Solar-powered slug from Semakau

Semakau never fails to surprise. This time round, I got to help YK map out the different habitats of the landfill island for Project Semakau, and got to explore the other side of the North-west intertidal for the first time. Highlight of the trip: this amazing Plakobranchus ocellatus. (Thanks to Ron for the ID).

It looked like a drab piece of slime on the sandy-muddy area transiting between coral rubble and coral reef. But upon closer examination, it really is a slug, with some really gorgeous blue dots.

Look at that blue... This species has been spotted on the island before, and is listed on Semakau's mollusc list recently published in NIS. The Sea Slug Forum shows a whole array of colour variations of this species (which may very well be more than one species). The site also reports that this saccoglossan "stores huge numbers of bright green chloroplasts in ridges hidden from view beneath the parapodial flaps". It is hypothesized that the chloroplasts are deliberately shaded from the bright tropical sun as most chloroplasts have an optimal light intensity at which they photosynthesise and "can be burnt out if exposed to too much light".

Cool stuff. Should have opened the flaps. :)

Diving and seafood consumption

Or none of the above?

In my backyard

Second foray into the grassland behind my house - which used to have so many nice mature trees till the developers cut it all down to grow cowgrass for sale. sigh. Only just started exploring it after so many years of living here...

super blur but quite artistic pose (to me) of a long-tailed shrike (Lanius schach)

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Leafhopper (Bythoscopus ferrugineus)

accidentally underexposed the second shot but came out so nice! :)

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Tawny coster (Acraea violae)

Apparently first observed in Singapore in 2006. Read about its journey from India to SG here.

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Female blue pansy (Junonia orithya)

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Male striped albatross (Appias libythea olferna)

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Sengkang Forest

Reviving this blog, just to keep track of the stuff i've been seeing/learning. Critters seen in Sengkang forest the saturday that just passed. yet another unexplored area shared by sy.

Common Palm Dart (Telicota colon stinga)

A skipper recently re-instated to the Singapore butterfly list. As can be seen in this photo, skippers adopt unique basking postures: with the forewings open halfway and hindwings open fully.

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Unknown moth

Kept thinking my photo was blur but it's just an effect of the moth scales.

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Ricaniid planthopper (Ricanula stigmatica)

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Cricket (Nisitrus vittatus)

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Mini-watermelon! According to sy, Gymnopetalum sp.

more! :)

same plant with apparently ripened 'watermelons' - looking totally different

See Sy's blog for more of the plants seen.

Bye bye bluefin...

Saw this comic on ConservationBytes blog and felt it apt to post given the recent news on the failed bid on the international trade ban of bluefin. a pretty optimistic view of the issue has been posted on Grist. I quote:

"Thursday's vote puts the fate of Atlantic bluefin tuna back in the hands of International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas , the very body that drove the species to the disastrous state it is now in, but also the body that rebuilt North Atlantic swordfish to a sustainable level in less than 10 years, ahead of the rebuilding deadline. Also, remember: it is the consumer in the global market economy who has turned the bluefin into a prestige product -- and thus given fisherman an overwhelming incentive to overfish it."

Although, the skeptic in me wonders if it's possible for Japanese (or Asians for that matter) to ever decrease their consumption of the fish. will be more hopeful if there's a proper response to the dolphin slaughtering highlighted by the cove. let's wait and see..

Food Inc

"... the cows, who were taken from their mothers just days after their birth... are fed Bovine Growth Hormones so that milk production is dramatically increased... They develop huge udders that bluge, bloated and uncomfortable... Often udders and teats become infected, but there is often no time on these factory farms to deal with such minor (though very painful) ailments. The.. antibiotics in the animal feed is supposed to deal with things like that. These infections transmit pus, or dead bacteria, and white blood cells into milk, causing a disagreeable taste and unpleasant colour. Factory dairies sometimes mix the milk from infected udders with normal milk, so the infected milk with its offensive flavour and colour is diluted."

- Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating by Dr Jane Goodall

Thanks to Pink who lent me Harvest for Hope, I drank my milk this morning thinking whether it has how much pus it contained. then J informed me that Food Inc (movie poster above) was coming to Singapore soon. *sweet*..  Any free movie screenings coming up? seems to be the only way to get non-believers to watch this show - same thing happened for Sharkwater, though buying the DVD as a present works well too. heh. Watch the movie trailer for Food Inc here.

