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?

Showing posts with label Quarries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quarries. Show all posts

The Laughing Zorro Bird

2:44 PM  , , , , , , , , ,  

Bukit Batok Nature Park
Central, Singapore
May 2013

It was a cloudy and warm afternoon in Bukit Batok when Merlion Wayfarer decided to take a short walk.


On entering the park, she spotted some recycling bins near the restrooms and playground...
(Good effort, NParks!)

Despite the humid noon sun, there were still sufficient sightings spotted in this park which is just minutes away from the nearest housing estate.


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  • A Dart/Skipper from the Hesperiidae family:
    Darts/Skippers are generally small butterflies with thick head, big eyes, and small wings in proportion to their heavy bodies. As a result, these butterflies move their wings at a very high speed when flying. This makes their flight extreme fast and darting.

  • Garrulax Leucolophus (White-Crested Laughing Thrush):
    Merlion Wayfarer spotted these beautiful birds near the quarry. These are inquisitive birds that cackle a lot (hence their name). They are curious about people and often come forward when there is food.
       
Quite a handsome-looking bird with its crest and Zorro eye mask...


When one spots food, a few others will be attracted by its call. 
Merlion Wayfarer thinks it's good to avoid feeding them as they might become a nuisance to other park-goers... 

  • Ictinogomphus Decoratus (Common Flangetail):
    Merlion Wayfarer finds it easy to spot this dragonfly- It is large, common (one of the more commonly seen members of the family Gomphidae), and easily-recognizable by its bee-like yellow and black stripes. It breeds in open standing water like ponds and dams, and can be seen near the edges of many reservoirs and parks in Singapore, e.g. MacRitchie, Lower Peirce, Upper Seletar. 
  
After walking to the end of the shorter jogging track, and being awed once again by the magnificent quarry, she decided to end her short visit today...

Peaceful surroundings amidst still waters...

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

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Ants That Climb & Bind

7:47 AM  , , , , ,  

Bukit Batok Nature Park
Central, Singapore
May 2013

Near a footpath at the Bukit Batok Nature Park where she met "The Laughing Zorro Bird", Merlion Wayfarer noticed a colony of Oecophylla Smaragdina (Weaver Ants) building a nest among some shrubs. These are the commonly-termed "red ants" that inhabit trees and bushes, move around a lot, and tend to crawl into your footwear and inflict painful bites.

 (There are lots of ants here, so do make sure you are wearing long pants with proper shoes and socks when you explore this park.)

The weaver ant's ability to build capacious nests from living leaves has undeniably contributed to their ecological success. The initial phase in nest construction involves workers surveying potential nesting leaves by pulling on the edges with their mandibles. When a few ants have successfully bent a leaf onto itself or drawn its edge toward another, other workers join in the effort. The probability of a worker joining the concerted effort is dependent on the size of the group, with workers showing a higher probability of joining when the group size is large.


When the span between two leaves is beyond the reach of a single ant, workers form chains with their bodies by grasping one another's petiole (waist). Multiple intricate chains working in unison are often used to ratchet together large leaves during nest construction. Once the edges of the leaves are drawn together, other workers retrieve larvae from existing nests using their mandibles. These workers hold and manipulate the larvae in such a way that causes them to excrete silk. They can only produce so much silk, so the larva will have to pupate without a cocoon. The workers then maneuver between the leaves in a highly coordinated fashion to bind them together.


Weaver ants' nests are usually elliptical in shape and range in size from a single small leaf folded and bound onto itself to large nests consisting of many leaves and measure over half a meter in length. The time required to construct a nest varies depending on the leaf type and eventual size, but often a large nest can be built in significantly fewer than 24 hours. Although weaver ants' nests are strong and impermeable to water, new nests are continually being built by workers in large colonies to replace old dying nests and those damaged by storms.




The full albums are available at:

Sources

  • "Dynamics of aggregation and emergence of cooperation" by DENEUBOURG, J.L., Lioni, A. & DETRAIN, C. (2002).  Biological Bulletin 202:262-267.
  • "The ants" by HOLLDOBER, B. & WILSON, E.O. (1990). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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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...

The full albums are available at:



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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…
The full albums are available at:

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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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