Singapore Nature

Moving to Wordpress

2011-12-31T03:19:00.000-08:00

Blogspot's new layout is making it quite hard for me to compose and edit my posts so moving to wordpress at

https://singaporenature.wordpress.com/

Wordpress is also facing the same facebook/flickr/blogsite problem regarding thumbnails, so the problem probably lies with facebook.

111226 Tanah Merah

2011-12-26T21:23:00.000-08:00

Oil (from the Changi oil spill last year) is still very visible on the waters at this stretch of Tanah Merah.

Hardy coral like Oulastrea zebra coral seem to be surviving.

These coral even grow on some of the litter on the shore.

Another type of hard coral, not sure if they were slightly discolored.

These snails were doing very well, carpeting large sections of the shore.

There were two patches of Cymodocea rotundata seagrass.

Quite a few Clithon oualaniensis nerites in the seagrass.

These look like nerite egg cases.

Stichodactyla haddoni carpet anemone in the seagrass.

Marcus found this very unkempt looking Calappa box crab.

Ria pointed out its claws were asymmetrical, that the smaller left one was for gripping snail prey and the stronger right one used to crack open the snail shells.

Blue zoanthids.

A snail laying eggs under a rock.

The eggs seemed to be laid in small clusters with each cluster having its own gelatinous encapsulation and the clusters laid in a spiral.

A tiny snail (turban snail?), some clams and a scale worm.

Angaria delphinus. This snail was quite firmly attached to the rock and was very well disguised.

Dardanus megistos, one of our prettiest hermit crabs.

Horn eyed ghost crab (Ocypode ceratophthalmus).

This looks like a Thalamita swimming crab. No idea what is going on with its carapace, with that large pale patch.

Tiny polychaete.

This nudibranch looks like Gymnodoris citrina.

Ria spotted this Discodoris boholiensis nudibranch.

Marcus found this interesting looking cuttlefish.

Pufferfish.

One of Tanah Merah's greatest hazards, which Andy spotted.

Synanceia horrida, a stonefish.

A fish trap laid out by someone probably unconcerned about consuming crude oil-laden fish.

Quite a few spiders emerged after dark to spin webs in the long grass.

No idea what this sparassid was trying to do.

I think this is a Statilia mantis.

Terumbu Semakau

2011-12-25T17:24:00.000-08:00

Tides were higher than predicted in the tide tables. It was also sargassum season. Not much dry ground around so all photos taken with the waterproof D10.
Sargassum everywhere.

Not sure what's up with that bare tip on this leathery soft coral.

Pseudoceros flatworm on some pink ascidians. Was it eating the ascidians?

Tiny flatworm.

Jorunna funebris. They seem inclined to ball up like this now and then, no idea why.

Edwardsid anemone.

Pilumnidae hairy crab.

Spoon pincer crab.

Young Cymbiola nobilis.

Adult Cymbiola nobilis.

111222 Lower Peirce

2011-12-22T22:02:00.000-08:00

Hersilid in a curious position.

Ctenid, about thigh high up a tree.

Camponotus gigas with damaged antenna. Major worker? In addition to being larger, the shape of the head is different.

Not sure about the nature of the interaction between these two ants (passing on foraging information?).

These tiny green springtails (Entomobryomorpha) can be found on leaves and sometimes tree trunks.

Beetle larva. Still no confirmation on its ID (suspected endomychid).

Moth with plumose antenna.

Yet another civet peeking through the foliage, spotted by Marcus.

Happy Holidays 2011

2011-12-21T04:46:00.000-08:00

111220 Venus Drive

2011-12-20T21:24:00.000-08:00

Ivan spotted some backswimmers.

Kenny spotted this Rove beetle fondling some gooey stuff.

Beetle pupa?

Spiky caterpillar.

Fascinating lump that seemed to be made of regular sized leaf fragments.

Scale insect (with young?), quite large at about 6 mm long.

Reduviidae.

Parasitic wasp.

Polyrhachis queen?

Cockroach.

Phasmid.

Isopod on the phasmid.

Tiny fly on the phasmid.

Centipede. The rear half looks distended.

More strange coiling behavior by this sort of worm (previously seen coiled around a dead salticid).

Harvestmen. Venus drive has a pretty high opilionid diversity, at least 5 different species.

Looks like Heteropoda tetrica with ant prey.

Hui Lian spotted this salticid with a very long and fat abdomen.

These look like crab spiders (Thomisidae).

This orb weaver built a rather large web, about 2 m tall. The underside has a red spot in the middle.

Tiny frog (12 mm) spotted by Hui Lian.

Cnemaspis kendalli. Cute smile.

Gekko monarchus.

111217 Nangka Trail to Durian Loop

2011-12-17T19:40:00.000-08:00

Pasilobus bird dung spider.

Camaricus eating an ant. So distracted by the spider that I failed to get a closer look at that small pale insect on the same leaf.

Phlogiellus inermis, out in the leaf litter.

Hersilid that decided the metal signpost was a tree.

Strange long-legged spider (male). Eye configuration looks like Ctenidae. Wildly guessing Leptoctenus?

Tiny spider with egg sac.

Not sure what is going on with this worm entangled with a salticid. The spider looked dead, was the worm eating it?

Tiny orange Opiliones.

Glad to know the amblypygids are still there, although the numbers seemed to have greatly diminished.

Lychas scutilus scorpion. Nicky recommended a UV torch that was so bright it made handheld shots possible at 1/100 f7.1 iso1600.

Scolopendra centipede, about 15-17 cm long.

Cockroach. That bottom right highlight was my torch reflecting light from the flash...

Fly orgy on shit.

There were a few of these moths feeding on rotting bits.

Moth that looked very much like a dead leaf.

Tiny fly dwarfed by the moth.

Ropalidia wasp nest. Interesting how the folded wing tips end up below the abdomen.

Spotted house gecko (Gekko monarchus)?

Masked rough sided frog (Pulchrana laterimaculata)?

111216 Ubin night

2011-12-16T20:50:00.000-08:00

Out with vertebrates people, hoping to see some of Ubin's less commonly seen animals. Ubin is far too large to explore on foot in only a few hours but they still managed to spot 2 mousedeers and 3 civets. Such vertebrates in natural surroundings like Ubin's forests are very hard to spot out in the open and we did not manage to get good shots, something that is to be thankful for! It is far better to have forests for these animals to hide in and feel comfortable than to selfishly wish for "better photographic angles".

Civet peeking at us through thick vegetation, yet Ron still managed to spot it.

Large centipede (Scolopendra?) juicing up a slug.

Scutigeridae. We saw another one gracefully running along the road, the first time I had a good look at one of these house centipedes on the move.

Cricket spoted by Zestin. This one seemed to have crashed an unfortunate spider's home and appears to be either eating the spider or scavenging the insect carcasses in the spider's web.

Very well camouflaged Pandercetes huntsman.

A mygalomorph spider out in the open. Looks like Barychelidae (or Nemesiidae) from the short spinnerets. Barychelids can look very similar to Nemesiidae but Singapore has only one recorded Nemesid, Damarchus workmani (photo by Nicky Bay) which does not look too similar to this. There are 3 barychelids recorded in Singapore, Idioctis littoralis, Rhianodes atratus, and Sipalolasma aedificatrix and I have absolutely no idea which one this spider might be.

Lychas scutilus, on a granite wall.

A moth that looked like a cockroach or a hopper.

Hawk (sphinx) moth (Sphingidae).

Earwig, maybe 13 mm long.

Odontomachus trapjaw ant.

The Species Problem (an opinion)

2011-12-14T00:32:00.000-08:00

The definition of species and for the matter, taxonomy in general should be tied to a purpose other than the classification of organisms. We do not classify organisms simply because we want to classify organisms, we classify them because we want to use that classification for some purpose. For example taxonomy generally involves areas of interest (can they mate, can they live in a certain ecological environment, can they produce certain biological products, can they fulfill certain biological roles etc.) tied to recognizable markers (if an organism has these markers, it will then possess the traits/abilities of interest). Each taxonomic rank basically uses a set of markers to further divide groups of organisms, with every rank down using more markers.

Perhaps the species level should be more fluid, accommodating a variety of markers, each specific to its area of interest, and "species" replaced by a variety of terms with each term representing a different set of markers.

111212 Tanah Merah

2011-12-13T21:15:00.000-08:00

This shore was quite badly hit by the oil spill in May last year and is slowly recovering. There were still some traces of the spill, with a very light but still visible oily sheen on the water and occasionally, tiny oil globules ejecting from under the sand (possibly due to our footsteps).

Dendrodoris denisoni. We saw two of these "bleached" nudibranchs which Kok Sheng suspected were sick.

A normal looking Dendrodoris denisoni.

Hypselodoris (infucata?) nudibranch hiding under a rock.

Hypselodoris nudibranch in water with its gills nicely expanded.

Kok Sheng found this Pseudobiceros bedfordi. With 4D betting quite prevalent in Singapore, the name of this flatworm is quite hard to forget.

Bivalve nestled in the rocks of the sea wall.

Quite a few Phymanthus anemones in the sea wall.

Clibanarius cruentatus. I think this is my first time seeing this hermit crab.

The rock wall of Tanah Merah is home to many stonefish, like this very well camouflaged individual spotted by Kok Sheng.

