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?

Uniquely Singapore Birds

8:58 PM  , , ,  

Jurong Bird Park
Jurong Hill
West, Singapore
23 November 2013

In a tribute to native birds, Jurong Bird Park, Asia’s largest bird sanctuary, celebrated its inaugural Native Birds’ Day on 23 and 24 November 2013.


Through a host of interesting activities, the event raised awareness on the importance of protecting of "Uniquely Singapore" birds endemic to this island country.


Native Birds’ Forum

An expert forum, helmed by Wildlife Reserves Singapore, NParks, Nature Society Singapore (NSS) and a veteran photojournalist presented the status of native birds and the ongoing conservation efforts by importance of these beautiful birds in our ecosystem. Speakers enthusiastically shared their passion and stewardship protection for native birds through personal anecdotes.

Topics include the photography of birds in "Birds in Action", "Common Sunbirds of Singapore", "Birds of Sungei Buloh" and "Local & Regional Conservation Projects".

 
 

NSS has two apps for nature lovers - one on birds and one on butterflies. Both are downloadable for iPhones and iPads to help in the identification and tracking of these...

 Where the migratory birds are most easily spotted in Sungei Buloh...

 NParks tags birds found in SBWR and how you can help spot and track migratory birds...

More and more sunbirds are found to change their feeding patterns by visiting plants found in aerial gardens in HDB flats. Here's how you can find one in your corridor...

Photography Trail

Wildlife photographer David Tan brought shutterbugs on a photography trail around the Bird Park, sharing tips and stories along the way.

While waiting, this Stork-Billed Kingfisher decided to make its presence known with its loud calls atop the pirate ship at Penguin Coast...

Starting out... And all armed with DSLRs!

"No need to take the whole bird, just focus on one part," he said...

Photography Exhibition

Photographs of native birds were featured in a photography exhibition at Penguin Coast. Picture-perfect moments, such as a White-Bellied Sea Eagle in mid-flight and a Oriental Pied Hornbill feeding its chick, are encapsulated within these frames.


Education Awareness Booth

A plethora of entertaining and enriching activities available for children was available at the Education Awareness Booth. Colour a bird on a sheet of paper, or if you are game enough, your own face could be the canvas for our friendly face-painters. A few of our local bird specimens, such as a hornbill casque, will be on display as well.

Face and hand-painting with animal stripes and spots...

Almost-real specimens of stuffed birds of prey...
 

 "Do you know why owls can fly so silently?"

"It's because of these feathers," she explained and sifted her fingers through the feathers...

Show Segment

A special 15 minutes show segment was presented by Otto, the yellow-naped Amazon, who sang the entire line of “I left my heart in San Francisco”. Children were able to try mimicking the bird in a mini-mimicry contest with the winner walking home with a token. A short photography session with the bird was also conducted.


More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Places - Bird Park

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Triceratops Horridus - The Horrible Three-Horned Face

9:02 PM  , , , ,  

"Titans of the Past - Dinosaurs & Ice Age Mammals"
Science Centre Singapore
Jurong East
West, Singapore
October/November 2013

Triceratops lived from 65-68 million years ago in the northern Rocky Mountain region of North America. Despite its huge size, it was a plant-eater.


It was one of the largest horned dinosaurs, with a skull 9 feet long and 6 feet wide - This meant that the width of a Triceratops head is as wide as that of a grown man lying down!


The live animal weighed about 20 thousand pounds. Comparatively, a large bull elephant weights only about 14,000 pounds. 


The neck shields of Triceratops, and all other horned dinosaurs, were indented with branching blood-vessel channels. Its head was encompassed with keratin.


In today's context, birds with keratin beaks are often very colourful.

 

Indications of Maturity

Compared to the smaller and younger Triceratops skulls, the bones in these skull are tightly-fused together with the orbital horns pointing completely forward.


Young Triceratops have a short frill while a fully mature Triceratops adult has a long frill and a long face. 


As Triceratops age, their faces grow longer in proportion to their shields.


Juveniles have shorter nasal horns that have not been fully fused into the nasal bones.


Blood vessel grooves are more prominent in adults. These grooves indicate that the keratin has hardened, and was pushing the vessels into the bone as the skull continued to grow.


