Sunday, February 15, 2009

Chek Jawa

At first, we thought that Chek Jawa was in some part of Indonesia. But it actually is in Pulau Ubin! Chek Jawa is a gem of marine wildlife. Located at the eastern tip of Pulau Ubin, Chek Jawa is a collection of six distinct habitats - coastal forest, mangroves, sand bars, sea grass lagoon, rocky shore & coral rubble. Some of these habitats can be found at Pulau Sekudu, which is considered part of Chek Jawa We have learnt that Chek Jawa has a wide variety of exotic animal. Chek Jawa is teeming with a wide array of marine wildlife – starfish, sea horses and octopi living in the sand and mud flats, carpet and peacock anemones in the sea-grass meadows, and sponges of all hues residing in the coral rubble.


One of the fascinating animals would be the sea pen long, slender colonial organism of the same phylum as the jellyfish. Sea pen colonies are formed by several genera of the order Pennatulacea. The colony consists of a stalk formed by an organism called a primary polyp (see polyp and medusa) and short branches formed by secondary polyps. The stalk, embedded in sand or mud, holds the colony upright. Sea pens differ from the closely related sea pansies and sea feathers by the form of the colony. Sea pens are .marine organisms; they are found on Atlantic and Pacific coasts in shallow to moderately deep water. Some reach a length of 2 ft (61 cm) or more. They belong in the phylum Cnidaria, class Anthozoa, order Pennatulace.





The sponges or poriferans bodies consist of an outer thin layer of cells, the pinacoderm and an inner mass of cells and skeletal elements, the choanoderm. Sponges do not have nervous, digestive or circulatory systems. Instead most rely on maintaining a constant water flow through their bodies to obtain food and oxygen and to remove wastes, and the shapes of their bodies are adapted to maximize the efficiency of the water flow. All are sessile aquatic animals and, although there are freshwater species, the great majority are marine (salt water) species, ranging from tidal zones to depths exceeding 8,800 metres (5.5 mi). While most of the approximately 9,000 known species of sponge that live in food-poor environments have become carnivores that prey mainly on small crustaceans.

We have learnt that Chek Jawa is a precious place and it is one of the few nature reserves in Singapore which has a variety of many exotic animals that we should cherish and preserve so that the future generation can enjoy the array of animals that we have for them.