111210 Lunar Eclipse

2011-12-10T20:29:00.000-08:00

The timings of the phases according to NASA:

Penumbral Eclipse Begins: 11:33:32 UT (Singapore is UT+08:00)
Partial Eclipse Begins: 12:45:42 UT
Total Eclipse Begins: 14:06:16 UT
Greatest Eclipse: 14:31:49 UT
Total Eclipse Ends: 14:57:24 UT
Partial Eclipse Ends: 16:17:58 UT
Penumbral Eclipse Ends: 17:30:00 UT

We were still at Semakau when it began.

By the time the boat reached West Coast Pier.

Good thing Alicia could give us a ride home, just in time for the full eclipse. Interestingly, at 500mm, the moon was moving too fast for anything longer than a 1 second exposure, longer exposures require special equipment to fix the camera on the moon, something I found out too late...

The earth's penumbra took too long to vacate the moon, was too tired so I stopped here.

Not quite free of the earth's shadow yet!

Better images of the moon:
From the author of Sizing Up The Universe
Ole's astronomy site

111210 Semakau

2011-12-10T19:59:00.000-08:00

It's a deer in the sky!

Great billed heron with its catch.

Periophthalmus sp..

This carpet anemone has the characteristic long and short tentacles along the outer edge and is likely to be Stichodatyla haddoni.

Pseudoceros indicus, seemed to be injured with a few tears on its body.

Andy spotted a Bohadschia vitiensis, my second time seeing one, first time was on cyrene.

Cryptasterina sp. with a closer look at the madreporite.

The forest was clouded with mosquitoes, but these vertebrates did not seem to be affected at all.

Kaloula pulchra.

Hemidactylus frenatus.

A lot of staring at the moon tonight, lunar eclipse!

111203 Pulau Ubin

2011-12-03T19:56:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Victor from clubsnap who organized this trip and specially arranged for a returning boat after hours. Nice seafood makan and friendly company from clubsnap included. Sadly the rain basically cancelled the after dinner shoot and we had to make do with whatever could be found around the jetty area.

Victor has very kindly provided me with his trademark diffuser and all the shots taken today were using the Victor Setup; fast assembly, instant results.

Amyciaea female, kerengga ant-mimic thomisid, guarding her egg sac.

Myrmarachne, another kerengga ant-mimic but in a different spider family, the salticids.

Female Epeus.

Another salticid.

Strange tiny spider that also somewhat resembles an ant.

Small hopper nymph. Antenna suggests Fulgoroidea.

One of the most commonly seen reduvid, possibly Cosmolestes picticeps.

Alydidae nymphs.

Another bug nymph on a rotting log.

Woodlouse in moss.

Spiky caterpillar.

Skipper (Lesser Dart, Potanthus omaha omaha?).

Cranefly with a yellow mite on it.

Small midge.

Housefly.

Tadpole.

Changeable lizard, and invasive lizard that is displacing our green crested lizard.

With artificial background studio setup :P

Pulau Ubin, among the world's 10 most secret islands, makes for one of the last locations in Singapore where one can recalibrate to a slower, more idyllic pace and enjoy nature. Hopefully, enough of the island can resist capitalism's corruption and remain a quaint, rustic getaway untainted by frivolous and superficial developments.

111127 Little Sisters Island

2011-11-30T23:55:00.000-08:00

Was primarily looking for crinoid commensals.

The most common crinoids wer these red ones.

Tiny brittlestar on one of them. Not sure if it really is a symbiont.

These worms are likely to be Myzostomida, obligate symbionts of echinoderms (very commonly crinoids), a symbiotic relationship that goes back a very long way (to the Ordovician period, over 400 mya), so long that it resulted in them developing peculiar anatomical features inconsistent with their phylogenetic placement (recent genomic studies have suggested that they are part of the annelid radiation but the results are still not conclusive).

Myzostomida come in a few types, some reside in their hosts while others cling to the outside. The external ones can be further separated into those that move about freely on their hosts, those that sit mainly at the disc of the crinoid, and elongate ones which cling to and move along the crinoid arms and pinnules.

Strange worm that was swimming at the surface while the tide was coming in.

Pteraeolidia ianthina.

Phyllidiella pustulosa.

Land hermit crabs are the cutest. This individual was difficult to photograph as it kept advancing towards the camera.

111106 Ubin forest late afternoon to night

2011-11-06T21:42:00.000-08:00

Black forest scorpions.

Fat-clawed but tiny-tailed scorpion.

Brahminy blind snake.

Assassin bug nymph?

Flies.

Not sure which beetle this is.

Mite infested Tenebrionid. Irridescent pattern seemed different.

Endomychid larva? Next to some salticid eggs. Poor salticid mother got spooked and ran away.

Carabids?

Weevils.

"Babyface" cerambycid.

Other cerambycids.

Psocoptera.

Psocoptera cluster on stone.

Euthalia caterpillar?

White, freshly molted cockroach.

Eriovixia? This 8 mm spider has a strange one-stranded web that spanned about 1.5 m.

Thomisid spider eating an ant.

Mating Pandercetes.

Mating Tylorida striata.

Portia, spider-hunting salticid.

Viciria? Salticid mother with eggs.

Quite a fat salticid.

This hersilid was facing upwards.

Red mite at abdominal tip of katydid.

Pseudoscorpion.

111030 Sekudu

2011-11-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

Abundance of polyps and slugs at Sekudu.

Cerberilla slugs.

Dendrodoris denisoni spotted by Rene.

Gymnodoris inornata.

Tiny nudibranch spotted by Mei Lin. Possibly Jorunna sp.. No idea what thse white pellets in the gills are.

Dendrodoris (fumata?) spotted by Chay Hoon.

Quite a few of these Elysia slugs in the seaweed.

Quite a few Polybranchia orientalis in the seaweed too.

Elysia ornata.

Philinopsis lineolata spotted by Mei Lin.

This is the tiny blue bioluminescent crustacean (Ostracoda?).

Small Taeniura lymma.

Hippocampus kuda spotted by Kok Sheng.

Quite a few of these sea pens.

Zoanthids.

No idea what this is. It was attached to the seaweed below it and did not contract like an anemone when disturbed.

Many Boloceroides mcmurrichi.

This looked very much like a swimming anemone too although the stripes were longitudinal.

Transparent anemone. The body column resembles Edwardsiidae.

Tiny unknown anemone Kok Sheng and Mei Lin first saw at Punggol.

This was probably the most commonly seen anemone besides the swimming anemones.

Pseudoceros indicus with what looks like a female skeleton shrimp with distended brood pouch on it.

Did not get a good look at this very elusive flatworm, possibly a silt flatworm.

Shrimp under a rock.

Three Scutus under another rock.

Colochirus quadrangularis.

Not sure what sea cucumber this is. About 5 cm long.

Goniodiscaster scaber.

Nepanthia belcheri.

Painted Astropecten.

Astropecten indicus.

Asterina coronata.

Wild boar at Chek Jawa.

111028 Lost Coast

2011-10-28T22:01:00.000-07:00

This beach is relatively untouched by humans and is home to some special organisms.

The team made many new and interesting finds:

Strange looking hermit crab.

Hidden peacock sole. The outline gave it away.

It is quite a gentle fish.

A leech on the peacock sole.

Crinoid. It had only 10 arms, perhaps a juvenile?

Batik slug.

More strange slugs I have not seen before. Hoping Chay Hoon can ID them for us.

Healthy population of bonnet snails on this beach.

Spines on the head are very sharp. It is easy to cut oneself on a buried snail while digging in the sand.

Buried snail attacking a sand dollar, from underneath.

A live button snail. These snails have many appendages and a rather interesting mouth. They can swim by wriggling in the water to escape danger.

There were some olive snails.

Fig snail as it is found. These snails are not often seen on our shores.

Full body shots of a couple of fig snails.

Sinum moon snail. These snails secrete a lot of slime.

Never saw this snail alive before.

Interesting looking Astropecten. Marcus has a video of it burrowing into the sand quite differently from the smaller and more commonly seen Astropecten sea stars.

There were a couple of stranded brittlestars, possibly victims of birds.

A small stretch has quite a few of these Laganum sand dollars which seem to be emerging from the sand. They were also all facing the same direction (towards the sea) coming out.

Lovenia heart urchin.

Smooth sea cucumber.

No idea what this is, looks like a sea cucumber with sea anemone tentacles.

111028 Venus Drive

2011-10-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

Wet weather means mushrooms.

Bioluminescent mushrooms.

Lychas scutilus.

Unicorn opilionid (Hoplodino sp.).

Tiny 1 mm long springtail.

No idea what beetle this is.

Bat shit weevil.

Large fungus weevil about 15 mm long.

Mating scarabs. Can see part of the genitalia.

Suspected endomychid larva.

No idea what this is. Possibly some beetle larva? The abdominal tip looks similar to this.

Moldy cockroach.

1-1.5 mm long red mite.

No idea what this is. Beetle larva?

This crab spider seems to be pretty commonly found on freshly fallen trees.

Sparassid in the leaf litter.

Pandercetes on the hand rail.

111021 NTU

2011-10-22T00:48:00.000-07:00

Not sure but looks like millipedes about to mate. Male millipedes have modified legs (gonopods) usually on the 7th segment (probably hidden here, the 7th segment of the millipede to the right has no visible legs) which they use to transfer sperm to the female.

Changeable lizard eye. Seems to be a ring of pores around the eye.

Fungused thrip.

The live thrips seemed unconcerned and hung around the same spot as the fungused thrip, even mating there.

Young thrip.

Many of these butterflies sleeping in the long grass.

