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?

Nature's Sonic Boooom

2:45 AM  , , , , ,  

North-East, Singapore
September 2012
Cloudy

It was "Low Tide In The North-East" when Merlion Wayfarer kept hearing cracking sounds in the water.


Remember the scene in Street Fighter when Guile (Yeah, that spiky yellow-haired guy with bulging muscles!) bends his body and two blinding arcs of light emit from his hands? Sonic Boom!!!


In the natural world, there is a finger-sized shrimp with an oversized claw that does just that. The claw, resembling a boxing glove, is used to stun its prey. By snapping it shut, a sharp cracking sound is produced. When colonies of the shrimp snap their claws, the cacophony is so intense that submarines can take advantage of it to hide from sonar. (Roach, 2001)


In 2000, a team of European scientists revealed that the sound is caused by the bursting of a bubble that forms when a shrimp snaps its claw shut. Now, the team reports that the bubble emits not only sound but a flash of light—indicating the extreme temperature and pressure inside the bubbles before they burst. The stunning snap comes not from the clap of the claws coming together but from a bubble generated by the claws' rapid closing motion. (Roach, 2001)
   
Today Merlion Wayfarer finally saw one. She has heard these snapping sounds often near beaches and in Pulau Ubin's Chek Jawa. But these shrimps are kinda skittish, and it is hard to spot one before it scuttles into some burrow or digs into the sandbed.
   
So when there were puddles near the shore, it was time Merlion Wayfarer took out her lens and try to spot one. Ain't easy... There were lots of little creatures zipping about in the puddles. A wait of at least 15 minutes was required to allow them to settle down.
  
And then... underneath a stone no bigger than an egg, she found a bigger shrimp. And on closer look, it had a claw so huge that it looked like some debris floating nearby...
  

Merlion Wayfarer discovered that this shrimp also has a little friend. Who is it? Find out in "Low Tide In The North-East.
   
The full albums are available at:

Sources

Read More

Journey To The East

4:24 AM  , , , , ,  

Punggol
North-East, Singapore
September 2012
Cloudy
     
The first day of September seemed to be a good day to wake up early to see sunrise. At 0600h, when the skies were still pitch black, Merlion Wayfarer set off on her journey to the east...

   
Today happened to be a cloudy day, and her hopes were not high as she looked out of the window. (Haiz!)

Monet-like clouds in the lightening skies...

Early morning boats zip past to the kelongs nearby...

Birds are up early too...

   
A lone stroller picking up shells on the shores for breakfast...
 
And... there is always a silver lining in the clouds. And at 0730 hours, the golden orb broke through the cumulus clouds and created an expanse of brilliant yellow which reflected off the sea in a golden stream.

   
It was Low Tide In The North-East when Merlion Wayfarer encountered Nature's Sonic Booooom at the beach. Did she get stunned?

The full albums are available at:


Read More

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:



Read More

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:

Read More

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:



Read More
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)