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?

A Walk On The Butterfly Trail

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Butterfly Trail
Orchard Road
Central, Singapore
February 2012

Conceptualized by Nature Society (Singapore), the Butterfly Trail @ Orchard features some 50 of the more common butterfly species that can be found in Singapore. This 4 km trail meanders all the way through the Orchard Corridor between the Singapore Botanic Gardens and the Tanglin area and the Singapore Management University and Fort Canning Park. 

It was a time to be carefree...

Delias Hyparete Metarete (Painted Jezebel) , Pieris Canidia Malayica (Cabbage White) , 
Doleschallia Bisaltide (Autumn Leaf)

A time to make new friends amidst the competition...
Delias Hyparete Metarete (Painted Jezebel)

And be together...
Chilades Pandava (Cycad Blue , Plains Cupid)

Resulting in hundreds of thumb-sized caterpillars in the heart of town!
 
Doleschallia Bisaltide (Autumn Leaf) Caterpillar

 So that one may grow up to be free again...

Danaus Chrysippus (Plain Tiger)


More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Lepidoptera - Rhopalocera (Butterflies)

Sources

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The Southern Sunset Wind

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Singapore
January 2014

The slanted rays of the setting sun wash the laden sky with golden light... 
 
At the mercy of a southern wind, 
a few fleeting stratocumulus puffs break away from the heavy mass and scoot across the sky...

A stunning sunset panorama...


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


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How Many Legs Does A Caterpillar Have?

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Caterpillars come in all sorts of sizes and thickness. Close-up, they can look like huge alien worms, with their bright colors, spots and stripes, and sometimes what looks like hundreds of legs. 


The number of legs that caterpillars can have varies with the kind of caterpillar and sometimes with its stage. Usually all of the butterflies or moths in the same family will have the same number of legs on their caterpillars. Most caterpillars of the larger moths and butterflies have 3 pairs of true legs, or a total of six real legs. And most have 5 pairs of prolegs on their abdomen, which makes a total of 16 legs.  


Upon maturity, the caterpillar will morph into a butterfly with only 6 legs (from the original pair of 3 true legs).


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A Morning With Sleepy Liz & Hungry Cat

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Tampines Eco Green
East, Singapore
November 2013

A quiet morning in the east amidst a recreated park...

A Calotes Versicolor (Changeable Lizard) spotted! 

Within minutes, it gets sleepy, and decides to take a nap...

Zzzzz...

Woah! Something buzzes by and it's instantly awake!

Even with a leg missing, this Oxyopes Birmanicus (Burmese Lynx Spider)
wanders around looking for breakfast...

Life in these grasslands are not easy, as seen from this dragon's torn wings...

A very hungry family of Cats eating, and eating, and eating...
 

See those cute little booties they are wearing?
   
Don't they just remind you of Heimlich from A Bug's Life?
 
Have you ever wondered how many legs does a caterpillar have?

Munching...

And munching...

And munching...

No leaf is spared, even if only a bit of it remains...

Some of them have pupated, yet others have grown so heavy that they've fallen off the tree!
   
A snapshot of a similar host plant with leaves still there...

And ending the day with a beauty...


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