Cosmetics List

Started gg around hunting for organic, SLS/paraben/petrochemical free stuff after Green Drinks opened my eyes to the 101 things in our daily bodywashes/shampoos/toothpastes/deodorants tt could be harmful to our body - might as well just use water. Anyway, am quite impressed by myself. Didn't think I'd bother.. :) here's my list of brands so far:

• Yes to Carrots
• Sukin Organics
• Renew
• Nature's Gate

The first three I saw at the Watson's near Bedok bus interchange. The last one more common, can be found at NTUC and some kuchingkurau Ang Mo Kio shop (cheap too! $12 for a big bottle). After googling for these brands, found out that there are another two brands apparently sold in Singapore: Trilogy and Lavera. But haven't seen them for myself.

Still looking out for my aluminium-free deodorant...

Mermaid's Tears

I've been dumping little plastic bits also known as nurdles or "mermaid's tears" into the sea for the past probably 10 years or more. How? Through the daily use of exfoliating facial scrub. First read about it in "Bottomfeeder" and have to admit the fact didn't stick somehow but now that I came across the issue again in "The World Without Us", I'm determined to find a substitute for my Biore.

"Browne pulls open the top drawer of a laboratory cabinet. Inside is a cornucopia of feminine beauty aids: shower massage creams, body scrubs, and hand cleaners. Several are by boutique labels: Neova Body Smoother, SkinCeuticals Body Polish, and DDF Strawberry Almond Body Polish. Others are international name brands: Neutrogena, Clearasil, Pond’s Fresh Start, even a tube of Colgate Icy Blast toothpaste.... all have one thing in common.

“Exfoliants: little granules that massage you as you bathe.” He selects a peach-colored tube of St. Ives Apricot Scrub; its label reads: 100% natural exfoliants. “This stuff is okay. The granules are actually chunks of ground-up jojoba seeds and walnut shells.” Other natural brands use grape seeds, apricot hulls, coarse sugar, or sea salt. “The rest of them,” he says, with a sweep of his hand, “have all gone to plastic.”

- "Polymers are forever" in The World Without Us

These micro-scrubbers are tiny spheres of polyethylene which are sold to be washed directly down the drain, into the sea. From there, they go up the food chain and will most probably land on our plates. Karma. In the North Pacific Subtropical gyre (a 10-million-square mile ocean dump), plastic particles outnumber plankton by a factor of more than six times! Oh but some good news.. the great pacific garbage patch is finally due for cleanup sometime in June 2009. Great stuff. Read more about Project Kaisei here.

The things we don't know as consumers.. appalling. Just like how I just came to know about the harmful effects of aluminium in deodorant. And I've been using that for years too. Anyone who knows of a good brand of facial exfoliant and deodorant to use, do share.

Malthusian Catastrophe

Hilarious poster. and No, I do not agree with this mode of environmentalism.

After reading that Sir David Attenborough has (in Otterman's words) "come out and said it: too many people on earth", decided to do a quick search on the topic and came up with a bunch of interesting results:

• Malthus was a political economist who blamed the decline of living conditions in 19th century England on three elements: The overproduction of young; the inability of resources to keep up with the rising human population; and the irresponsibility of the lower classes. To combat this, Malthus suggested the family size of the lower class ought to be regulated such that poor families do not produce more children than they can support. -UCMP
• Both Darwin and Wallace independently arrived at similar theories of Natural Selection after reading Malthus. - UCMP
• World population is projected to rise from today's 6.8 billion to 9.1 billion in 2050. - optimumpopulation.org
• Assuming the global biocapacity and average footprint remain stable at the 2003 level, then, to become sustainable, the world population needs to contract to a maximum of 5.1 billion. - optimumpopulation.org
• The world's 200 wealthiest people have as much money as about 40 percent of the global population, and yet 850 million people have to go to bed hungry every night. - Spiegel Online

Pretty scary facts huh. and I do know two Singaporeans who've told me they'd rather adopt than have kids for similar reasons: don't wanna contribute to depleting the planet; 2) don't wanna let another human grow up in this 'sad world'.

it's not all that bad right.. just enjoy life when you've been given it.

Other blogs on the same topic:

• Liliane.wordpress.com
• Strangeherring.wordpress.com

Things We Forget

"Post-it notes left to their fate in public places."

-Thingsweforget.blogspot.com

Cradle to Cradle

"Cradle to Cradle Design takes its inspiration from nature, in which there is no place for the concept of waste, but in which waste = food.

'Cradle to Cradle' is the antidote to the 'Cradle to Grave' paradigm, where product cycles are not really cycles but mostly half cycles in which products, after their useful life, are put out of sight in landfills. The purpose of the Cradle to Cradle Design is to restore continuous cycles of biological as well as technical nutrients with long terms positive effects on profitability, the environment and human health. Cradle to Cradle Design is highly operational: It aims for perfection, it can prove when it has achieved it or how far it has succeeded in its task."

