Thursday, December 27, 2007

Coral ID session @ Semakau (I)

Just the same as Mr Discovery, I am going to split my post into two parts. This intertidal walk was part of a field workshop kindly organised by LK and conducted by Jani. The aim is to learn how to identify the corals exposed at the intertidals. Will do a separate posting for that since there is too much to cover.

For now, lets look at some of other marine life at the exposed shores.

Stichopus ocellatus sea cucumber. Not the most handsome of the cucumbers I know, probably under going puberty with so many pimples ^^ (with white pus inside too, eeww)

Gymnodoris rubropapulosa nudibranch. A cannibalistic slug which feeds on other nudibranchs =s

Egg capsules of squids?

It was a polka dot season. Think I had at least seen ten or more of them today. You can see them in a hive of activity: Like looking for someone to have sex with...

Or looking for its favorite food, the blue sponge. I wonder how it managed to swallow all those spicules (small pointy skeleton) of the sponge. Imagine eating glass...

A docile blue-spotted fan tailed ray lying lazily on the sand. Why do I say docile? Cos it merely finched abit when tidechaser used his chopsticks to sweep the sediment covering its dorsal body.

And the most bizzare feat of all, males having sex without the pleasure. Male octopi merely pass their sperms down its third right arm (usually) and just deposit them into the female's reproductive organ.

Interesting ritual as the male turned into a beautiful zebra stripped pattern (above) a few times and then approached the female..
Inserting its make-shift penis into it.

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...