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?

A Game Of Hide-And-Seek

North-East, Singapore
January 2014

By nature, beach creatures can be a little shy. Many of them are well-hidden by rocks, sand or gravel...

Myomenippe Harwicki (Stone/Thunder Crab)...

Alpheidae (Snapping Shrimp)...

Gobiidae (Goby)...

Look carefully where you walk next time you are at the beach...



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Firefly Fairyland In Urban Singapore

Punggol
North East, Singapore
January 2014

In a deserted corner of Punggol, Merlion Wayfarer found what she never expected to see in 21st century urban Singapore - Fireflies...


It was on a night trek that she noticed some flashing "lights" in bush. It was a path that she had walked by before in the day, but had not paid much heed to the nondescript bushes.

Yet, tonight... the shrubs before her was transformed into a fairyland of mystique little creatures. It was a truly magical feeling when one flew and landed on her palm...

 



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Coleoptera (Beetles)

Park Visitors At Bukit Timah Hill & Punggol Beach

Bukit Timah Hill & Punggol Beach
Central & North-East, Singapore
January 2014

Merlion Wayfarer was out at nature spots over the weekend and was distressed to see the actions of some inconsiderate park visitors.

At the summit of Bukit Timah Hill on Saturday, a group of North Asians were there taking a break after reaching the summit. Finding the long-tailed macaques "cute", they started cutting up their green apples and throwing the slices at the monkeys.


Merlion Wayfarer noticed a monkey up on a nearby tree with a strange white object. In its arms was a lunchbox discarded by an inconsiderate park visitor. It was trying, first to open the lunchbox, then when it failed, it tried to bite it open.

According to online research, shreds of plastic have been found to be ingested by animals by mistake or along with food materials. Animals chew the plastic containers to get food inside and in the process, pieces of plastic gets ingested. Such plastic pieces accumulate inside the digestive system and make animals sick. Worse still, animals can even choke to death from blockages caused by plastic pieces.

By feeding monkeys, park visitors are conditioning the monkeys to prefer easy handouts from humans instead of foraging for natural food in the forest. They will approach humans, especially those carrying plastic bags, which they have learnt to associate with food, and snatch these away. Various incidents have been reported on citizen journalism site, STOMP:

On Sunday, she was at Punggol Beach and saw the following behaviour by some foreign workers:
A group of them were turning over all the rocks for fun to see if they can spot any sea creatures. When they found a crab or shrimp hidden inside, they will take another rock to chisel at the big rock until the hidden animal scuttles out or is killed by their actions.


Nearby, a Ardea Cinerea (Grey Heron) watches. 
It depends on the molluscs and crustaceans by the shore for food...

This article is currently in STOMP on 20 January 2014
http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/singaporeseen/this-urban-jungle/visitor-distressed-to-see-monkey-eating-plastic-rubbish-at-bukit-timah-hill
(Source : SPH)



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Sources

 

A Walk On The Butterfly Trail

Butterfly Trail
Orchard Road
Central, Singapore
February 2012

Conceptualized by Nature Society (Singapore), the Butterfly Trail @ Orchard features some 50 of the more common butterfly species that can be found in Singapore. This 4 km trail meanders all the way through the Orchard Corridor between the Singapore Botanic Gardens and the Tanglin area and the Singapore Management University and Fort Canning Park. 

It was a time to be carefree...

Delias Hyparete Metarete (Painted Jezebel) , Pieris Canidia Malayica (Cabbage White) , 
Doleschallia Bisaltide (Autumn Leaf)

A time to make new friends amidst the competition...
Delias Hyparete Metarete (Painted Jezebel)

And be together...
Chilades Pandava (Cycad Blue , Plains Cupid)

Resulting in hundreds of thumb-sized caterpillars in the heart of town!
 
Doleschallia Bisaltide (Autumn Leaf) Caterpillar

 So that one may grow up to be free again...

Danaus Chrysippus (Plain Tiger)



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Lepidoptera - Rhopalocera (Butterflies)

Sources

The Southern Sunset Wind

Singapore
January 2014

The slanted rays of the setting sun wash the laden sky with golden light... 
 
At the mercy of a southern wind, 
a few fleeting stratocumulus puffs break away from the heavy mass and scoot across the sky...

A stunning sunset panorama...



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Natural Phenomena - Clouds



How Many Legs Does A Caterpillar Have?

Caterpillars come in all sorts of sizes and thickness. Close-up, they can look like huge alien worms, with their bright colors, spots and stripes, and sometimes what looks like hundreds of legs. 


The number of legs that caterpillars can have varies with the kind of caterpillar and sometimes with its stage. Usually all of the butterflies or moths in the same family will have the same number of legs on their caterpillars. Most caterpillars of the larger moths and butterflies have 3 pairs of true legs, or a total of six real legs. And most have 5 pairs of prolegs on their abdomen, which makes a total of 16 legs.  


Upon maturity, the caterpillar will morph into a butterfly with only 6 legs (from the original pair of 3 true legs).



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A Morning With Sleepy Liz & Hungry Cat

Tampines Eco Green
East, Singapore
November 2013

A quiet morning in the east amidst a recreated park...

A Calotes Versicolor (Changeable Lizard) spotted! 

Within minutes, it gets sleepy, and decides to take a nap...

Zzzzz...

Woah! Something buzzes by and it's instantly awake!

Even with a leg missing, this Oxyopes Birmanicus (Burmese Lynx Spider)
wanders around looking for breakfast...

Life in these grasslands are not easy, as seen from this dragon's torn wings...

A very hungry family of Cats eating, and eating, and eating...
 

See those cute little booties they are wearing?
   
Don't they just remind you of Heimlich from A Bug's Life?
 
Have you ever wondered how many legs does a caterpillar have?

Munching...

And munching...

And munching...

No leaf is spared, even if only a bit of it remains...

Some of them have pupated, yet others have grown so heavy that they've fallen off the tree!
   
A snapshot of a similar host plant with leaves still there...

And ending the day with a beauty...



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