- EPEA.com

Watch the video here.

Manado VS Singapore

Manado trip was great, with tonnes of exotic critters.. including mimic octopus! *BIG FAT GRIN*. THEN when I showed my pix to colleague M, she commented that many of these critters can be seen in Singapore. !!! I knew we had an amazing variety of nudibranchs but, Singaporean dragonets and Singaporean bobtail squid? COOLIO! and I thought the only similarity between Lembeh and Singapore was the muck.

Gorgeous dragonet from Koksheng's blog. 

Cyrene 2008

and other dragonets found in Changi, Cyrene and Semakau here.

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Boxcrab (from Lembeh). Was so  excited to see it. 

and we have it on mainland Singapore!

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Longspine scorpionfish (from Lembeh)

for the Singaporean longspine.. click here

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Seamoth!!! (from Lembeh)

seasonally abundant on Chek Jawa!

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Bobtail squid at Pulau Hantu!!!

from Hantu blog 2004

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Pipefish from the Tide Chaser Blog

Semakau 2008

Was looking for the new species found by Blue Tempeh in 2006, 

but sadly, the photo is no longer online. 

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Other of my Manado sightings found locally include Solefish, Frogfish, Crocodile fish /flathead. Of course, there's also the commonly sighted pufferfish, filefish, butterflyfish, octopii, and the list goes on...

Who gets the trash?

Look at where Singapore is on the map and where our arrows are pointing. 

Oh look.. a star all to ourselves. the gahmen will be so proud.

"E-waste is routinely exported by developed countries to developing ones, often in violation of the international law. Inspections of 18 European seaports in 2005 found as much as 47 percent of waste destined for export, including e-waste, was illegal. In the UK alone, at least 23,000 metric tonnes of undeclared or 'grey' market electronic waste was illegally shipped in 2003 to the Far East, India, Africa and China. In the US, it is estimated that 50-80 percent of the waste collected for recycling is being exported in this way. This practice is legal because the US has not ratified the Basel Convention. - Greenpeace International"

Read more about what you can do with your old electronic ware from the new ZerowasteSG website. Come to think of it... that old printer has been sitting in my living room collecting dust for quite a few years...

Corallimorphs and shipwrecks

Invasion of the corallimorphs! Wonder if this is happening in our local reefs.

Work TM, Aeby GS, Maragos JE 2008 "Phase Shift from a Coral to a Corallimorph-Dominated Reef Associated with a Shipwreck on Palmyra Atoll" PLoS ONE 3(8): e2989 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002989

Ok.. this isn't the particular species of corallimorph in the paper but i love this.. so bubbly..

Giant cup mushroom coral (Amplexidiscus fenestrafer)

"Corallimorpharians have several life history traits which allow them to rapidly monopolize patches of shallow substrate in tropical habitats. They are competitively superior to some coral species and possess anatomic structures such as elongated marginal tentacles that allow them to kill competing scleractinian corals... Additionally, corallimorpharians have three different modes of clonal replication (fission, pedal laceration and budding) that allow comparatively rapid monopolization of space on the reef...

The subsequent extent of the area dominated by corallimorphs in this study was much greater than other studies where corallimorphs rapidly invaded damaged areas but to a much more localized extent. This may be due to some substance leaching from the ship such as dissolved iron. Iron makes up the major component of steel and other ferrous metals in mooring buoys and ships, and is known to be a limiting resource for many marine organisms. Iron is an essential trace element for algal growth and nitrogen fixation, and equatorial and south Pacific oceanic waters are extremely low in available iron...

The extensive R. howesii invasion and subsequent loss of coral reef habitat at Palmyra Atoll and the potential association of corallimorph invasions with metal objects should serve as a clarion call to managers dealing with large metal objects such as wrecks on reefs. This will be especially relevant at remote low reef islands and atolls such as Palmyra where dissolved iron concentrations may be extremely limiting. The major sources of iron for the oceans are from wind-blown terrestrially derived dust or in coastal regions, from rivers and terrestrial run-off. Islands closer to continental landmasses or reefs at high islands where iron may be available from chemical erosion of volcanic soils may be less vulnerable to impacts of iron enrichment associated with metal objects. If removal of the shipwreck is not possible, regular systematic monitoring of the benthos for invasive organisms, including cnidarians, should be done to verify the rate of spread to support management actions such as removal of the shipwreck."

Dying Moray Eels

Always felt Morays were quite amazing predators.. both shy and vicious. Seeing one writhing like that is rather scary. I hope I never ever get to see this in South-East Asia. Or anywhere for that matter.

