoscorpion. It has a pair of pincers like scorpion but without the sharp tail. This pseudoscorpion that we saw is only about 3mm!I also saw another mini animal in dark blue colour crawling on the sandy area but I have no clue what it is. But it is slightly smaller than the pseudoscorpion.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

My Latest Dive Trip

Nevertheless with the unpleasant encounter, the biodiversity there indeed is very rich! Here are some of the photos that I have taken from my last dive trip.Well, I must say it was a good place for those who are into slugs!This is my fisrt time seeing a Sea star that measured 1.5m from one arm to another!

We can easily spot more than 10 eels in any single dive!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas

Wish everyone a Merry & Starry Christmas!


Monday, December 22, 2008

For the name of Conservations?

I was away for the last 2 weeks having my holiday with a few friends in the nature. We trek, eat, sleep & dive at several areas.

The resort that we stay have no road access and only accessible by boat. This make it very exclusive and for whatever reason, we are the only guests in the resort. So, the whole resort is just few of us. As with most dive resort, this resort also have their own House Reef where only the resort guests are allow to dive at this area. This house reef is a combination of sandy bottom, coral rubber, hard coral, soft coral and artificial reef where big barrel & coconut leaves were used to recruit animals.

We did quite a number of dives during our stay there. During one of our dive outside the house reef at the open sea, it was a slope and down to sandy bottom where there were lots of big sea pens that stand at 1.5m tall! The current there were quite strong, I spotted a big shell in cone shape from a distance and I suspect it is a Triton Shell.On a closer look, yes it was indeed a giant Triton trumpet shell (Charonia sp.) Our guide miss it and when he saw us taking photos, he swim over to take a look. He took the shell with him and seems very happy and forgotten his duty as a guide or DM. He just carry the shell swim to the left and right with no clear objectives or direction. I suspect he was trying to place it some where that he can recognise and recover it later. We have to remind him on the bottom time and need to surface. Instead of putting down the shell, he carry it with him to the surface.

The Triton shell came out to take a look what is happening when it was remove from the original location.

When we surfaced, I ask the guide what he going to do with the shell? Why don't put it back to the original locations? For the entire trip, we take only lots of photos without 'harassing' or move the animals from their original locations. As the resort owner, they should set a good example but in this case, they obviously not. He say he is bringing it back to the house reef to help to protect it! Can you believe it?

Since it was our first dive of the day and we were diving at a very remote site. The poor shell was out of water for at least another 6 hours before we return to the resort. Although I do saw them rinse the shell with sea water every now and then.

Did they really eventually place the shell at their house reef? Can the shell survive? Is there enough large sea star to support this Triton shell? Did the shell smart enough to detect and adjust itself when moving from deep water to the surface like we do? Can the shell survive out of water for 6 hours?

It is my 1st sighting of Triton Trumpet Shell in the wild and I really didn't expect the one that suppose to protect them turn out to be the one that betray them. Triton shell is known to attack and feed on large sea star especially Crowns of thorns. Removing them from the original locations will sure to cause the imbalance of the coral reef.

For the name of Conservations, strange things do happen!

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Best Sourcing Initiatives

SINGAPORE: Going for the cheapest option is not the best solution for companies which adopt it as a way to ride out the current economic turmoil, says the labour movement.

Full story at Channel NewsAsia...

courtesy of Channel NewsAsia

Saturday, December 6, 2008

An Unexpected Guest!

I attended a workshop on mushroom recently, and the workshop covers type of mushrooms, identify mushrooms, and include lab session too. Some mushrooms can only be id in the lab with the help of microscope. Usually mushroom that with very bright colour tends to be poisonous but not all poisonous mushrooms are with pretty bright colours.
This is Corprinus mushroom under the microscope. We were also get to prepare slide from the fresh mushroom.

While we were looking at the slides, we saw one unexpected guest show up under the microscope and quite cute too. I have no clue where it came from… ha ha.