Intertidals at Changi

Thanx Kok Sheng for inviting me for this intertidal trip. Just recovered from a high fever in which I had to postpone the diving lessons, hai. Sorry Diana for that too.

We reached just in time to see the sunrise. Magnificent view.

One of the first things we saw was this sea hare. I almost didnt notice it as the entire body was buried in the sand but its 2 wavy sails betrayed its position. Sea hares are hermaphrodites, that means they are both male and female. The name itself comes from Greek mythology, with Hermes (the guy god), the son of zeus and Aphrodite, daughter of zeus too, as well as goddess of love and beauty.

Finally we had the chance to see some live gong gong, not just empty shells. Gong Gong, like all couches have long eye stalks and a sickle shaped operculum to leap themselves forward.

We saw quite a few of these hermit crabs with tiny sea anemones attached on top of their makeshift homes. These anemones will serve as an effective deterent to any hermit crab predator.

Hermit crab mass orgy

During my revision on evolution, I came across a reading which talked about some species hermit crabs that can bargain their way to exchange new fitting shells with another. This involves using the claw to tap on the other crabs' shell and if it is also in need of a change and finds the bargainer's shell fitting, a mutual exchange will take place. The pattern of knocking differs will species but Im not sure if all do this. Perhaps those above are undergoing that ritual now.

We also saw a few sea pens here. They are closely related to corals and anemones too, similarly armed with stinging cells.

My first time seeing this beautiful sea anemone. One can differentiate it from a soft coral by identifying its central oral mouth. Corals have one "mouth" for each tentacle (polyp) instead.

A healthy colony of Halophila spinulosa.

A crabby world changi beach is. Everywhere we go, we could see crabs scurrying about. Can anyone ID this one above?

An intricately designed moon crab, found by the eagle eye koksheng. All its 8 legs are paddle shaped thus it can burrow itself into the sand with amazing speed.

Not very sure but think this is a thunder crab. They are extremely aggressive so dont try touching them! We found 3 within 5 minutes while balancing ourselves over the rocky pathway along the jetty.

A male brown-throated sunbird

We were pretty worn out and dehydrated after reaching changi point, and I got a small cut on my finger from the barnacles on the rocks. Somehow I kept thinking about the news of the flesh eating bacteria the man got from being cut by a crab and it gave me the shivers. Thats why half of my water went to cleaning the wound instead of down my throat...

Watch out for kok sheng's account in his new nature blog.

HELP TO DONATE! ACRES Wildlife Rescue Centre

Recieved an email from someone a few days back with a heading "need your help". I must admit I almost thought it was a spam mail (sorry for my mistake), as I had been bugged by spam for almost the entire semester. Seems like those spamz have evolved to overcome my yahoo spam blocker. Damn.

Anyway, lucky I din delete the mail and found out to my surprise its from ACRES! As all might have known, ACRES is building a wildlife centre (it was reported in the news last time) and is currently raising funds to build it. For people who don't know ACRES, it stands for Animal Concerns Research and Education Society and is a registered charity in Singapore.

The main purpose, besides many other things are to help house confiscated wildlife from the illegal wildlife trade. Currently many illegal wildlife confiscated in Singapore have to be put down due to lack of housing. The ACRES wildlife rescue centre (AWRC) will help provide the housing needed to save the lives of hundreds of animals. It will also help to serve as an educational platform to promote awareness of conservation and illgeal wildlife trade.

ACRES will need 1 million dollars for this project. They have almost reach half the amount but they will need more then this to achieve the full amount! So please help to contribute some money to help! A little like $10 will do, it wun kill you, I'm sure of that. But of cos the more the better (dun compare ur income to me cos I'm still a student) :p If you can donate money for kidney failure or handicap people, you can do the same to these animals. They deserve a right to live as any of us.

And hey, I just donated $10 also. :) So hope anyone reading this will also follow suit and give some. At least get some good Karma for future returns. You won't regret it.

There are more information on the rescue centre

This is the donation page. Just use a mastercard to pay for it, 5 minutes done. For people who dun own a credit card like me, just use ur normal POSB debit card will do.

Happy the Puppy

I'm sooooooooo glad exams are finally over. I had been pretty drained in this semester physically and mentally, now finally can recuperate in this 3 mths holiday. Went over to girl's house straight after my last eco paper to see her, and her new pet, a small puppy. The story of this puppy is pretty long, and if u care to read, here it is.

Happy, the brown puppy

Girl's sisters first found two dogs, male and female at the void deck of their flat. Apparently abandoned, they were sorta adopted by the sisters and her father brought these 2 dogs to their grandpa's farm where they still are staying there now. These 2 dogs, a male and female, gave birth to 4 puppies, of which 2 died and the other 2 survived well till now. As you guessed it, one of the 2 which survived is Happy, the brown puppy (male) above and the other is also called Happy, a white puppy (female) (no idea why they have the same name). They could have stayed in the farm happily with their parents if not for this weird person who work in the farm having a distaste for dogs and will threaten to harm them (not sure if i'm correct on this but should be close). Left with no choice, their dad (the human dad) brought the 2 puppies home to stay with them and girl and sisters were ecstatic. But, it was time for white puppy to leave as it was promised previously to be given to another family to look after. But I guess it was also more practical for girl to take care of just one. And so now, happy, the brown puppy is left alone, separated from his sister and parents. I wonder if he is truly happy now.

But it does seem to have some happy moments....

Biting a model of himself, a dog soft toy.

Sniffing at my smelly socks

Tired after all the playing, it fell aslp just like that. And girl cover it with a cloth to avoid catching cold

Really, really extremely adorable doggy. Aside from the fact that it just urine and shit anywhere, it was truly a great companion. Aside from this, I hope people can reliased how serious the issue of abandonment is. If not for girl's family, Happy's parents wouldnt have survived and Happy wouldnt have been born. Besides this, the treatment of humans towards animals is also unacceptable, like that guy in the farm. I remember reading a post from Cats from East Coast Park abt this guy stomping his feet just to frighten the cats for fun. Some extracts from her posting:

"If a child commits such an act, we can attribute it to a lack of education. But as this act was committed by a fully-grown adult, I find such it highly abhorrent.

If one is afraid of the animal, he or she could have just avoided it and walked in another direction. There is no need to incite fear in a helpless being as this is tantamount to abuse where animals are frightened needlessly and deliberately.

Just because we are many times bigger and more powerful than animals do not imply that we are the sole inhabitants of the city. As stray cats live in public space face much insecurity, members of the public who witness such acts should stop the perpetuator immediately. Only then can we claim to have “progressed” as a nation."

Some other pictures from Girl's blog showing Happy's other family members:
Post #1 & #2 (the two ''Happy'' puppies)
Post #3 (the parents, both called lucky)

Mmm, I thought I might just help to ask, does anyone know how to toilet train a puppy dog?