After a quickie trawl through the transect at Chek Jawa on Sunday (which took only 20 minutes compared to nearly two hours at Cyrene Reef the day before as our particular site had only two species and I was in no danger of mistaking Thalassia hemprichii for Cymodocea rotunda), Helen and I were pondering the behaviour of a large striped hermit crab in a noble volute shell that was clinging to a cospecific less than half its size in a gong gong shell. We thought the bigger crab had brunch in mind, but later Derek said it was probably a male holding on a female, waiting for her to moult so that he can mount her....
As we were squatting there, doing whatever people do when they are sunning their gluteus maximus, Helen gave a blood-curling squawk squeak. She clearly has bigger balls than my duck, as the sight that she saw would have probably scared the pants off me. From somewhere between our legs, this naked nodule of plasm emerged from the mud and flopped about by our feet while making rude gestures from both its front and back sides. From its 'head', little yellow tentacles poked out and tried to grab hold of my duck and visible streams of wet farts spurted from its behind.
My best guess is that this is a see-through sea cucumber. It doesn't appear to have any tube feet, but the five longitudinal muscle bands (which accords it the 5-ray symmetry of echinoderms) are visible on its bulbous body, which is able to expand into a long wormy tube and contract into a glutinous ball. According to the book "A Guide to Sea Stars and other Echinoderms of Singapore", the animal breathes through openings at its anus (which must make for really bad breadth) and feeds on organic muck in the muddy sediments. I tried poking it to see if it would burst and release a flood of cucumber goo, but the skin is tauter than it looks. It decided we weren't very pleasant company and started to borrow into the mud again. Holothurians don't really like to say hello...
Fuck you! Fuck this stupid duck!
Posted by: Cheeby | 23 April 2007 at 10:17 PM
What a fucking journalist who don't bahave as one! FUCK YOU!
Posted by: Cheeby | 23 April 2007 at 10:19 PM
Hello;
I think your fat sea cucumber is a Molpadidae, a rather closed-group of Synaptidae; il bears some strong similitude with Molpadia genus.
Beast regards.
Posted by: Jean-François BERREVILLE | 11 September 2007 at 04:00 AM