This ant carrying a grub seemed to be lost. Didn't see any other similar ants in its vicinity.

Interestingly folded wings on this wasp.

There were a few puddles just by the roadside which looked like temporary puddles that dry up during dry weather. However there were many snails in quite a few of them so I guess these puddles were around for quite some time. The puddles were also home to quite a selection of bugs.

Many frogs could also be heard croaking in the grass. Caught this frog on the road.

Tadpoles in some of the puddles.

First time seeing a water-measurer.

Dragonfly nymph. Looks like a libellulid.

This nymph looks like an aeshnid.

Lycosid spider with egg sac. Wonder what that slimy layer on the egg sac is.

Quite a few of these spiders built webs above the puddles.

Pond skater.

Diving beetle.

There were many species of grasshoppers that seem perfectly at home in the puddles, some were swimming on the surface, others walking on the bottom. None seemed to be struggling or concerned with getting out of the water.

The mosquitoes here are comparable to Semakau's.

Young male Agriocnemis femina.

Acisoma panorpoides.

Some of the flowering plants had many of these weevils.

Phaeacius jumping spider, I think.

This lycosid was very still, even when I was making such a disturbance in the plants. Turned out it was feeding.

Poltys tree stump spider.

No idea what spider this is.

Overgrown grasslands usually come with its complement of lynx spiders.

This tiny 3mm long crab spider was a master at paying out web into the breeze, snaring a branch over 2 feet away, saving it a tremendous amount of time and effort laying silk across such a distance. Using wind is a very probable method for spiders to build webs that span rivers although until one is actually documented doing so, it can only remain as a theory.

Mating katydids.

Monkey hopper.

111007 CCNR

2011-10-07T23:10:00.000-07:00

Long trip of about 4+ hrs.

A couple of crickets I don't often see.

Monkey hopper with a red mite under its wings.

Orthetrum glaucum.

Two dragonfly nymphs were out of the water in a drain.

Malayan Giant Frog (Limnonectes blythii)?

Malesian frog (Limnonectes malesianus).

Not sure which frog this is.

Crab spider(Thomisidae).

Scorpion-tailed spider (Arachnura).

Harmochirus showing off its swollen forelegs.

Salticids construct temporary web shelters to sleep in for the night.

Sparassid mother with freshly hatched young.

This amblypygid common at rifle range could also be found here.

Lychas scutilus.

Tiny beetle. Could not get another angle but I think it is some sort of weevil.

Much larger beetle near the beetle above. Also possibly a weevil.

Elite spotted this wasp (possibly Chalcididae).

Other than grasshoppers and crickets, this place is also full of mantises.

110918 Sunset Way morning

2011-09-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

Morning trip. Met some green corridor trekkers who hiked from Bukit Timah. The Clementi tunnel was flooded as usual but that apparently did not stop them.

Melvyn spotted this stalk-eyed fly that could not keep still. Getting the eye along with any other part of the body in focus was tough.

Cute hoverfly blocking the path.

Tephritidae fruit fly (Bactrocera?).

Tiny fly next to an even tinier wasp.

These Polyrhachis ants seemed to like staying very still with their abdomens tucked under in the morning.

Small wasp or ant alate? Can't really tell.

Hemipteran with wings bent downwards at the back.

Derbidae, I think.

Pond skater with prey, not sure what, can't quite see.

Brown tiger beetle (2 white spots). There was also a brown four white spotted tiger beetle and possibly Therates dimidiatus (couldn't get a closer look as it was too flighty) or similar looking tiger beetle as well.

Not sure what beetles these are (top Chrysomelidae, bottom Mordellidae?).

Pretty caterpillar.

Common faun.

Orthetrum chrysis?

The rest showed me this katydid nymph with some red mites on it.

These spiders seem to be in mating season, at least 2 mating pairs were spotted. This unfortunate pair was spooked by my approach.

The wolf spiders were also in season, with most of the females carrying egg cases or their young.

Leucauge spider. Can see the characteristic trichobothria or leg hairs on the 4th femur.

Female Thorelliola ensifera spotted by Victor.

110916 Bukit Brown Cemetery

2011-09-16T22:02:00.000-07:00

Home to some of Singapore's wildlife, this beautiful and peaceful patch of nature is slated to be trashed, so decided to look over the place before it's gone.

The place is home to countless nightjars. They were everywhere, in the bush, on the road, even on grave fixtures. Wonder where they'll go when they lose their home.

The trees were also home to many green pigeons, including that lovey couple sleeping together.

There were also many bats.

Ron made a surprising find of this colugo.

Banded bullfrogs, field frogs, four-lined tree frogs and toads were quite common here.

Nymph of an assassin bug. Often referred to as masked hunters, nymphs of quite a few different assassin bug species employ this form of camouflage by sticking debris and even prey carcasses to themselves.

Adult Acanthaspis (flavovaria?) asssassin bugs.

Plenty of Sparassids, probably lichen huntsmen (Pandercetes) up in the trees.

Male Ctenid, in ambush position?

Quite a few tarantulas. These two seem different in terms of color and color pattern, bottom one is purplish with one leg segment darker than the other segments.

Lychas scutilus scorpion spotted by Marcus.

The most exciting find of the night, an amblypygid spotted by Ron. This arachnid is apparently not very well studied here in Singapore.

110909 Lornie trail

2011-09-09T22:23:00.000-07:00

Was hoping to see some vertebrates but no luck. Heard some single barks though, not sure if it was a dog or deer.

Fascinating pink cricket (erythrism?).

Really tiny Scutigeridae centipede. It only had 7 leg pairs (molted two times only).

Saw a couple of these Opiliones in the leaf litter.

Tiny but adult cockroach.

Mantis doing some yoga cleaning.

Bird shit weevil.

Zhsteve spotted this longicorn. Looks like Epepeotes luscus. Not sure why it was so still with its mouth in a frothing droplet.

Bug sipping sap from the open base of two severed buds.

A couple of moths.

Tiny spider on the ground.

Quite a lot of Odontomachus trap-jaw ants running along beside the path.

Saw a mud trail along a tree trunk, but it seemed to be ants rather than termites.

Polyrhachis ant carry something, looks like a silk cocoon.

110909 Macaca fascicularis

2011-09-09T03:41:00.000-07:00

Without any remaining natural predators, Singapore's Macaca fascicularis have been doing very well (perhaps too well). They are mainly concentrated in various parts of central Singapore but can also be found even as far as Tanah Merah MRT.

They also quite often behave very similarly to humans.

110901-02 Sultan Shoal

2011-09-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

Got quite lucky to be able to take a look at Sultan Shoal during a low tide period, thanks to the extreme generosity of my cousin. However even at 0.2m, it was not low enough to get to the reef edge. Perhaps -0.2m or lower is needed, I think. The area outside the rock wall is one continuous ring of rocks, very slippery and hard to navigate.

Explored outside the sea wall on the first day.

A section of the rocky area outside the seawall was infested with these 2 cm long red sea cucumbers.

There were some greenish ones as well, not sure if they're the same thing.

Orange cucumarid cucumber.

Giant topshell (Trochus niloticus).

Muricid snail (Thais bitubercularis?).

Nerite (Nerita chamaeleon?).

Australium calcar.

Eriphia ferox.

No idea what crab this is. About 6 mm carapace.

Strange mushroom coral siamese twins.

Psammocora and Pavona.

Trachyphyllia?

Favid coral. This was the most common hard coral family I saw.

Some sort of fungid coral?

Turbinaria.

Galaxea.

Soft coral next to some zoanthids.

Some of the leathery soft coral seemed to have parts sheared off. Been fed on by something?

More leathery soft coral.

This leathery soft coral had many brittle stars on it, some white some red.

There was a small patch of a few Heteractis magnifica.

No idea what these are (anemones, coral, corallimorphs??). Can see at least 3 mouths in the bottom photo so it looks like they grow together.

Many Phymanthus anemones.

Besides the shore, I also had time to look over the grass and plants.

Mushrooms.

A small patch of grass had many lesser grass blues. I noticed that some of the resting ones seemed to be continuously bothered by incoming ones, the butterflies were all looking for mates. I decided to camp there.

After the abdomens connected, the butterflies stayed put and allowed me to get quite close. Kinda freaky.

My 7 year old nephew spotted this rather interesting wasp (1 cm long). Its wings were folded like a damselfly.

The rock wall itself was full of salticids.

A giant ship which, to my amazement, I failed to even notice when I was taking this shot, so intent was I on closing in on the white collared kingfisher.

Heavily cropped shot from my D10 pns camera. These kingfishers had a minimum approach of about 15-20 m.

Took a look at the lagoon on the second day.

Thalamita sp..

Periophthalmus chrysospilos.

The same strange blue spotted goby I saw previously at Semakau.

A pair of head-stripe gobies (Amblygobius stethophthalmus) were digging a nest in between some flat rocks. Unfortunately my flash disturbed them.

Many small black sea cucumbers (Afrocucumis africana) under a rock.

This was the only onch I saw, crawling on the lagoon wall.

The steps of the lagoon had many of these Planaxis sulcatus snails.

Wandering cowrie (Cypraea errones).

A sea turtle that surfaced right beside the jetty! My cousin spotted it on the other side of the jetty some time later.

My sister later spotted it again at the same spot my cousin last saw it. We decided to camp for it and it surfaced one more time after about 30-45 min. However that was the last time it decided to show itself to us and we never managed to see it again.

