Cenchrus brownii

Before I forget again and have to hunt the web for the scientific name!

Its quite common along the beach forest and it was first recorded in Singapore in 1950. I browsed the www and realised that the plant is in some flickr sets in Singapore without the name (I commented on them).. so here’s the name so that the next time someone gets poked by it, at least can curse it properly.

Here’s a nice picture of it courtesy of Ria from wildsingapore

It belongs to the grass family and not the sedge family.

Cenchrus brownii!

As you can see, I am pretty invigorated by the fieldtrip I had this morning…

Final fieldtrip for the 2008 Biophilia programme

Here’s a little summary from the final fieldtrip to sentosa for the biophilia programme (24th May 2008). The students have been great to work with thanks to their initiative and level of enthusiasm. (hmmm but why haven’t they contributed to this blog?!?). Fellow colleagues that came for the fieldtrips made the programme successful in its own way.

We’ve been lucky with the tides this year and all the saturdays low tides were around 9 am so we could schedule those saturday fieldtrips.

For me again, there were new things to see (as with every fieldtrip to this spot) and this school of catfish was one. It was a tight ball and they were swimming around each other and moving as a school.

I chanced upon another school of smaller catfish later and demonstrated to the students the fountain effect of how a school of fish move away from an incoming predator. See embedded video. Here, I wade towards the school of fish and through the school. Note how the school doesn’t swim away but split into 2 and swim around me by first swimming away and doing a flanking turn to the outside and around me and regrouping behind me. That’s apparently optimal evasion tactics from a predator… cool. I got the chance to gather the students to demonstrate this in situ, something I had learnt from Prof Munroe in Animal Behaviour class when I was in year 2 or 3 when I was an undergraduate. Those are just some of the biodiversity lessons that I never forgot. It was nice to demonstrate this to a bunch of students who may not take any Biodiversity modules as undergraduates. In fact its hard to imagine that with the ever changing syllabus to molecular biology that students will ever learn this.

Here’s a mermaid’s purse or more informatively, the egg that is laid by a shark, stingray and attached to seawead. The eggcase is usually washed to shore after the baby shark emerges. There are plenty of this around at the sentosa beach.

And finally, a picture of students working at the site. Its nice to see that they have learnt much from this experience. It has been a fulfilling programme and one that the teachers and I have found exciting, refreshing and something we looked forward to. Its definitely a different pedagogy, the open classroom. Some students have remarked that they enjoyed the freedom to explore and craft their own projects. Will post some reflections below as they are nice (I have omitted some parts)

~”The most memorable part of Biophilia will definitely be the day on the beach when for the first time in my life I watched 2 ‘blue-blooded’ horseshoe crabs mate. I was really surprised to be able to find such amazing creatures in Singapore, because all along I saw Singapore as a place with minimal biodiversity. This programme has thus taught me not to underestimate the biodiversity of creatures in Singapore.”~

~I really enjoyed every single session of the Biophilia programme as I was working with what I enjoy and am interested in most. The fieldtrips really heightened my interest towards marine organisms and I really learnt a lot about Singapore’s shores during the trips. I have also started to fully appreciate Singapore’s biodiversity after seeing such a huge variety of organisms living on such a small stretch of beach. I used to think that Singapore does not have any sea anemones or coral reefs but I realized was very much mistaken after seeing the beautiful sea anemones on the Sentosa beach. I’m glad to know that there are such programmes to let me learn more about Singapore’s biodiversity as I feel that our biodiversity is just as important as the developments in our country. Our biodiversity is part of our environment as well as our heritage so we should treasure it as well and not cast it aside as something less important. If I have a chance I would want to go for this programme again and I hope that it will be for a longer period of time as I feel that the time period this time is too short.~

~From the fieldtrip I attended, the experience and new discoveries I made gave me a great sense of achievement. I think it is wonderful that I have had this opportunity to observe and even touch some of the organisms we found. Wading in the water and sometimes mud in search of fish, crab and whatever else we could find was truly a great experience. I am glad to have been selected to participate in this program. I never realized that the area behind underwater world had so many cool organisms despite all the times I have been to Sentosa. The thought that that little ecosystem will most likely be destroyed in the future with the ongoing construction around that area is rather depressing. As unlikely as it is, I hope that the short video that my group has produced throughout this program will achieve its purpose in increasing the awareness about the ecological value of that area, and perhaps more might learn to value this more than the monetary profits it could bring. ~

Biophilia Programme – Finding Nemo

The morning started out with a nice view of the seashore exposed by the low tide (0.3 m). The sky was clear and the sound of the ebbing waves beckoned.

The students were to carry out their transect study. I was with a group of them when they set up a 40 m long line transect across the intertidal zone. It must have been one of those fulfilling days as a bio teacher. The sun, the sand and the ebbing waves washing at our ankles as we looked for yet one more creature to surprise us with its existence in its strange form. The day’s new creature of the day started off with the slender seamoth.

Its not uncommon on these fieldtrips to the shore to hear students go “wow” in amazement at an entirely new creature they have seen…. Come to think of it.. how many times in our lives do we come across anything really new in the flesh.

The slender seamoth was really calm as we comtemplated it… see the shadows of our heads hovering over it as we trained camera lenses on it. We pondered over whether it was a stargazer or seawasp.

That’s the 40m transect which took a group an hour plus to complete documenting the creatures they saw.

And here’s a makeshift square transect that the group who had done were particularly proud of.

The low tide really exposed a lot of creatures and lots of carpet anemones were exposed in those pools. It was with Mr Nah’s patience and keen eye that we spotted the prawn that was swimming within those tentacles of one. And soon enough what must have been quite the highlight of the day was to spot a clownfish, at home within the tentacle of the carpet anemone. Now, we have seen Nemo in aquarium and the movies, but to come across on in situ was a different thing all together… we all beamed at such a discovery.

It must have been on of the most fulfilling visits to that fieldsite. I think partly it could be attributed to the fact that we set up transects and had a more considered approach to our survey.

We work to the ominous backdrop of mega construction and each time I go there, I half expect the place to be cleared and cordoned off for some pointless attraction. The day that happens, I will be cynical, for I have come to know of creatures who await discovery by students.