101231 Venus Drive

I can't think of a better way to end one year and start the next than with a nice night nature trip. Very glad that I could find company or I would have missed so much. I had a great time showing Venus Drive to Kok Sheng, Geraldine and Edna. Also very glad to have met Nicky (Macro Photography in Singapore) who kindly shared many things with me including where to find 2 spiders I have looked high and low for but have yet to see.

Highlights of this special trip include the mysterious Tingid bug, a very beautiful Sparassid and the surprising capabilities of the Panasonic DMC-TZ10.


Nicely patterned cranefly. Resting wing configuration suggests it to be Limoniidae.


When startled, its wings changed configuration to that of Tipulid. I guess this means that wing configuration is not a very reliable way to distinguish between Limoniidae and Tipulidae.


Many wolf spiders (Lycosidae) were seen as usual. This one was carrying an egg sac.


Kok Sheng spotted this beautiful huntsman spider (Sparassidae).


This spider looks very much like a huntsman spider. I really suspect than some huntsman spiders have some degree of control over their color to match their surroundings.


A small yet beautiful spider I have not seen before.










The unidentified Tingid spotted previously by Marcus and Jac. It is probably a Ypsotingis. There were at least 3 of these tingid bugs on the same tree.

Swee Hee has kindly advised on using the key in Lace Bug Genera of the World (page 23) to identify this species but I'm having trouble reading the wings; what does seriate mean? However from the key, I think it is not Y. sideris because the cysts on this one covers the other ridges between the cysts. Thanks so much Swee Hee!

101230 Well it's been a year.

And quite a good year it was too. A brief round-up of places and things in chronological order.


100102, Pulau Tekukor. A Phymanthus anemone in a bed of zoanthids.


100102, Pulau Tekukor. Sunset.


100110, Tanah Merah MRT Station. A long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) shuns modern transportation, preferring to rely on self-locomotion.


100110, Chek Jawa, Pulau Ubin. Gold spotted mudskipper (Periophthalmus chrysospilos) spitting mud from its burrow digging.


100326, Venus Drive. Bioluminescent mushrooms.


100507, mango tree in my garden. Amorphoscelis mantis. It eats ants and has very small forelegs which are not needed to catch prey.


100515, St John's Island. Stonefish (Synanceia horrida). Stonefish skin actually form a substrate for organisms to grow on.


100528, Pulau Tekukor. Hairy sea hare (Bursatella leachii). My favorite slug.


100602, Singapore Botanic Gardens. Pale grass blue (Zizeeria maha serica). Introduced species.


100613, Southern islands of Singapore. Anemonefish (Amphiprion ocellaris) in its home, a giant carpet anemone (Stichodactyla gigantea).


100613, Southern islands of Singapore. Blacktip reef shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus). Sharks can have very good hearing. Field and laboratory experiments have demonstrated that sharks can hear sounds with frequencies ranging from about 10 Hertz (cycles per second) to about 800 Hertz, but are most responsive to sounds less than 375 Hertz. So if one is inclined to scream at the presence of sharks, make it a high pitch scream?


100619, Venus Drive. Unknown beetle on the bark of a tree. The oval eyes are unusual enough though the filiform antennae are really bizarre with the branching hairs, somewhat resembling plumose (midges) antennae. Kindly identified by Ted MacRae as likely from the Anthribidae family based on the head shape and tarsi.

101229 Odontomantis released

Over 24 hours since her last molt, she should be quite stable by now. Well fed with a cockroach and moth. It was time to let her go, may she lead a meaningful adult life. I'm already missing her.

101227 Odontomantis. Partial life history.

Somewhat regenerated foreleg.

101224 Big Sisters Island

Exploring Big Sisters Island on Christmas eve.

Our shores are shared by creatures large and small. We pay more attention to those we can see easily but there are also many much smaller, yet no lesser, eking out their unseen lives. They are tiny, this is their world.


Marine midge (Pontomyia sp.) on favid coral. 1 mm long.

101223 Punggol

A new shore that reveals new things. We started by exploring the west side of the jetty and moved eastwards.


Small black bivalves encrust some of the boulders. No idea what they are.


Green mussels (Perna viridis). Many of the boulders were thick with them. I wonder if its natural or a result of animal releasing practices.


Hidden in the green mussels were tiny crabs.


Stone crab giving me the evil eye.


Onchs seem to be tough slugs that inhabit virtually any shore rocky areas.


The sand under the boulders seem to be thick with black stuff as well as white filamentous possibly some sort of bacteria?


Some of the boulders were also encrusted with something looking like tiny versions of Pavona coral.


