Crabbing @ Polunin Stream

Today, me and denise went to help daniel with his honours project again. Was quite a relief there wasnt rain that day even though lightning flashed when we were leaving school.

The water level at the stream was much higher then the previous time I went, guessed it was probably raining here earlier. We quickly caught sight of a few big Parathelpusa maculata crabs but they were too fast and difficult to handle (only daniel dare to catch it) so we only got four of them. Got more Johora singaporeansis however, and no Geosersarma as they are supposely more terrestrial (very flooded today).

We noticed several burrows which Daniel thought belong to the crabs and he confirmed it after finding a freshly dug burrow with a Johora singaporeansis inside.

After finishing the catch for the day, our leader went about to take some measurements.

Male Parathelpusa maculata have an enlarged right pincer.

And lastly, he made some marking on the crabs before releasing them back.

Check out his blog, Johora singaporeansis for more insights.

Uniquely Singaporeansis!

For those who don't know Daniel, he is the host of the new blog, Johora singaporensis. This was a blog about his honours project on this species of crab. Whats so special about this crab Johora singaporensis? Its endangered and its endemic to Singapore (ie, found only in Singapore), thats special enough right? Whats better than this entry for national day?

Went to help out Daniel today together with Kaiqin, Denise, Shun deng and Tinghui. The location was at this stream called "Polunin" stream cause in order to reach this freshwater stream, we have to go through the house of Dr Polunin and the stream lie just below a slope in the forest behind. The aim is to catch crabs for him to do a population count of the crabs here.

Polunin stream

Seriously, I never imagined it to be such a garang field trip. So many mosquitoes there! And have to get hands and legs dirty and muddy. Haa sorry sound so gu niang but I can never get use to dirty conditions. But well, after working for an hour, sorta became immune to the bites and mud... It soon turned dark as we started in the evening, luckily we borrowed some diving torches from Ngan Kee. There seemed to be more crabs at night, apparently they are more active at night.

Daniel took me and Kaiqin to another channel of stream and it was there I caught my first Johora singaporensis! It was a rather small inconspicuous crab which as Kaiqin ID as it having a smiley face on its carapace (thats just the noobish way of IDing btw). We caught many more as we traced our way upstream.

Johora singaporensis

As we headed back to join up with the rest, we found a large crab (compared to Johora) but it creeped back under the cervice before we can lure it out. Denise even found a bigger one further downstream but dropped it carelessly ;p while handing over to Daniel for ID. Apparently it was a common freshwater crab called, Parathelpusa maculata.

Parathelpusa maculata

Leaving the best for the last, was another tiny crab, Geosersarma sp. Look at the six baby crabbies on its back!

An enjoyable day to sum out, and our hunger pangs returned just right after we finished up at 9pm and released the crabs. Had a quick wash and headed to the nearby muslim shop for dinner before going back..