According to a friendly boatman, Sultan Shoal (red circle) used to be an excellent fishing ground until the wall to its west was built. It is an extremely tiny patch of land about 400 ft by 200 ft.

It has one large berthing jetty

and two fishing jettys.

Some customary shots of the lighthouse.

The holiday chalets were really good. There was a full kitchen, BBQ pit, external gutting sink and table and a washing point for sandy boots.

The water visibility was pretty good, despite it being smack in the middle of a heavily used ship berthing area.

The awesome boat that sped from west coast pier to Sultan Shoal in about 45 min.

110830 Cyrene

2011-08-30T08:01:00.000-07:00

Sluggy wormy day at Cyrene, with many other sightings on this rich southern reef.

Follow the Cyrene Reef Exposed blog and join the facebook page to keep up to date on the latest news and information of this wonderful reef we have in our southern waters.

This tiny crab was using the empty turban snail shell just like a hermit crab.

Not too sure what was going on before I leaned down to get a closer look but the hairy crab was scurrying away from the sponge crab and the sponge crab was stripped of its sponge (the yellow sponge) and had a few legs missing. Was the hairy crab trying to eat the sponge crab?

Another sponge crab which had acidians growing on it instead.

Closer look a the ascidians.

This nearly transparent and very tiny crab was actually swimming when I first saw it. It had the claws up and flapping.

Tiny fish, next to gumdrop ascidians and baby swimming anemones for scale.

S junior, a tiny stonefish.

Mei Lin found this beautiful green sea moth (Pegasus volitans).

Leathery filefish (Chaetodermis penicilligerus).

This heart urchin (Lovenia elongta, 3-4 cm long) was crawling on the seagrass when I first saw it.

China moon snail (Natica onca) dragging a button snail into the sand.

Quite a few grey bonnet snails (Phalium glaucum) on a sandy stretch. One seemed to be attacking a sand dollar. Mei Lin later found a Japanese bonnet snail (Semicassis bisulcatum) as well.

Ria and Kok Sheng were busy photographing their nudi finds (top Discodoris lilacina, bottom Dendrodoris nigra).

Chay Hoon later found 3 Gymnodoris nudibranchs.

Geraldine found this slug that feeds on sea grapes.

Saw a couple of these Pleurobranchus forskalii sidegill slugs.

Polybranchia orientalis, a slug with many very very sticky leaf-like cerata which it autotomises as a defense mechanism.

Geographic sea hare (Syphonota geographica) with its flaps wide open.

Flatworm that looks like phlegm.

Many starry flatworms (Pseudobiceros stellae) seen today. This one seemed to be ejecting some gumdrop ascidians.

Not sure what flatworm this is.

Very neat looking swimming anemone (Boloceroides mcmurrichi).

Periclimenes brevicarpalis anemone shrimps have a scintillating blue line running down the middle.

Many Salmacis urchins.

A worm at the mouth of a Salmacis urchin.

Super flaring at Jurong island, which Ivan aptly likened to the eye of Sauron.

110827 Semakau

2011-08-27T21:59:00.000-07:00

Hitched a ride with the dive team's boat. While the divers made many interesting sightings including a new sea star and an unusual sea anemone, the rest took the opportunity to see what terrestrial creatures would emerge at dusk despite the wet weather.

Some of these plovers were running about the flat rocky stretch on the seaward side. The lower bird looks different now that Marcus pointed it out, the beak shape looks more like a red-necked stint.

Pacific reef egret, dark morph?

Great billed heron.

Scarab beetle.

Not sure what these are, they look like some sort of hymenopteran nest.

Spider guarding her eggs.

Crab spider. It was actually running along a web strand before settling down on this twig.

Salticid.

Oxyopidae. Most of the lynx spiders in the grass near the hut at the entrance of the trail seemed to be this type.

Grasshoppers.

There were some mantis ootheca on the benches of the hut.

Marcus spotted this death head hawk moth just as we were about to leave.

More sightings by Ria, including some photos of the dive team's awesome underwater photographic gear.

How light diffusion works

2011-08-24T04:30:00.000-07:00

Diffusers are often made of paper, plastic sheets, thin layers of foam etc.. Basically, these materials all share the same basic structure, they are all more or less sheets of meshing and intertwining transparent or near transparent fibers. These fibers serve to refract light. Due to this, every single point of the diffuser on the side of the subject can be taken to be a point light source. The image below illustrates an infinitesimal cross-section of a diffuser and what happens to the light that hits that section:

As we are interested only in light that hits our subject, the light ray diagram can be simplified by ignoring the light rays emerging from the diffuser in the wrong direction that do not hit the subject. This will result in the light ray diagram given below:

When a diffuser is too near to the light source and too far from the subject, light from the light source hitting the edges of the diffuser travel a longer distance and are therefore dimmer than light hitting the middle. The effective light from the diffuser will thus look like the image below, where light from the edges are very dim compared to light from the middle (having a hot spot in the diffuser). The apparent light size is therefore small and lighting from such a setup will therefore be less diffused, no matter how big the diffuser is.

When the diffuser is far away from the light source, all light rays hitting the diffuser are approximately the same length, and therefore there is no hot spot on the diffuser. However, if the diffuser is not curved, the light rays emerging from the diffuser will not be equal in length and there will be a similar result as for diffuser A, but to a lesser extent.

Therefore, to achieve very even and diffused lighting, the light source has to be far enough away from the diffuser, and the diffuser shape has to roughly follow the contour of the subject. Happily most macro subjects can be approximated to be a small sphere and a simple curved diffuser placed as near to the subject as possible will suffice. As an example, an almost perfect diffuser for a salticid is to place it in a ping pong ball.

The nearer the diffuser is to the subject, the smaller it needs to be, as can be seen by the two diffusers above. Diffuser A is much larger than diffuser B, yet the light rays coming from both diffusers are of roughly the same direction as seen in this overlap:

However, light that is too diffused will result in very flat 2-D images which do not look realistic (like most of my images, as I am usually too lazy to angle my flash and diffuser). This is because shadows and highlights are what bring out the texture and 3-D form of subjects. One way to solve this problem is not to have the diffuser too head-on or top-down, perhaps have the diffuser from the side or at an angle. Another way, for those using twin lights, is to adjust the power of one side to be less than the other.

Also of note is that although an omnibounce increases the spread of the light, it does not increase apparent light size. This is why people do not aim an omnibounce directly at the subject, but at a nearby wall or ceiling instead. An omnibounce's main function is to spread the light over as much wall or ceiling as possible, effectively turning a larger section of the wall or ceiling into the light source compared to a bare flash.

110821 Lornie trail (Sime course)

2011-08-21T05:01:00.000-07:00

My first visit to this stretch of Lornie trail. Went with Nicky, Melvyn, Lance and David.

Very weird looking bug (about 7 mm long). Plumose antennae and two wings suggests Nematocera, but there does not seem to be any halteres and abdomen is flat which is very unusual for Diptera. The protrusions on the side of the abdomen makes it even weirder Kind folks at Entomology pointed me towards male scale bug (Margarodidae), which looked spot on. This bug landed on my hair and I brushed it off, thinking it was a fallen leaf. Poor bug fell to the ground with a bent right wing. However after straightening its wing and removing that bit of wood from the right wing tip, it seemed to recover and flew off.

Forest cockroach that seemed to have something underneath.

It's young.

Mother cockroach decided to leg it after 2 shots, abandoning it's young (hopefully temporarily).

Bristletail.

The part of the trail running right next to the reservoir had some dragonflies and damselfies.

Sleepy-looking four-lined tree frog (Polypedates leucomystax).

Nasutitermes termites.

Bipalium.

Melvyn spotted this crane fly.

Finally got a decent shot of the tiny flies (gall midge, Cecidomyiidae?) that hang from silken threads. This is one of over 10 that hung in a tangled web like a small cloud.

Tiny spider about 3 mm long. Looks like a very small Herennia.

Hersiliidae.

Looks like Cyclosa.

No idea what spider this is. Did not see any web nearby.

Very tiny salticid, about 2 mm long.

Another salticid spotted by Melvyn.

Someone spotted this cicada nymph which appeared to be ready to molt. Melvyn decided to camp it and true enough, after a while it began to emerge.

However it dropped to the ground by the time I got back to it.

Fortunately after placing it back onto a tree trunk, it seemed to recover and filled out its wings nicely.

Hemipteran nymph, possibly Flatidae.

A very well camouflaged bug nymph, Fulgoroidea?

Quite a few of these 3-4 mm long wasps. Notice the mite behind it in the upper photo?

Mating velvet ants. The male seemed to be gripping the female with his mouth and treated her quite roughly, shaking her.

110820 Semakau forest

2011-08-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

Another Semakau survey, this time with members of the Butterfly Circle who did a great job documenting the butterflies there. While they were busy chasing butterflies, Marcus and I went to look for other bugs. Meanwhile, Ria had a wonderful encounter with an otter!

Tiny bug (1 mm long) in a webspinner gallery. I have seen similar bugs in the webspinner gallery on my mango tree before. Wonder if such bugs are webspinner larva, however the only webspinner larva image I could find currently shows that webspinner larva, even at the first instar, already resemble the adult form.I think this is Psocpotera in a silk nest.

Adult bugs in white white stuff (wax?).

Have yet to find an adult cricket.

Tiny bluish salticid. The blue highlights did not turn up well in this photo.

Posture of this spider resembles Argiope.

Lynx spider with egg sac.

Hersiliidae. Abdominal shape differs from those more commonly seen.

Ant missing a head and abdomen.

Ant with relatively large abdomen.

Weaver ants milking a scale insect.

Can see the liquid being harvested.

Marcus spotted this ant that seemed to be in a daze, crawling up and down the leaf, as if looking for a place to clamp down and die.

He also spotted these ants with interesting body texture living in a plant. Wonder if its a symbiosis, something like this.

Fly caught by weaver ants and being dragged back alive.

Many flies in the forest of Semakau.

This fly is exceptionally flighty.

Marcus spotted this tiny 4 mm long fly with what look like mites infesting the eyes.

Mating Micropezidae.

Asilidae. One of them caught a strange insect I can't identify.

Bee fly (Bombyliidae)?

Tiny wasp, probably parasitic. Or could be Psocoptera, as Marcus pointed out.

Some sort of bee?

Another wasp.

Dragonfly. Can't seem to find it in the dragonfly book.

Protists

2011-08-18T05:19:00.000-07:00

Protista has been broken down into separate kingdoms.
Main distinguishing features are presence of flagella and mitochondrial presence/morphology.
However taxonomy is fluid and future revisions are likely as more discoveries are made.

Amoebozoa
- Have mitochondria with branching tubular cristae.
- Mostly without filaments or microtubule-supported structures outside cell membrane.
- Exceptions found in Archamoebae, which do not have mitochondria and have flagella.

Excavata
- Most have two or more flagella.
- Do not have "classical" mitochondria but retain a mitochondrial organelle in greatly modified form.

Rhizaria
- Most have mitochondria with tubular cristae.
- Most have filamentous structures outside the cell membrane (filose-filamentous, reticulose-networked).
- Most have shells that can fossilize.

Chromalveolata
- Likely to be polyphyletic (last common ancestor not in the group).
- Most are autotrophs (photosynthetic).
- Perhaps is a temporary catch-all group?

Physarum polycephalum, the maze-solving slime mold, is in Amoebozoa.

Naegleria fowleri, the recently famous brain eating amoeba is not a true amoeba but is an excavate.

Trypansoma (sleeping sickness, Chaga's disease) are also excavates.

Syringammina fragilissima, the largest known unicellular organism, is a rhizarian.

Dinoflagellates (red tide) are chromalveolates.

Plasmodium (including malaria parasites) also fall under chromalveolates (perhaps by default, as it does not belong to the other kingdoms?).

110814 Semakau

2011-08-14T07:21:00.000-07:00

We explored the southwestern shore of Semakau today.

Flaring at Bukom.

Subaraj first brought up the issue of poop. Since there are currently no records of vertebrates on Semakau that lay poop like this (probably mammalian) on places like this (the road), poop like this possibly comes from an unrecorded animal.

Common house gecko Hemidactylus frenatus.

Spotted house gecko Gekko monarchus.

These look like Atlas moth (Attacus atlas) pupae.

I think this is the common grass yellow, as it has only 2 spots on the forewing near the head. But I'm not a butterfly person and may be looking at the wrong place for the spots.

Field frog Fejervarya limnocharis?

Four lined tree frog Polypedates leucomystax.

Alicia is good at spotting tiny spiders like this one, wolf spider I think.

And this Sparassid.

The commonly seen green suspected sac spider.

This cricket was so conspicuously colored and moving in such a non-stealthy way.

It was also shaking off a wasp or fly on its leg.

On to the shore:

Don't think I have seen this goby before. Its blue spots are quite beautiful.

Ginormous egg collar, diameter as wide as my boot.

Spiral melongena (Pugilina cochlidium) laying eggs.

Cowrie. I think it is the Ovum cowrie as it did not have a black spot at the head.

Andy found this dog faced water snake (Cerberus rynchops).

It was not shy or aggressive and allowed me to take a close-up head shot. It is quite inaccurate to say we cannot speak with animals as we do share the universal language of body language. So long as we do not appear to be either a threat or potential prey, animals are generally tolerant of our proximity. If not, they will let us know, quite obviously too if we are sensitive enough to their actions.

Marcus spotted another snake, the banded file snake Acrochordus granulatus. This snake is also quite tolerant of human proximity and there is no need to harm or kill it in self defense.

A pair of Periclimenes brevicarpalis shrimps.

Kok Sheng spotted this anemone which looked like Actinoporus elongatus.

Bristleworm. This one was about 15 to 20 cm long.

These strange growths were quite abundant on the sea grass. They look like ascidians.

Gymnodoris nudibranch. It looks very similar to G. citrina but I found it on sand. G. citrina was recorded to be found under rocks.

While I was getting a closer look at the nudibranch, I spotted this sea star, Stellaster equestris, the galloping sea star. It was about 5 cm across.

Luidia maculata? About 4-5 cm across.

Protoreaser nodosus. There were quite a few, all smaller than 15 cm across.

Ria found this olive snail. This section of the shore was quite special indeed, with so many special finds.

Beautiful fan worm.

Costasiella slug.

Kok Sheng found this crinoid.

Holothuria notabilis.

Stichopus horrens.

Holothuria scabra.

Mysterious brown sea cucumber.

110809 Semakau forest

2011-08-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

Yes it was good to be able to look over the commando mosquito infested forests of Semakau. Would be interesting to see what comes out at night there. First visit, so documenting every bug I see. Didn't bring diffuser setup so everything shiny shiny harsh harsh.

Crickets.

Probably Damarchus workmani, a burrowing spider (Nemesiidae).

Lynx spider Oxyopidae.

Flies.

Micropezidae.

Marcus identified this as a termite nest.

Weaver ant carrying dead leaf fragment, which Marcus suggested was for cultivating whatever they farm.

Odontomachus trapjaw ant.

Probably Polyrhachis.

Weird moth spotted by Marcus.

Bracket fungus.

Mushroom that wilted withing a span of 2 hours (8.18 am to 10.21 am).

More fungi.

Tiny rove beetles (Staphylinidae) about 2+ mm long.

Larger rove beetle about 12 mm long.

Probably ladybird larva.

Mating Dysdercus decussatus.

Alicia spotted this cute Salticid jumping spider on the beach sand. Looks like Hyllus diardi.

Another one among Casuarina leaves.

Tiny spider hiding at the edge of its web.

Robberfly (Asilidae). About 2 cm long.

110806 Singapore Botanic Gardens

2011-08-08T05:11:00.000-07:00

Joined Macro Maniacs Of Singapore on their night shoot (thanks Colleen, for organizing). The group covered the marsh garden and plant house before leaving. Nicky and I continued onward to the fernery and rainforest walk.

Many frogs around the ponds next to the plant house:

Dark-sided chorus frog (Microhyla heymonsi).

Painted chorus frog (Microhyla butleri).

Four-lined tree frog Polypedates leucomystax.

Saw some common odonates:

Ceriagrion cerinorubellum.

Male Trithemis aurora spotted by Larry.

Neurothemis fluctuans. Male top, female bottom.

Sleeping bees. I think they are Amegilla sp.. There were 3 but it was hard getting 3 in the same focus plane.

Mystery moth.

Strange looking fly spotted by Nicky. Probably robber fly (Asilidae).

Mating bugs.

The handrails of the rainforest walk had many tiny spitting spiders (Scytodidae). Male top, female bottom.

This crazy earwing (2 cm long excluding cerci) didn't stop running up and down the railing post. Cerci look straight, so I guess its female.

110802 Semakau new shore

2011-08-06T15:35:00.000-07:00

Semakau's new shore has a pretty good stretch of coral growth.

Couldn't quite see what snake this is, possibly dog-faced water snake.

Elysia ornata.

Barrel sponge next to Mussidae and Galaxea.

Not too sure what coral this is.

Astreopora.

Galaxea.

Pavona.

Goniopora.

Not too sure what coral this is too.

Plate fungid coral.

Pachyseris.

Euphyllidae.

Pocillopora.

Soft corals.

Phymanthus, this one was about 15 cm across.

Stichodactyla gigantea.

Peachia.

Edwardsidae.

Not too sure what anemones these are, possibly Heteractis magnifica.

Heteractis magnifica.

Actinodendron.

Cassiopea.

Stichopus horrens?

A red sunrise.

110729-31 Fraser's Hill

2011-08-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

Fraser's Hill is a nice place, cool and laid back, yet with wi-fi. Would be nice to be able to visit it again to take a longer and closer look at its nature trails (not to mention the frat nights of fun :P).

Squashed scorpion on the road. Quite large, about 15 cm long maybe.

We stopped by a tiny waterfall with a man-made pool on the way up. There is a frog here, quite well hidden.

There it is.

Skink, Marcus identified it but I forgot the name.

Looks like a fat Tetrigidae with a red mite on its shoulder.

Fraser's Hill tried to give me an insect protein diet. This moth fell in my lemon tea. Later, there was a cockroach leg in my ice tea and fried wasp on my Ramly burger.

Poisonous rock frogs.

Weird looking caterpillar spotted by Marcus.

Some sort of hymenopteran nest?

Bipalium.

What I specifically came to Fraser's Hill to see, Liphistidae. Their trapdoor burrows have the characteristic trip lines radiating from it. Unfortunately, we did not manage to get any photos of the spiders.

A few were rather large, as compared to Ivan's pinky.

Other than liphistids, there were many tarantula burrows as well.

Quite a large tarantula.

Cricket.

Millipede.

This spider looks very much like Damarchus workmani which we have in Singapore, although I cannot say if it really is.

Moths that visited our balcony.

A couple of these ladybirds were on the balcony as well.

