The Flying Saucer At Sunset

Lenticular clouds (Altocumulus lenticularis) are stationary lens-shaped clouds with a smooth layered appearance that form in the troposphere, usually above mountain ranges. One was spotted in Singapore recently...

Eyes Of 30,000 Honeycombs

With 30,000 individual facets, dragonflies have the most number of facets among insects. Each facet, or ommatidia, creates its own image, and the dragonfly brain has eight pairs of descending visual neurons to compile those thousands of images into one picture...

A Kaleidoscope Of Colours, Shapes And Patterns

Spectacular and innovative in design, the Flower Dome replicates the cool-dry climate of Mediterranean regions like South Africa, California and parts of Spain and Italy. Home to a collection of plants from deserts all over the world, it showcases the adaptations of plants to arid environments...

Lightning Strikes, Not Once, But Many Times

Unlike light, lightning does not travel in a straight line. Instead, it has many branches. These other branches flashed at the same time as the main strike. The branches are actually the step leaders that were connected to the leader that made it to its target...

Are You My Dinner Tonight?

A T-Rex has 24-26 teeth on its upper jaw and 24 more on its lower jaw. Juveniles have small, sharp blade-shaped teeth to cut flesh, whereas adults have huge, blunt, rounded teeth for crushing bones. Is the T-Rex a bone-crushing scavenger?

It's Spider Season Now!

Punggol Park Connector
North-East, Singapore
20 August 2012
Sunny
  
Merlion Wayfarer was at the Punggol Park Connector today for a short 45 minutes and it was among the most bountiful sessions for her!

Big-Jawed Spider Juveniles

 

Somehow, Merlion Wayfarer forgot that the photos she took were mostly juveniles. She forgot about their colourless bodies, their see-through textures, and their smaller sizes. And she spent hours looking through online to ID them.


  

It was only after looking more closely at a few photos sequentially that she realized that what she originally thought of as a different species of spider was in fact juveniles at different periods of their lives!


Juvenile this one might be - its body isn't even properly elongated - but look at the size of its jaws and palps at this young age!


Neoscona Nautica (Brown Sailor Spider)

Instead of finding this little one "below the ceilings of dark and poorly-maintained huts or toilets" (Koh 2000), it was right there in the open, in broad daylight. And it was big - at more than 1cm. Very obvious, as all around it were smaller big-jawed juveniles, and plop - There it was a big blob on a sheaf of grass.

 
Notice the shape of its head and the position of its eyes when it is in this position. Also see how its eyes can be positioned in two different directions.


Tetragnatha Mandibulata (Common Big-Jawed Spider)

Merlion Wayfarer spotted this from afar due to its size - Its total length was about her entire palm size! And thought she got lucky finding a Whip Spider or a Twig-Like Feather-Legged Spider. However, on closer examination, she realized it was a Common Big-Jawed Spider.


Behold those majestic-looking big black jaws...

Initially there was some doubt that it was even a spider. But that quickly dispelled when she saw it rappel downwards and scuttle into the bushes in lighting timing later!

Juvenile Big-Jawed Spider Attempts Dinner

As it was near dusk, the spiders were very active searching for their dinner and repairing their webs. Merlion Wayfarer was fortunate enough to catch a Day-Flying Moth fly smack into a juvenile Big-Jawed Spider's web.


Excluding the wingspan, the Moth was about three times the size of the Spider. And look at how hard the young Spider had to work to inject its venom into the Moth!


The Big-Jawed Spider's web was the sticky kind. (Not all webs are sticky!) Despite this, it could not hold the huge Moth and the Moth kept twirling and spinning. Guess it was akin to a ride on a rodeo for the spider!

Finally all the threads snapped and the Moth freefalled onto the ground. Initially it couldn't even move. It took some time for the Spider's venom to wear off before it could even flap its wings. Phew... now we all know!


The full albums are available at
 Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa Web Albums 



References

The Rainforest In The Middle Of Orchard Road

Singapore Botanic Gardens
Singapore
19 August 2012
Sunny

Merlion Wayfarer was at Singapore Botanic Gardens today. Instead of the usual "crowd-infested" paths, she decided to go for the swath of untouched 6-hectare rainforest. The path there is not easily visible from the main walkways. Instead, one must either climb up a flight of wooden stairs or disappear into a meadnering little path to find it.

Entwined vines in the middle of Orchard Road...

Here are some of the interesting sights spotted today...
Orthetrum Sabina (Variegated Green Skimmer) resting on a stalk of grass with a moult just below it...
    
An abundance of Aethriamanta Gracilis (Pond Adjutant) dragonflies around Symphony Lake...



Two very photogenic bugs pose for a shot...

An ant with a shiny body like polished metal...

An ant which can carry a big furball under its belly...
   
And ants which have symobiotic relationships with friends...

A bench to commemorate a family member who made a big contribution to their lives...

Tourists, foreign workers and friends, all having fun here in the bright morning sunshine...

  

The full albums are available at:


Defense Mechanisms Of The Moth Cat

Singapore Botanic Gardens
Central, Singapore
19 August 2012
Sunny
   
Today Merlion Wayfarer spotted a moth caterpillar with spikes so soft that you almost wished it were a soft toy!
  
The softest-looking spikes. They were not all uniformly white
-  There was a smooth mix of both white and dark spikes...
 
Fascinating legs with little V-shaped shoes...
 
How its butt looks like - Note the legs with shoes extend all the way here!
It got a bit defensive when it realized it was the centre of attention, and that made its spikes even more perked up...
  
After some time, it just decided to jump off the rope barrier, landed on the ground
and stopped completely still for a long, long time...
 

You will be remembered, the Moth Cat, with the cheery face...

What was it? Did Merlion Wayfarer manage to ID this mysterious caterpillar?
See "The Hairy Danger Of Tussocks" - coming up next!




More photos are available on :

 
   

Spiders With Eyes Looking In 8 Different Directions

Singapore Botanic Gardens
Central, Singapore
August 2012
Sunny
   
Merlion Wayfarer hadn't planned for a spider shoot - Not in a forest boardwalk with rope barricades on both sides, and definitely not in a park with hundreds of people on a Sunday morning. However, nice surprises happened.  :)
A small Nephila Pilipes (Golden Web Spider) Female in the middle of the leaf litter in the Rainforest...
    
A shy Cyclosa Spider in Lower Palm Valley Road
hidden behind the body parts of the insects in its larder...

  
Neoscona Rufofemorata (Brown-Legged Spider) Female in Lower Palm Valley Road
which got up and shook itself before resting in its yoga position again...

    
It was able to balance sideways on its web...
        
When it was looking directly at the camera - See the gleam in its eyes?
  
When it was not - All its eyes were looking in different directions!
  
Two mating Opadometa Fastigata (Pear-Shaped Leucauge) spiders near Symphony Lake. Kinda hard to see what they were doing
as there was no way to get near them without getting one's feet muddied...
(A post on NPSS and 12h later, tchuanye has helped to ID that they were indeed mating.
The one on the left was the male and the one on the right - the bigger one - was the female. Thanks!)
  
Interesting phenomenon with a Leucauge Argentina (Silver Leucauge) acting like a Cyclosa Spider 
- The light reflecting off the eyes of the bee's leftovers could be seen!
     
  


More photos are available on :