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?

An Orange And A Chocolate At The Waterway

4:02 PM  , , , , , , , , , ,  

Punggol Waterway
North-East, Singapore
March 2013

Even in the heat of the day at close to 33-34 degrees Celsius, there are animals out there at mid-day...

Thinking it is just its Yellow Vented cousin, Merlion Wayfarer realized this was the songbird version of the Pycnonotus Jocosus Fuscicaudatus (Red-Whiskered Bulbul) when she walked nearer. Although it did not start singing, the orange tone near its tail was very striking in the bright sunlight...


The weird thing about the millipedes here is that they are good tree climbers! Here's one mid-way up a palm tree...

While a male Calotes Versicolor (Changeable Lizard) and Oxyopes Birmanicus (Burmese Lynx Spider) watch their prey nearby...

The Appias Libythea Olferna (Striped Albatross) with its cream and milk chocolate colour against the grey pebbles. Reminds one of Cadbury's Top Deck chocolate...

It was mating time at the Waterway! There were scores and scores of damsels and dragons flying around, some single, some mating - 
  • Argiocnemis Rubescens (Variable Sprite)
  • Ischnura Senegalensis (Common Bluetail) Damselfly Male & Female

  • Ictinogomphus Decoratus (Common Flangetail)



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By The Forest Waters

2:46 AM  , , , , , , , ,  

Upper Seletar
North, Singapore
March 2013

It was a short visit to Upper Seletar one damp morning for Merlion Wayfarer. Amidst the buzzing mosquitoes and sandflies, there were some good finds...

A delicate Prodasineura Notostigma (Crescent Threadtail) does a push-up on a leaf while another perches on a twig in a cluster of fallen branches...

This Argiope (St Andrews Cross Spider) with a durian-shaped lace web is still a juvenile...

An orb-webber, this spider hides itself in a leaf in the daytime...

This Argiocnemis Rubescens (Variable Sprite) was caught in an Tylorida Ventralis (Big-Bellied Tylorida) Spider's web. Despite that it was no longer struggling, from the state of its bright eyes, it was probably immoblized but still very much alive.

A reddish-brown locust shows its pale belly...

The Upper Seletar forest is also home to the tiny red Gasteracantha (Spiny Spider) which is normally found in the Central Catchment area...

And the Oxyopes Birmanicus (Burmese Lynx Spider) in the long grass patches within the forest...

The beautiful Tyriobapta Torrida (Treehugger) with its shimmering wings can be found in forest swamps, guarding small territories in shaded areas.

After just a short while more, Merlion Wayfarer decided to exit the grounds due to the muddy ground and the presence of a large band of aggressive macaques.


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Eastern Twilight Surprises

2:28 AM  , , , , , , , , , ,  

Tampines
East, Singapore
February 2013

The visit at twilight was full of little surprises...
  • A Tetragnathidae (Big-Jawed Spider) silhouetted against the rays of the setting sun...

  • A blob of unknown origin...
  • A bright-hued grasshopper...
  • A freckled one...
  • And a moulted one...
  • A bright Ampittia Dioscorides Camertes (Bush Hopper)...
  • Ant burrows in little hills that go deep underground...
  • A plant that appeared to have branches twirled from wires...
  • A Neoscona Nautica (Brown Sailor Spider) quietly hiding in the leaf to await sunset...
  • And a very photogenic Thomisus Stoliczka (Stoliczka's Crab Spider)...


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The Dusk Web Builder

12:40 AM  , , , , , ,  

Tampines
East, Singapore
February 2013

When the sun descends below the horizon, the world slowly turns from twilight to dusk. At a park Tampines, a place with no electrical lighting, it is when the grass and marsh darkens. The world there then comes alive with lots of "Eastern Twilight Surprises"...

Twilight is also the time when nocturnal spiders awake from their daytime positions inside leaves, inside burrows, on webs, and come alive to repair their webs for a night of food gathering.

The Neoscona Rufofemorata (Brown-Legged Spider) is one such nocturnal spider. During the day, it sits still on a leaf, indistinguishable as a spider because of its yoga-like folded legs. In the evening, it awakens and starts building its web.

To show how big it really is when it finally unfolds itself...

Using leaves or branches as anchors, the Neoscona starts by creating the outermost layer of the orb web. The web is built in a circular manner, round and round, and round. Here we see one at work in its fascinating display of Nature's Art...

Good reason why it needs all of its 8 legs to build a good web...

How the finished web looks like...


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