A large stone crab that had nested itself under a boulder.


Tiny porcelain crabs could be found under the rocks too. This one seemed unfortunate enough to lose both its claws. Sometimes I worry if it was the act of turning over the rock that caused it.


Many of these black sea urchins could be found among the rocks.


Drill snails (Muricidae) too. These snails seem to be laying eggs together.


Spiral melongena (Pugilina cochlidium) eggs.


Climber crabs could be found scurrying up and down the pillars of the jetty. Occasionally one would plunge into the waves, possibly in panic at the human presence.








The pillars were also home to many tiny yet colorful anemones (Diadumene sp.?). They look like tiny gems and come in a variety of colors.


On the opposite side of the jetty was a rubbly shore inhabited by carpets of tiny organisms like these anemones (Anthopleura sp?).


These pale gentle hydroids were also home to many really tiny crustaceans, snails and other creatures.




A closer look at some of the organisms living on the hydroids. Around the snail seemed to be a couple of shrimp-like creatures. The tiny world seems to be a fascinating place indeed.


Hoof shield limpets (Scutus sp.) were occasionally found under the rocks here.


Sea spiders (Pantopoda). They seem to be quite common on this shore. They are tiny creatures with a splayed leg span of less than 1 cm. They are not true spiders, belonging in a different class of organisms (Pycnogonida).

101222 Chestnut avenue area

A wonderful night of magical moments befitting the season of Christmas, when Agamids were tame beyond belief and ordinary moths reveal an awesome spectacle.


Pink fungal fruiting bodies.


Carabidae?




Fungus beetles?


Chun Fong made the first find of the night, this beautiful yet tiny tiger beetle (Cicindelinae). It was about 1 cm long.


And a little later, she spotted this phasmid. Orestes (mouhotii?).


A moment of delight, a harvestman (Opiliones) feeding on a severed mushroom cap.


Crushed forest cockroach?


Jumping spider (Salticidae) with large jaws, Viciria sp.?


Mallinella cinctipes is quite a customary sighting at our CCA.


Chun Fong spotted this Deinopis, finally one in plain view and easily accessed.


Hairy Sparassid.


Chestnut avenue is the place to find crickets and grasshoppers. Multitudes line the path. This is one I don't think I have seen before.


A really huge katydid spotted by Chun Fong, about 8-9 cm long. I think that white patch above the eye is the lateral foveola.


A rather unusual millipede, or so I think it is kindly identified as a sucking millipede by flickr user tasmilli:
"See the sharply pointed beak between the antennae? This makes the animal a sucking millipede in one of the two orders Polyzoniida and Siphonophorida. The quick way to tell these two orders apart is to look for dark eyespots near the bases of the antennae: Polyzoniida have eyes, Siphonophorida don't. Since this one is in Singapore, my guess is Siphonophorida. A wild guess would be a species in the genus Siphonorhinus, which is widespread in your region.".


We decided to try a new path tonight, moving to the west side.

This mantis (Tropidomantis?) nymph on the barrier post was doing some strange gymnastics.


More normal posture.


Longhorn beetle spotted by Chun Fong. She had a keen eye for Cerambycids and spotted a really tiny one as well, about 5 mm long.


Bird shit weevil.


The earwigs here seem to be not shy at all as opposed to the ones at Venus drive. Many of them could be found along the path.


Freshly molted katydid spotted by Chun Fong.


Tetrigidae (groundhopper, grouse locust, pygmy locust). Many small ones could be seen crawling on rotting logs as well.


There was this small plant with many of these flies on it. The flies were found no where else along the path. Quite odd.


Limoniidae with at least 3 mites on it.


Chun Fong spotted these strange waxy white stuff under leaves. There were quite a few of them and they seem to occur in pairs although there were some solitary ones as well. Some sort of mealybug/eggs?


Whip spider (Argyrodes/Ariamnes).


Many of these strange worms similar to those found at the usual Chestnut avenue path could be seen here as well.


This gliding lizard (Draco sp.) is the tamest ever lizard I have encountered. I think it is a juvenile and only 10 cm from nose to the tip of its tail.


But it was only after processing the photos did I realise it was squatting on something special as well, a Tingid bug.


The plant where both were found, kindly identified by Joseph Lai as a wild pepper plant Piper sarmentosum.


These ordinary looking moths were everywhere. They seem to hang out under leaves sticking out their abdomens. Yet what they were up to was simply fascinating.






I have absolutely no idea what these moths were doing and what that was coming out of the abdominal tip but itTiny moth with its eversible scent organ out releasing pheromones. It was one of the best things I have seen on a nature trip yet. More information in Siyang's excellent post.