my first sighting of an octopus!

at pulau semakau yesterday. others actually saw more stuff… like sea urchins and yellow nudibranch and sea stars…….

anyway we all know that octopuses are intelligent creatures. though they only have 1 brain, they have 3 hearts. and their oxygen is transported in copper-containing haemocyanin. seems that it more efficient in transporting oxygen under really cold conditions.

so how to they escape predation? they try not to be seen. mostly by camouflaging. the arms of the octopus contain numerous nerve cells. numerous. and these are also linked to chromatophores. chromatophores are pigment containing cells that give skin colour to cold blooded animals. and in octopuses, chromatophores can contain 2-4 of these colours: brown, black, yellow, orange, red. as if changing colour is not enough, octopuses can also change the texture of their skin to camouflage better.

in the video you can seen the brownish octopus changing into sand colour. its amazing! someone also said that the arms of some octopus can independantly change colour, so it doesnt have to be in a single colour to camou itself.

then later the octopus squeezes into a burrow. cos it doesnt have a skeleton, nor an exoskeleton. so, its basically like a ball of ‘squish’…

anyway, octopuses also can squirt black ink, mostly made of melanin (the same kind that you have in your skin, but i dont know what makes it fully black/not black).

of course its main defense is to swim away quickly, which i assure you, they are capable of.

so back to the arms. these specialised arms also contain chemoreceptos. that allow it to taste what its arms are landed on. and the suction stuff that they have are so cool, the octopus actually knows when its arms are stretched, cos its alot more flexible and stretchable than most other organisms..

octopus also has got fantastic orientation and eyesight… its brains has this thing that allows it to orientate itself on a horizontal plane.

wonderful octopus…

so thats at pulau semakau.

and seems like cyrene reef is a forbidden island… only those invited can go… SOOOOOO………… now, ive got something to work for…. need to study these different types of seagrasses and get rid of my fear of stepping into waters covered with meadows of thick seagrasses……. takes time doesnt it…

i so want to learn diving…………………. someday…………………. sigh…

 

jewels of semakau

wasnt in the mood yesterday to post, but had a great trip and did good transects… and what we did after the transects survey was even better… we saw ascidians, crabs, soft and hard corals, plenty of anemonies, snapping shripms and of course, my highlight of the day was my first sighting of an octopus… read on for more info. for pics, check out my deviantart.

this was the briefing… weather was good. great and cooling infact. after a safety briefing, we set off.

learnt 3 new seagrasses today. serrulatus, thalassia and syringodium. the other 2 i learnt last time was called halophilus and enhalus. but walking through the water this time round was quite frankly a little nerve wrecking. we were told to not step on stingrays and stonefishes, which definitely included the possibility of stepping on one under all those seagrasses.

once we ended the transects, it was our time to explore and here’s what i found…!

ascidians on seagrass

Hairy crab

Snapping shrimp in its hole. wasnt able to get a video of it cos these creatures are so sensitive to changes in anything……

fanworm. couldnt get a nicer video of one coming out of its funnel/tube attached to the coral.

octopus: trying to run away. and the same octopus camouflaging. check out the video on my vodpod!

purple and blue sponge. it takes water in through 1 of its hollows and filters out through another smaller hollow… and get all its nutrients it needs…

anemonies!!! anemonemonemo…………..

ive got a video of my playing with this anemone…. believe me, the big anemonies are capable of reeling things (and i mean anything) into themselves…. someone said you can even put your finger into it… of course, i didnt dare. maybe someday i will… video of this in youtube/msspegasus.

my first living bivalve sighting too!!!! dont know which bivalve that was though…

lots of coral pics, am not putting them up. pls see my deviantart if you are intersted.

the whole morning was fantastic, except for the time when i found out i dropped NPark’s walkie talkie…….. gosh i felt damn bad. it was inside a ziplock bag, so supposedly waterproof… but we still needed to fine the walkie… tracked back for so long, got others to help in the combing of the area i did transect on………. and i finally found it after almost 30 min of searching….

the ziplock bag had a hole and the walkie was fully soaked. sigh……

so, what have i not seen yet?? nudibranches, sea stars, sea urchins and sting rays…. till then…