Lacewing larva.

Ant alate?

Some sort of beetle larva.

Zombiefied and probably already dead caterpillar on the cocoons of the parasitic wasp larvae that were living in it.

Tussock moth caterpillar.

Moth that Ivan found.

Hemipteran hopper.

Robber fly spotted by Marcus.

Spiderlings spotted by Liana.

She also spotted this unusual Opiliones.

Lycidae?

Leeches have eyes.

Millipede, about 15 cm long.

Weevil.

Gecko.

Sparassidae.

Odontomachus.

Ivan made a fantastic find in this rarely seen variable reed snake.

110723 MacRitchie Lornie trail

2011-07-24T00:28:00.000-07:00

This trail cuts through a small patch of primary forest. According to Ron, one indication of primary forest is the presence of forest giants, dipterocarps, whose seeds have evolved to penetrate the plant growth to reach the ground (as these forest giants are very tall after all), mainly by spinning down, rather than dispersal. All vertebrates spotted by Ron.

Brown Hawk-Owl (Ninox scutulata).

Two colugo.

Two Drongo.

Two moths.

Strange fungus.

Frog hiding under a small plant, quite cute.

Frog quite deep in, staring at us just as we stare back. These two frogs may be Malesian frogs.

~~No idea what flower this is, I'm hopeless with plants.~~Rothmannia macrophylla flower (kindly IDed by Joseph Lai).

110722 Nangka Trail, durian Loop

2011-07-24T00:07:00.000-07:00

Nangka trail again, this time going in deeper into Durian Loop.

I can never get a full shot of the extremely long antenniform forelegs of these Amblypygi.

Tiny Phlogiellus inermis tarantula, only about 4 mm long but already plagued by mites.

Ctenid spider stalking a grouse locust (Tetrigidae).

These ctenids seem pretty aggressive, even with its mouth full of Tetrigidae, it appeared to have made a spirited attempt to fend off my lens by leaping at it when I accidentally got too close.

This suspected sac spider actually landed on Nicky's hand, but (un)fortunately we did not get a first hand record of how painful the bit is.

Our mystery sparassid.

A very similar looking one, but perhaps different species.

Yet another sparassid, with a white band across its back.

This small orb weaver builds its web about ankle high in grass.

Nicky spotted this Cryptothele sundaica ground spider. My second time seeing this very well camouflaged spider.

Hidden danger.

A scutigerid centipede.

A couple of assassin bugs (Reduviidae).

Thread legged bug, also Reduviidae, in Emesinae subfamily.

Stick insect, looks like Presbitus peleus. Hastily stitched from 5 photos.

Strange fly, about 6 mm long, at about ankle high at base of a tree. At first, I thought there was only one, then I noticed a smaller one on my diffuser.

110718 CCNR

2011-07-19T03:30:00.000-07:00

Another vertebrate night hunt with Ron.

Ron has an exceptional eye for colugo. He spotted this one from about 40-50 m away, so far that neither of us could confirm it was a colugo until we took some shots of it.

He later spotted this mother with young. The young colugo was quite active, crawling all over the mother, from under her belly onto her back.

He also spotted this Nightjar.

Red-legged crake. Notice the poor Gasteracantha hasselti hiding on a twig behind it.

Ron's find of the night, a male Sambar deer (Rusa unicolor). Initially thought to be female, however we noticed antler stubs in our photos. Male Sambar deer drop their antlers annually in April to May. The most amazing thing about Sambar deer is their ability to move so silently despite their large size, this one was easily as tall as us, yet retreated into the undergrowth without a sound.

This Amblypygi was hiding in a small hollow of a tree. Looks very similar to this freshly molted individual.

Lychas scutilus scorpion.

Strange looking spider web with what looked like dead prey at the center with another dead prey hanging on one strand.

The center "dead prey" turned out to be the spider itself, likely to be Pasilobus sp. (about 1 cm across). I was quite fascinated by its web, a simple design and when an insect flew into another strand shortly after, the outer end of that strand detached, resulting in the insect hanging down vertically from the web. It was as if the spider was having a hanging larder underneath it.

Strangely colored spider. Not sure if its a huntsman. About 13 mm long.

Looks like a mantis ootheca with two parasitic wasps on it.

The wasps look rather strange with strong raptorial hind legs.

Phasmid.

Erebus ephesperis.

This carabid yet again. Guess its really common in Singapore.

Banded bullfrog (Kaloula pulchra).

110717 Terumbu Bemban and a little bit on "Forests, People, Environment" Exhibition at SBG

2011-07-17T02:56:00.000-07:00

Terumbu Bemban has two patches of good coral growth on opposite sides, one patch is fairly small while the other is larger.

Ivan spotted a mosaic crab (Lophozozymus pictor) immediately upon arrival.

This hairy Pilumnus crab must really like seaweed.

Snapping shrimp.

There was quite a varied selection of hard coral, some not often seen in Singapore:

Beautiful pebble Astreopora coral.

Not sure which coral this is, Pachyseris?

Pachyseris coral.

Turbinaria.

Large colonies of Turbinaria.

Alicia spotted this small colony of Euphyllia coral.

Very tiny fungid coral, attached to substrate.

Adult unattached fungid coral.

Another type of fungid coral.

Herpolitha fungid coral, with some protuberances.

Looks like Pectinia coral.

Looks like Mussidae.

Acropora coral. There is at least one Tetralia nigrolineata bandit crab in this colony, can you see it?

Goniopora.

Galaxea.

Fish hiding in Turbinaria.

Exploring the glorious patch of coral.

Two common reef anemones side by side, Heteractis magnifica on the left and Entacmaea quadricolor on the right.

Closer look at Entacmaea quadricolor.

Ivan spotted this edwarsid anemone.

Alicia spotted this pretty Phymanthus anemone.

Nestled in rocks were strange polyps like this patterned corallimorph

and this cluster of polyps, each about 2 mm diameter excluding tentacles.

Soft coral (Alcyonacea).

Flatfish (Pardachirus pavoninus) hiding in plain sight.

Kok Sheng spotted this Chromodoris lineolata.

Ria spotted this pair of Phyllidiella nigra.

There were many of these Phyllidiella pustulosa around.

Quite a few of these Jorunna funebris as well.

Alicia noticed some odd looking lump on the sand which turned out to be a Discodoris boholiensis nudibranch.

Kok Sheng found this beautiful crinoid.

Large barrel sponge.

Kok Sheng noticed this weird growth. Not sure what it is, some sort of sponge?

After the shore trip, Ria, Ivan and I went to Singapore Botanic Gardens to listen to Jonathan's talk on Taking Stock of Singapore's Marine Biodiversity and to take a look at the Singapore Botanic Gardens "Forests, People, Environment" Exhibition (Ria has a full post on this exhibition here). The exhibition showcases, among other things, how Singapore has managed to develop our land yet preserve our greenery to such an extent that our plant coverage has actually increased recently despite ongoing development. It is a beautiful exhibition and a lot of effort had been put in to make it attractive and informative.

110716 Kusu Island

2011-07-16T06:02:00.000-07:00

The tide was extremely low today, revealing a huge expanse of coral.

Large stretches of coral growth.

Heliopora blue coral dominated quite a lot of the shore.

Soft coral.

A large patch of Montipora in the lagoon.

Goniopora.

Fungiidae.

A shrimp crosses some Mussidae coral.

Galaxea coral.

Pavona coral.

Ridged Montipora.

Octopus.

Acanthozoon flatworm.

Phyllidiella pustulosa.

Crinoids.

This looks like a really tiny (5 mm diameter) Cassiopea upside down sea jelly.

There were many saron shrimp out on the sand.

Grapsus albolineatus crab.

Tiny fiddler crab (1 cm across).

Actinopyga lecanora.

Holothuria notabilis.

Chay Hoon found this small razor fish.

She also found this strange thing which Ria suggested it might be an Edwardsiidae anemone.

A pair of Amphiprion ocellaris anemonefish in Stichodactyla gigantea.

Stichodactyla gigantea.

A rock covered by Heteractis magnifica.

Heteractis magnifica attached to a tyre.

This looks like Macrodactyla anemone but it has a bumpy column and pink tentacle tips and is more likely to be Heteractis crispa.

Many of these small anemones on the rocks.

Paraiptasia radiata.

Not sure if I saw Anthopleura dixoniana at Kusu before.

Corallimorphs. Interesting to see the left one curled up like that.

110715 Rifle Range Road, Nangka trail

2011-07-16T03:44:00.000-07:00

Went for a short trip with Nicky and Steven to look for our larger mygalomorphs. Got cut short by rain but we still managed to see some interesting things.

Amblypygi. The other green amblypygid was still on the same tree as well, deep in a crack.

This beetle-like insect is actually a true bug (Hemiptera).

Katydid.

Fascinating caterpillar.

Phasmid.

Red springtails seem to be quite common on this trail.

Strange worm. It seemed to have a row of eyes on each side of the head.

Nicky pointed out the log with the longhorn beetles (Epepeotes luscus).

The longhorn seemed disturbed by my phototaking and flew onto my shirt. I disturbed it again to get it off and it flew onto my pant leg. Guess it likes clothes...

Scutigera centipede. Defecating?

Strange looking cockroach.

Another cockroach spotted by Nicky who noticed its eyes were blue.

A couple of sparassids.

Tiny spider in a small hollow on a tree trunk.

Not particularly good ant mimic Corinnidae? This one was large, about 12 mm long.

