This was the liveliest photo I could coax (bludgeon) out of the team. Well, it was early and some of us hadn't had breakfast yet.The shores of Sentosa have lots of seagrasses!
Here is one of the plots Marcus and I did. Nice long Tape seagrasses sprinkled with little Spoon seagrasses.We finished quite soon as most of the team were quite experienced, and we explored a bit of the shore. The tide was already coming in by that time, so we couldn't go out to the reefs.
But seagrasses are everywhere on the Sentosa shore.Some NParks friends joined us today, and they were having a look at the seaweeds. There are quite a lot of different kinds on Sentosa.
Just on one little stone, you might find several different kinds growing there.These odd little green things are also seaweeds, as well as the brown flappy thing too.
Wei Ling shares some of what she learnt recently about seaweeds. They are quite fascinating.We also have a look at some of the coastal forest plants on this shore.
Shufen shares about this special tree, the Sea Teak (Podocarpus polystachyus).
Like many of our coastal forest plants, it is endangered as their habitats vanish.It is a conifer which produces seeds but no flowers. Instead, they have reproductive structures called cones or strobili.
Male plants produce clusters of cream-coloured cones which shed whitish, powdery pollen.
Female plants produce a highly modified cone. More about this special plant on the BP-Science Centre's "Guide to Singapore mangroves"; here's the online version.In the 'caves' of the natural cliffs facing the shore, Marcus found spiders!
Here's one of them. It was just too creepy for me to go deep into the crevices. Marcus was much braver and has lovely photos of these scary spiders and other stories about Sentosa on his budak blog.Among the pressures on this Sentosa shore are large boats travelling at high speed. Apparently, they are not supposed to go so fast. This creates strong waves which pound the plants and animals on the shore.
This is why it's important for us to monitor this fabulous natural shore.Thank you to Marcus, Jo and Leykun for coming to monitor today. Jo had to take leave just to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment