Semakau Inter-Tidal Walk on 4 Aug 2007

Nineteenth discovery posting:

(Entry@ 6 Aug 2007: Thanks to Angie for a photo of the volute which was laying eggs)

Semakau had a 'crowd' of people, Team Seagrass were there to do seagrass transect, some Nparks stuff were there to do recording of plants (if i didn't remembered wrongly) and us doing the guided walk at the Inter-Tidal zone.

Have to admit that this posting would be quite short due to some reasons.. because at first i though that i did not brought my camera (which i really was lamenting along the walk) only to find out after the walk that i did brought my camera, it was hidden deep in my bag... ARGHZ!

Anyway, i was leading the 'turtles' with, Angie (who knows loads about corals) as my assistant of the day and i did tell my group that i was very tempted to shout, "Turtle Power" =P

Also i have to thank Jing Kai for his photo contribution, so that i can write on something interesting...

'Discovery' by Jing Kai's group: A coastal horseshoe crab (pictures below)
Discovery Note:
1. Horseshoe crabs have known to 'roam' the earth since days even before the dinosaurs was around, so scientists calls them 'living fossils'.
2. Although they are called horseshoe crabs, they are not related to crabs. They are actually more related to spiders and scorpions.
3. There are two types of horseshoes crabs we can find in Singapore, the mangrove one (circular tail) and the coastal one (the trianglar tail)
4. The tail is not venomous and is not used as a weapon. It is merely used as a lever to right itself if it is overturned. If you see an upside down horseshoe crab struggling with its tail waving around, do give it a helping hand. It will not hurt you.
5. The blood of the horseshoe crab is blue, as it is copper-based.
6. Their blood is able to clot easily when it detects bacteria, so their blood was harvested for these purposes until a team from NUS's department of Zoology has cloned a substance to replace using horseshoe crab's blood. Read more about it here.

(Entry @ 6 Aug 2007: Below was something that most of us saw for a first time, including myself, volute laying eggs (picture below)! A new 'Discovery'! Thanks to Angie again for giving me permission to use her photo. => )
Discovery Note:
1. Volutes are carnivorous. They prey on bivalves, enveloping the victim completely with their foot forcing the bivalve to finally open from exhaustion and lack of oxygen.
2. They can grow to more than 20cm and used to be common but now threaten due to 'harvesting' from humans and habitat lost.

As i only managed to find my camera after the walk, i only managed to get a group photo of everyone at the Semakau Jetty, here it is (picture below).
And also nevertheless, Thanks to Angie for her great assistance and explanation on corals and sponges and also all 'turtles' for being there. =)

"Turtle POWER"