"For more than 100 years, it was thought that Triceratops and Torosaurus were two different dinosaurs, but research at the Museum of the Rockies showed that Torosaurus was simply a full grown adult Triceratops."
JB Scannella & JR Horner (2010)



More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Places - Science Centre

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Dinosaur Cranial Ontogeny - Ah Boy Is Different From Papa

12:33 PM  , , , ,  

"Titans of the Past - Dinosaurs & Ice Age Mammals"
Science Centre Singapore
Jurong East
West, Singapore
October/November 2013

The skulls of all dinosaurs changed shape as the animals grew older. These differences could be so that other individuals of the same species could recognize juveniles from adults.


Neoteny
The retention of juvenile characteristics with age
Neotenous animals are often considered "cute" because of their round heads, big eyes and shortened snouts. These young animals retain neoteny so that their parents will continue to care for them.

Modifications in skull shape might be due to changed diets as these neotenous animals grow up.


The Three Most Important Scientific Theories In Paleontology
  1. Theory of Extinction
    2. Species that have once lived are now extinct
  2. Theory of Darwinian Evolution
    3. New species arise through a process of descent with modification via natural selection
  3. Theory of Radiometric Dating
    Elemental isotopes have predictable rates of decay and these rates can be used to determine the age of the rocks here the dinosaurs are found

Why does Ah Boy look so different from Papa?

Dinosaurs were known to be very social creatures, nesting in colonies and travelling in herds. Among such a big group of animals, it is important for adults to recognize their young to take care of them, and also when the young reach sexual maturity.



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Broken Clouds

2:37 PM  , ,  

City Hall MRT Station
Central, Singapore
September 2013

Merlion Wayfarer spotted this display at the City Hall MRT Station. She was stumped - How can clouds (which are soft and fluffy) be "broken"?


She Googled for an answer.

According to the General Weather Glossary at Louisville National Weather Service, "broken clouds" refer to "clouds which cover between 6/10 and 9/10 of the sky". This also means that unlike a typical cloudy day, you get to see the sun peeking out sometimes.

Ok, new term learnt...

More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Natural Phenomena - Clouds

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Inaugural Native Birds’ Day At Jurong Bird Park

8:53 AM  , , , ,  

Jurong Bird Park
West, Singapore
November 2013

In a tribute to native birds, Jurong Bird Park, Asia’s largest bird sanctuary, will celebrate the inaugural Native Birds’ Day on 23 and 24 November. 

The event aims to raise awareness on the importance of native birds and how the public can help protect them through a host of engaging activities including an expert forum, a bird photography trail, a photography exhibition and activities for children designed to educate young minds on the importance of conservation, in a fun and engaging manner.

As a special offer to native bird lovers, a 50% discount off Jurong Bird Park’s adult admission tickets will be offered to members of the public who sign up for the expert forum on 23 November.

The forum and activities are free; normal admission rates of $20  (adult) and $13 (child 3 to 12 years) apply for entry into Jurong Bird Park. More information can be found at www.wrs.com.sg 


Merlion Wayfarer is looking forward to learning more about local feathered friends at the Native Birds’ Day on 23-24 November 2013 at Jurong Bird Park...

More photos are available on:
Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa Web Albums


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Titans of the Past - The Growth and Behaviour of Dinosaurs

11:08 PM  , , , ,  

"Titans of the Past - Dinosaurs & Ice Age Mammals"
Science Centre Singapore
Jurong East
West, Singapore
October 2013

In the segment on "The Growth and Behaviour of Dinosaurs", the tracking of the development and growth of Triceratops, Pachycephalosaurus, Hypacrosaurus and T-Rex and the quality specimens found test the hypothesis of world-renowned palaeontologist Jack Horner and his research team who discovered that more than one-third of all dinosaur species classified from the Cretaceous Period may actually be juveniles and not different species as determined by palaeontologists for the past century. This exhibition is also the first attempt in the world to explore the concept of ontogeny - the development of an animal through its life and its implications for the science of palaeontology.

Juvenile and mature "dragons" from the past -
the Pachycephalosaurus with its distinctive skull dome...

Hypacrosaurus Stebingeri was a crested duck-billed dinosaur. These dinosaurs from the late Cretaceous Period cared for their young until they were old enough to leave the nest...

“The exhibition tells the story of a dinosaur’s life using real fossils and specimens that have played a pivotal role to facilitate our continuous efforts to demystify the prehistoric age and uncover new findings."
~ Dr Jack Horner, the MOR’s Curator of Palaeontology 
and technical advisor for the Jurassic Park movies ~

Argentinosaurus, the largest Sauropod ever found measuring 36 metres in length and 7 metres in height...


Giganotosaurus is one of the largest terrestrial carnivores in the late Cretaceous period.
This skeleton here is 12m in length and 4m in height...


  
More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Places - Science Centre



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