"It doesn't sound like there has been any sort of major, published, peer-reviewed, quantitative documentation of this yet. But that said, something is not right when so many sport divers not only count dozens of dead or dying eels.. "

- Shifting Baselines blog

btw... was surfing on moray eels and discovered that groupers and moray eels actually engage in cooperative hunting! its old news but first time i've heard it! Check out the cool videos on the open-access PLoS Biology site.

"They found groupers often visited giant morays resting in their crevices and rapidly shook their heads an inch or so from the eels to recruit them in a joint hunt. At times this call took place after a grouper failed in its hunt because prey escaped into a crevice the grouper could not get into but a giant moray might. If the moray emerged, the grouper guided the eel to a crevice where prey was hiding. Groupers sometimes even performed a headstand and shook its head over a prey hiding place to attract moray eels to the site. At times the moray ate the fish it rooted out, while at other times the grouper did." - MSNBC

Man vs Wild

Was sharing with some friends about 'Into the Wild' and YK then told me about discovery travel series 'Man vs Wild'.

"In the show, Grylls both demonstrates and narrates techniques for wilderness survival in regions around the globe, from ice fields, mountain ranges, swamps and deserts. The general format of each episode is that Grylls is dropped into the region simulating a stranded explorer/tourist. The episode documents his efforts to survive and find a way back to civilization, usually requiring an overnight shelter of some kind.... The program has shown him eating raw meat and live fish, staving off hypothermia, and drinking the fluids of elephant feces and his own urine for hydration."

Caution: video may be disturbing, especially to the frog pple
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Green Porno

I meant to surf on more 'Emptied Oceans' videos after reading Papa Jeff's recent blog entry. But ended up watching porn instead.. ehem.. Sundance porn no less. Enjoy. (Reminder: this is a *ehem* family friendly blog, for more exciting videos in the Green Porno series, click here.)

"Green Porno is a series of very short films conceived, written, co-directed by and featuring Isabella Rossellini. Inspired by the amazing and often bizarre sexual practices of insects and other creatures, these 8 films are both comical and insightful studies of the curious ways a variety of earth's tiny critters 'make love'. Simple, playful and childlike by design, Green Porno provides a unique and provocative glimpse into an 'underground' world of sexual encounters." - Sundance, Green Porno

"It will never affect us."

Don't you think Singaporeans tend to have this apathetic attitude? Pretty sure majority of Singaporeans believe what the local newspapers say, including the recent report that Singapore is safe from rising sea levels. Well.. check this out then:

This is what a group of NUS students found. Singapore will look like this if the Greenland icesheets melt (and sea-level around Singapore rises by 7m). *editted* This sounds like an extreme case scenario, but look at this piece of news: I quote- 

The melting increased by about 30 percent for the western part of Greenland from 1979 to 2006, with record melt years in 1987, 1991, 1998, 2002, 2005 and 2007...Inclusion of the dynamic processes of these glaciers in models will likely demonstrate that the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment underestimated sea-level projections for the end of the 21st century"

Saw this image on a presentation by Prof Wong Poh Poh during a recent talk on climate change and sea-level rise and its implications on coastal management in the Asia Pacific region at the University of Adelaide, Singapore (thanks to BWV mailing list). The vision's pretty haunting don't you think. First thing you think of is.. hmm.. where's my house? ok. never buy a house in the east, next thing i'm thinking.. let's all live on Bukit Timah.. i'm sure it can handle 5million pple. right.

A thought-provoking point by Prof Wong that stayed with me was that maybe we shouldn't take sea-level rise as such a negative thing. Humans are used to living on land. But with more water surrounding us, maybe we should think of ways to live on the sea instead. M felt it pretty ridiculous but I think it's actually a good idea. What say u?

Read more about the issue on WildSingapore.

WWF: sustainable seafood guide

Singapore version.. akan datang.

In the mean time, take a look at the HongKong version. looks like we need to stay away from shrimp... Read more here.

But the main problem is.. we never get proper information on where our fish comes from. Till then this guide will not be of much use.

Bottomfeeder (I)

"The Sea, Changed.
A permanent feature of the world's largest ocean is now a swirling sargasso of floating debris. This gyre of detritus includes Nike basketball shoes spilled from a conatiner ship, Logo blocks, highlighter pens, yellow rubber ducks, six-pack rings, hockey gloves... The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as it is known, is now almost the size of Africa." - Bottomfeeder by Taras Grescoe

Which reminds me.. I had wanted to post this photo quite some time ago. All this trash would prolly be out floating at sea somewhere if not for our humble Singapore mangroves...