Sunday, June 07, 2009

All crabbed out at Tanah Merah

Oh, clever puns elude me. This morning I joined Ria and friends for a trip to Tanah Merah -- man, I had no idea there was anything there! At 4AM, it was a generous low tide that exposed an expansive intertidal flat bordered by sea wall and rocky substrate.

It was freaking ghost crab central! There were just so many of them scurrying about. And Duck found great amusement in poking them every time one ran across our tracks.





Eye-stalks raised, they look rather hilarious actually.

I did see some fishies, very cute.








This buried guy was rather big, about 6 or 7 inches long. I'm not sure what he is. Could be a dragonet?


Ivan spotted this huge flatworm floundering about among the rocks -- this was about 7 inches long!


Then it turned upside down and swam away, exposing the fragile pink underside!


A feeding gong-gong, nose extended!

There were also many many shrimp. I thought this pic of a buried shrimp is hilarious. Hello, no not quite invisible, you.

A very active shrimp busy digging out his burrow.


This desis spider was skidding about on the surface of the water, in the middle of nowhere!

Duck spotted this tiny nudibranch. Soooo cute.

A bit past 6AM, the tide started coming in. I took a break and admired the haunting full moon. The view at Tanah Merah is lovely.

...and when we got back to our cars we found parking tickets. Boohoo... who the hell checks at 4AM, seriously?

3 comments:

Kok Sheng said...

Wow...great trip you had!

BUT I also cannot believe the parking fine you all got! So on ah they all!

Buddhaphish said...

would that flatworm be a spanish dancer?

I'm Malaysian so it makes perfect sense that one would get a parking ticket at 4 am in Singapore. :)

Ivan said...

Buddhaphish: Nope, the Spanish dancer is a nudibranch, not a flatworm. This is the Persian carpet flatworm (Pseudobiceros bedfordi).

Kok Sheng: I was feeling a little bummed that Andy was late in picking me up (and then we missed an exit and had to go by a longer way), but we were certainly quite relieved that we avoided the parking tickets because of that!