Pandercetes lichen huntsman.

Nicky noticed a tangled web under a leaf full of baby spiders. This photo showed only about a quarter of it.

110715 Cyrene Reef

2011-07-16T03:21:00.000-07:00

Cyrene is a pretty special southern reef with many organisms not found anywhere else in Singapore. It also has some organisms usually found on our northern shores making it doubly special.

Follow the Cyrene Reef Exposed blog and join the facebook page to keep up to date on the latest news and information of this wonderful reef we have in our southern waters.

Strange anemones on the seagrass.

Young Boloceroides mcmurrichi. Interesting to see one resting on soft coral.

Boloceroides mcmurrichi too? Or something else?

Stichodactyla gigantea with a pair of Periclimenes brevicarpalis shrimps.

We were still looking for the special Peachias for Dr Daphne but did not see any. This one is a normal white 16-tentacled peachia.

Ceriantharia.

This crab molted sneakily with us right beside it yet not noticing. It completed the job in about 10 to 15 minutes.

Some moon crabs on the sand bar. They are strong diggers able to dig into unsubmerged sand. Once they nestle in a hollow, they shake rapidly side to side to get all the way in, burying the head.

Many elbow crabs in the seagrass.

Shao Wei noticed this well disguised velcro crab. Its claws seem relatively clean.

Buried hermit crabs. The bottom one was waving its feelers back and forth very fast.

Archaster typicus.

Geraldine spotted this strange sea star.

Yet another. They might be young Pentaceraster.

This sea star looks like a Pentaceraster mammilatus.

Shao Wei spotted this cushion star (Culcita novaeguineae).

As usual there were many knobbly stars (Protoreaster nodosus). Top is the madreporite, bottom shows a closeup of the upper surface, with transparent appendages coming out of the black holes.

Many Salmacis urchins in the seagrass, sometimes in clusters.

Tube feet of Salmacis.

Hardcore salmacis :P

Holothuria scabra.

Purple sea cucumber spotted by Shao Wei.

Probably Atagema intecta nudibranch.

I saw at least 7 of these sidegill slugs (Pleurobranchus forskalii).

Strange feature coming out the back of one of the sidegill slugs.

Flathead/crocodile fish (Platycephalidae, platy=flat, cephal=head).

Flatheads have "eyelashes".

Dead sand diver (Trichonotidae).

Sand divers also have "eyelashes".

Interesting looking moon snail, china moon snail (Natica onca)?

Some dredging going on right next to Cyrene reef. Hopefully, it would not impact Cyrene irreversibly.

110714 Changi

2011-07-14T06:41:00.000-07:00

Nice to be back once again to the very first low tide shore I visited. It is not a shore I visit often, my last visit being in April last year.

This shore has many cerianthids, sea cucumbers and sea pens.

Melo melo. It seemed to be eating something.

The same Melo melo about 30 min later.

Another Melo melo.

Cerianthids.

What looked like a very odd sea cucumber turned out to be two sea anemones attached to the same shell.

What the oral disk of the above anemones look like.

Quite a few of these mystery anemones were here as well.

Many small Stichodactyla haddoni. It seems that they either do no grow large here or none of them survive long enough.

Strawberry anemone. The pink dots on its body column are somewhat visible through the mouth.

Another strawberry anemone trying to eat something, not sure what.

Goniodiscaster scaber.

Astropecten indicus.

Possibly a young cake star (Anthenea aspera).

The most common sea cucumber at Changi, Colochirus quadrangularis.

Cercodemas anceps.

Sea cucumbers hiding under a rock, not sure which species.

Purple cucumarid sea cucumber. Note the numerous small polyps in the sand around it.

Ria found this sea apple.

Sea pens.

This sea pen had at least one porcelain crab in it, can you see it?

This one had a false scorpionfish hiding under it.

Callionymus schaapii.

Looks like a dead flathead. About 25 cm long.

Ria found this beautiful crinoid.

Octopus hiding in a glass jar.

A couple of sea hares. Right one looks like geographic sea hare (Syphonota geographica), left one not sure, maybe same species but pattern looks different.

Sixe spines along the side, making this crab likely to be Charybdis sp..

Stone crabs (Myomenippe harwicki) hiding in various corners.

110708-10 Paya, Soyak and Renggis, Tioman

2011-07-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

Had my PADI open water (Sunnycove package) at Paya beach for first 3 dives, Soyak 4th and Renggis 5th dive. For the first 3 dives, the main focus of my attention was the sandy bottom and rocky areas covered with many long spined Diadema urchins. Soyak and Renggis was a pretty good start to the wonderful sight of undisturbed coral reefs in clear water.

We had Bob and Gary for our instructors who were pretty good. The lessons went smoothly, in a professional and patient way and they did a good job in keeping us safe.

Rustic accommodation, but clean and comfortable, with hot water and air-con. Each hut was 2 adjoining quad-share rooms with one outside tap for washing gear each.

I believe they burn their rubbish.

Quaint place.

This man has a style all his own. The waiter called him Raj.

Paya beach is such an idyllic place, and the thought of all the wonderful reefs out there...

People get about on these scooters with sidecars, small enough to squeeze on the paths yet capable of transporting heavy cargo.

First time seeing a stalk-eyed fly, and me without my macro rig, sigh.

Boatride to Soyak and Renggis.

Soyak. I like this dive site. Coral here were primarily various species of Acropora. Phyllid nudibranchs were quite common, especially Phyllidia elegans. First time seeing the gobies on the sea whips too.

Renggis. This dive site was also not bad, though it seemed plainer than Renggis.

Overall, large Acropora colonies were regularly seen, numerous giant clams populate the seabed and echinoderms were everywhere, cushion stars on sand and rocky outcrops and sea cucumbers dot the sand along with the Diadema urchins. There were beds of sea whips, numerous Heteractis magnifica, all with anemonefish (at least 4 different species, some with the black damselfish) and many crinoids poke their feather arms out among the coral. The visibility was about 10 m.

Food-wise, breakfast was barely passable. Wait for the man to come to fry the eggs on the spot for you, as that is probably the most edible thing for breakfast. Lunch was ok, fried rice, sweet and sour fish, spaghetti with tomato-based sauce, that sort of thing. Dinner was awesome BBQ buffet, the lamb was excellent. Liquor is duty-free on Tioman and the ice cream is cheap.

Travelling there and back was the worst part. Almost 3 hours by very cramp minibus from customs to Mersing jetty (with only one stop about 30 min into the journey), and another 2+ hour ferry ride to Tioman. Bus back was better as we took a large coach. It was mostly army style rushing to wait.

Mersing jetty.

The ferry, with freezing air con. If not intending to sleep, best to secure a seat at the smoking area out the back of the ferry.

110704 Sentosa Serapong

2011-07-05T17:18:00.000-07:00

A special visit to the shore bordering Sentosa's excellently manicured Serapong golf course ( hole 7), kindly arranged by Shao Wei, Xi Lin, Sheila and Sylvester, thank you so much for letting us visit this very special shore!

This shore showcases what Singapore's reefs are like when untouched by human activities, with very large colonies of soft and hard coral.

A large expanse of Acropora coral. Kok Sheng found another of the same size at the reef edge. Such immense colonies are very rarely seen in Singapore as hard coral grow relatively slowly (~10 cm a year under optimum conditions for Acropora which is considered fast for hard coral) and it could take a couple of decades of undisturbed growth for them to reach such large sizes.

Close-up of the Acropora coral. The branches seem to be closer to each other than commonly seen.

Other types of hard coral can also be found on the shore:

Favid coral.

Turbinaria coral.

Goniopora coral.

Pocillopora coral.

One of the Pocillopora coral had this orange commensal crab which I have not seen before on any other shore.

Acropora coral with commensal bandit crab (Tetralia nigrolineata).

Euphyllid coral.

Fungid coral.

There was also very good soft coral (Alcyonacea) growth with large colonies:

Never have I seen such diverse and dense coral growth in Singapore before.

A closer look at some of the soft coral.

Kok Sheng next to a large leathery soft coral colony.

Other than coral, this shore is also home to other oraganisms:

Phymanthus anemones. These anemones come in a wide variation of colors and patterns but may all be the same species.

Heteractis magnifica, an anemone that is also home to anemonefish. Ria spotted a cluster of them.

Pseudoceros blue-lined flatworm.

These red feather stars (Crinoidea) were commonly seen on this shore.

Phyllid nudibranchs. Top is Phyllidiella pustulosa, bottom is Phyllidiella nigra.

There were some of these stinging hydroids, found mainly near the eastern beacon.

Zoanthids, tiny colonial polyps that carpet the substrate.

Corallimorphs, very similar to anemones and may have evolved from Scleractinia (losing their skeletons).

Not too sure what this encrustation is, I have not seen something like this before.

Other blog posts on this shore by:
Ria
Kok Sheng
Mei Lin
Jerome

110703 Chek Jawa

2011-07-05T16:47:00.000-07:00

The anemone team joins teamseagrass at Chek Jawa. Yet more anemones for Dr Daphne!

Specimen A, looks somewhat like a Peachia, but has far too many arms.

Specimen B, a very tiny anemone.

Specimen C, which looks somewhat like Anthopleura but who knows? Dr Daphne explains that many anemones look very very similar to each other and it is only by examining closely can we differentiate the species.

These anemones are likely to be Telactinia citrina.

Specimen E.

Specimen F.

