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?

Bizarre Encounters At Lower Peirce

Lower Peirce Reservoir
North, Singapore
September 2012
Cloudy

Today seemed to be a bad day for a nature walk. There were several zones along the track with sheets of stationary bees. The honey bees and carpenter bees also seemed more active than usual. Definitely not a time to be putting on your favourite perfume today!

After the recent newspaper reports about aggressive wild boars in the Central Catchment Nature Reserve, Merlion Wayfarer was quite wary of them. The visible tracks at the edge of the water certainly didn't help to relieve her unease... 

Merlion Wayfarer had often spotted millipedes in the Central Catchment Area. Spotting this little one was no surprised. Unlike the brown ones that are often found in leaf litter, the ones here are more brightly-coloured.  

She was also surprised by the size of its droppings and little red bits which appeared to be legs which had dropped off!

(Merlion Wayfarer had another simliar encounter in March 2012 here.)

A few steps away, she was surprised to find a moss-covered mass. It looked like a pile of strands encrusted in some brown and green stuff. Almost seemed not alive. Just that it was moving And moving fast. And try as she might, she could not locate its head...
(Merlion Wayfarer had another simliar encounter in March 2012 here.)

Have you ever seen a woodcutter? A woodcutter is one who chops wood in the forest, piles it in a stack, and carries it back to his shack on his back. And... Have you ever seen a woodcutter bug - Errrm, doesn't this look just like a woodcutter? 

On a closer look, Merlion Wayfarer realized that it looked more like a caterpillar!

Next, a wriggley made its appearance. Its cartoon-like movements made it quite endearing to watch. Here's a video...

As she left the boardwalk, she had a strange feeling that she was being watched. A look across the calm waters with her binoculars, and there it was - A White-Bellied Sea Eagle in a barren tree. Phew, what a day!

Read Also : Merlion Wayfarer's "Those Captivating Round Eyes"...



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