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?

Males Have Bigger Jaws

9:26 AM  , , , , ,  

Bukit Batok Nature Park
North-West, Singapore
August 2012
Sunny
 
Merlion Wayfarer visited the Quarry Parkland today and found out that 4 Legs Good, 6 Legs Gooder, 8 Legs Goodest. Here's one interesting find...
  
This little one was looking right at Merlion Wayfarer on some bushes along the pathway to the playground. Often, interesting finds can be found along common walkways. All that is needed is a sharp eye for colour differences and movement.
   
   
This is a Myrmarachne Elongata (Ant-Mimicking Spider) Male. For this species, the males have much bigger jaws than the females. Notice how the top half of the body is protected by an armoured core?
   
Interesting layout of the eyes...

The huge jaws can be opened at will...

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4 Legs Good, 6 Legs Gooder, 8 Legs Goodest

9:15 AM  , , , , , , , , ,  

Bukit Batok Nature Park
North-West, Singapore
August 2012
Sunny
   
Merlion Wayfarer visited a scenic Quarry Parkland today.
  
Sightings
  • Arachnida - Salticidae (Jumping Spiders) : Myrmarachne Elongata (Ant-Mimicking Spider) Male  (See "Males Have Bigger Jaws")
  • Odonata - Anisoptera (Dragonflies) : Aethriamanta Gracilis (Pond Adjutant)
  • Orthoptera (Grasshoppers, Crickets, Locusts) : Grasshopper [unidentified]
  • Arachnida - Araneidae (Orb-Weavers) : Spider [unidentified]
  • Lepidoptera - Rhopalocera (Butterflies) : Lycaenidae - Eooxylides Tharis Distanti (Branded Imperial)
  • Coleoptera (Beetles) : Beetle [unidentified]
  • Reptilia - Squamata - Lacertilia (Lizards) : Eutropis multifasciata (Common / Many-lined Sun Skink)
  
The Pond Adjutant rests near the freshwater quarry pool…
  
A beautiful golden Orb-Weaver spider. Note the huge spinneret on its abdomen…
  
Another one was within walking distance...
 
Another unidentified orb-weaver...
 
The trailers on this Branded Imperial are slightly shorter…
 
There were two of them here on the leaves - One was more greenish with the other more bluish…
  
Lots of grasshoppers in the secondary forest here…
  
This Sun Skink seems to be in a dating mood with an especially bright colouring…
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Quarry Parkland

8:51 AM  , , ,  

Bukit Batok Nature Park
North-West, Singapore
August 2012
Sunny
  
The Bukit Batok Nature Park lies on the outskirts of one of Singapore's newest housing estates, Bukit Batok New Town. It is a small, peaceful park developed on an abandoned quarry site where the quiet visitor should be able to see some of the local wildlife which has adapted to an urban parkland environment.
  
Bukit Batok used to be a sleepy rural area with forest, farm lands and factories. Granite quarrying was among the early activities there since the 1950s. In fact Bukit Batok in Malay means "Coughing Hills" as the blasting made the hills appear to be coughing.
  
Developed from an abandoned quarry site in 1988, the Park has undulating and meandering footpaths leading to scenic look-out points, some more than 10-storeys high. The quarry now forms a scenic pool, with a small stream leaving from it.
  
Scenic freshwater pool formed from quarry blasting...
   
Merlion Wayfarer spotted a variety of fauna during her walk-walk session. Read about it at  "4 Legs Good, 6 Legs Gooder, 8 Legs Goodest"...
  • Arachnida - Salticidae (Jumping Spiders) : Myrmarachne Elongata (Ant-Mimicking Spider) Male  (See "Males Have Bigger Jaws")
  • Odonata - Anisoptera (Dragonflies) : Aethriamanta Gracilis (Pond Adjutant)
  • Orthoptera (Grasshoppers, Crickets, Locusts) : Grasshopper [unidentified]
  • Arachnida - Araneidae (Orb-Weavers) : Spider [unidentified]
  • Lepidoptera - Rhopalocera (Butterflies) : Lycaenidae - Eooxylides Tharis Distanti (Branded Imperial)
  • Coleoptera (Beetles) : Beetle [unidentified]
  • Reptilia - Squamata - Lacertilia (Lizards) : Eutropis multifasciata (Common / Many-lined Sun Skink)

The full albums are available at:



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