CNY Day 1 at Big Sister's Island

Well, last year I spent my whole Chinese New Year catching Dog-faced Water Snakes for my Honours project. This year I found myself to walk the shores of islands throughout the three days of CNY.

First up - Big Sister.


And the weather was great with the sun up and the wind blowing strong.

And of course, the critters were plenty as usual.

There were tons of corals, but I only took snap them every now and then. Not as religiously as the coral id workshop trip at Semakau thou.

A huge Faviidae.


Oulophyllia sp.


Oulastrea sp.?


Also Oulastrea sp.? Once again... couldn't confirm due to lack of close-up shots. The wind wasn't making the task of taking photos of stuff under water easy too. The water ripples were killing my shots...


Goniopora sp.


Fungia sp.


Anemones.


A different type of anemones.


Soft corals. Leathery soft coral (left) and dead men's finger.


Another soft coral. Perhaps omelette?


Sponges and Ascidians together.


And this should be a colony of ascidians.


Barrel sponge.


A young giant clam. Only about 5cm in length.


Spider conch with quite some dressing.


And look who's home.


Fanworm, a type of tubeworm.


Looks like Discodoris boholensis, but it's actually a flatworm (Acanthozoon sp.).


Possibly a feather star.


Moon snail. Predatory snail and a good burrower.


Marine spider.


Red egg crab. Bad shot... cause it was dark and darn strong wind...


A diadema sea urchin (Diadema setosum). Notice the direction of the long spines? That's how strong the wind is - even the urchin is having a bad hair day, or rather a bad 'spine' day.


A hermit crab. Possibly Dardanus sp.. In fact not one, I found a pair of them - both housed in spider conch shells. Talk about matching wear. And so far they mark the record for the largest hermit crab I've found so far. The body width is a good 3-4cm.


And guess what?! One of them was carrying eggs. See the red mass inside the shell. Damn cool.


Here's another hermit. But this is a land hermit crab (Coenobita sp.), and will drown if put underwater.

And of course, how can I forget my favourite critter of them all - Nudibranchs!

First up is the common polka-dot (Jorunna funebris).


An Aeolidina (Superfamily). Chay Hoon says that it's new (hence not sure about ID).


Phyllidia varicosa, uncommon as I was told. I found this while I was searching an anemone for nemos. Was shifting the seaweed away from the anemone, and there it was sitting just beside the anemone. What luck.


At first I thought this was a nudi. But it's actually a type of sap-sucking slug. This one is probably an Elysia sp..


What a day! And a great one to start my CNY! As the night falls and the tide rises, we took a short break before heading back to mainland - to prepare for another day!

PS: Thanks Ron for letting me bug you for the info. Haha...