Tiny strawberry anemone. These anemones can look like specimen C, E or F but so far they consstently also have 2 pink dots on the oral disk which may turn out to be a characteristic feature of the species.

Specimen G. Looks very much like bob the blob (Paracondylactis sinensis).

Another anemone looking very much like specimen G.

Yet another looking very much like anemone Bob, but it's body column is different and it turned out to be a different species, temporarily named Bill!

Specimen H, IDed by Dr Daphne as Anthopleura handi.

Green spotted tiny mangrove anemone.

Specimen D, which turned out to be a corallimorph, IDed by Dr Daphne based on tentacle shape, how it contracts and some other features I can't quite recall.

Dr Daphne spotted a couple of stingrays.

Sea hare digging itself into the sand.

Someone was shouting "Otters!" There were some otters running along the high shore. they stopped to look at us ocassionally.

110703 Amorphoscelis mantis

2011-07-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

Found this female Amorphoscelis struggling in the men's toilet at basement 2 of Plaza Singapura. No idea how it ended up so lost there. Decided to release it on my mango tree as I had previously found a similar mantis there.

This individual eats ants. It catches ants first with its mouth, by biting down on them, then uses a foreleg to grip the ant while the head repositions for a better feeding grip.

110702 CCNR, and some thoughts on the way humans tend to abuse wildlife.

2011-07-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

Night blitz through one of the trails in our central forests with Ron.

Ron spotted my first colugo sighting. I heard some very sad stories from Shufen regarding colugo poaching. Apparently poachers slingshot colugo down from the trees and sell those that survive. It could be as low as 2 surviving colugo per 10 shot down. What a cruel practice and terrible waste.

There was some scratching noises in the plants which turned out to be a rat feeding.

Gold-ringed cat snake (Boiga dendrophila).

It was injured by something.

Underside.

Quite a large specimen, could be about 2 m long.

I managed to get very close to it without spooking it or getting attacked. Snakes generally ignore us if we do not attack or antagonize them. I hope that this specimen was not attacked by one of the stick-wielding people who like to walk along our nature paths but somehow feel that "snakes have no business intruding into human territory" and have the very twisted opinion that every snake deserves to be beaten to death.

Acanthaspis assassin bug.

Opiliones.

Phasmid.

Sac spider, about 1 cm long. It was hanging head down in mid air on a single web strand with forelegs splayed out (to catch flying prey?). It climbed back on the leaf like this when disturbed.

110702 Seringat Kias

2011-07-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

An anemone hunt again with Dr Daphne. This man-made beach has many anemones that needed sorting out.

Sixteen-armed Peachia anemones. There is also a 20 arm Peachia which we did not manage to find.

Specimen B. Dr Daphne is very careful to label each photo to match each specimen she examines, so that she can eventually "put a face to the name", so to speak.

Another Peachia gets buried by the incoming waves.

Specimen D. Looks like bob the blob (Paracondylactis sinensis).

Actinodendron. There were 2 on this beach. Dr Daphne pointed out that they prefer clean sand, whereas the sand at this particular stretch was blackish and dirty, which was odd.

Ria's amazing Cassidae find. It's shell was about 8 cm long.

Ria's post where she covers more on the anemones we found.

Kok Sheng's post on the anemones and the rest of Lazarus

Russel's facebook album

Rene's facebook album

Jerome's facebook album

110701 Rifle Range Road Nangka Trail

2011-07-05T15:22:00.000-07:00

This trail has an amazing number of Amblypygi, discovered thanks to Ivan.

This species of Amblypygi seemed to prefer hiding in leaf litter although at least one was found on a tree trunk as well.

A different looking Amblypygi exuvia on the same tree as the other type of Amblypygi, which led me to search high and low for the live one.

There it is.

The strange katydid.

Melvyn found another right at the carpark.

Forest cockroach.

Cockroach nymph.

Beetles like this are useful in checking diffuser reflection.

This Carabid (Pericalus?) seemed to be a pretty common find these days. There were many on the same fallen tree trunk.

This is probably a ladybird mimic.

Red mites on the back of a katydid.

Giant velvet red mite, about 2 mm long.

Two different Bipalium terrestrial flatworms.

Millipede about 4 mm long. Probably very poorly studied as the ID suggestions (Trichopolydesmidae? Furhmannodesmidae? - ID suggestions by milpatas) sound very obscure.

Siphonophorida sucking millipede. The pointed snout is characteristic and Bob Mesibov further explained that the lack of visible eyes on the head separates this from Polyzoniida. This one was found quite high up a tree trunk.

Ivan spotted this very bizarre Opiliones with scary looking palps.

Phlogiellus inermis, the Singapore tarantula is very common here. One log actually had at least 7 of them. Sadly that log was ripped open and the largest burrow on it completely destroyed.

Ctenidae. This individual was particularly aggressive, it bit down on a dried climber strand I used to gently prod it into turning around.

Not sure what spider this is.

One of Nicky's friends spotted this Sparassid again. After seeing photos of a similar but much larger specimen found in Kubah, it appears there may be many species with similar face and chelicerae.

Thomisidae. Quite a few of these crab spiders on the same fallen tree trunk as the carabid above.

Salticids.

Harmochirus or Bianor, has the characteristic swollen forelegs.

110701 Punggol

2011-06-30T23:44:00.000-07:00

The team was here with Dr Daphne to look for the strange anemones Kok Sheng and Mei Lin saw on their last visit. We could find many of the red ones but none of the others. The shore with the boulders smelled strongly of ammonia and all the Perna viridis mussels were gone.

Small climber crab that caught itself an even smaller crab.

Many Asterina coronata sea stars among the boulders. This one with a temporary crab companion.

However I saw only one Astropecten sand star.

Quite a few of these black sea urchins.

A couple of Dendrodoris fumata were stranded and looked like anemones until we took a closer look.

The mysterious red anemones Kok Sheng found on our second visit to Punggol which Dr Daphne has kindly identified for us as Bunodosoma goanensis.

This one was stranded, merely being occasionally lapped by waves from the receding tide, yet still had its tentacles out. Last minute feeding?

Dr Daphne spotted a couple of Stichodactyla haddoni which was quite surprising considering the boulder shore was pretty bare.

Back at the jetty pillars, Dr Daphne shared something interesting about Diadumene lineata. According to her, these anemones found in Japan had varied patterns in the same location indicating they were not clones from the same anemone and therefore likely to have originated there. As the anemones on Punggol jetty's pillars were also in varied patterns, she suspected that D. lineata could have originated here in Singapore too. Another tidbit would be that she believes it is more likely that D. lineata simply occupies empty barnacle tests instead of actively killing them to take over their homes. We often see them growing inside barnacle tests because those are the ones with better survivability.

And on the rubble shore, a strange pink anemone. It could be Anthopleura after all, according to the tentacles.

And on the same small rock as the pink anemone above was this anemone very much like Anthopleura dixoniana except it had small white dots on the body column.

Quite a few of these yellow tentacled anemones on the small rocks.

Very tiny fan worm, which I initially thought was an anemone.

110626 Dairy Farm Road

2011-06-26T08:37:00.000-07:00

Last minute decision to join Nicky and Sagita at Dairy Farm Road this morning, mainly because I fell asleep at 4pm yesterday and woke up at 5am this morning, early enough to catch them.

These strange katydids were only recently described by Mr Tan Ming Kai as Asiophlugis temasek. ~~looks very similar to the photo in the entry Phlugis thaumasia in Singapore red data book. However they are likely to be different as I saw at least 4 of them without trying very hard.~~

Cricket.

Ant carcass assassin bug nymph, suspected to be Acanthaspis.

Cicada. Saw another smaller brown one which flew away before I could photograph it.

Super hairy caterpillar.

Strange beetle with one bump on each elytron.

Tiny longhorn, about 1 cm long. Antennae held 90 degrees to its body when I first saw it. Closed up its antennae as in photo to hide better on that long thin vine when it sensed us approaching.

Sagita had sharp eyes for tiger beetles, spotting this Cicindela aurulenta

and this small brown tiger beetle.

Nicky spotted this tiny (7 mm) net-wing beetle (Lycidae).

This beetle was even tinier, at about 2 mm long.

A couple of flies that look like robber flies (Asilidae). The top one may be, but the bottom one did not seem to have facial hairs and could be something else.

Small strange looking red fly, about 6 mm long. There was another slightly smaller one nearby, on the same plant.

Sagita also spotted quite a few mantis flies (Mantispidae). Very flighty and only stop to rest upside down under plants.

Sleeping harvestman.

Sparassidae exuvia.

Cute and fairly large salticid.

Vicious jaws on this other male salticid, Viciria sp..

Yet another salticid.

Camponotus gigas stops to show me what lies between its open jaws. This one is a major worker.

110624 Mandai Track 15

2011-06-24T23:02:00.000-07:00

Went with Nicky and uncle Lew to look for Amblypygi but did not see any. However there was an impressive number of things too large for the MP-E 65.

Nicky spotted this Opiliones which I don't think I have seen before.

Statilia mantis.

Large mantis about 9 cm long.

Mantis nymph about 1 inch long and still without the winglets.

Looks like Amantis nymph.

Orthetrum glaucum dragonfly. Quite common here, saw 3 of them sleeping.

Saw this band of yellow and black.

Bashed in to investigate, turned out to be a gold-ringed cat snake Boiga dendrophila with a tail sticking out of its mouth. Looks like it just made a meal of a slightly too large changeable lizard.

Cigar-smoking snake lol. It seemed to flick out its tongue when disturbed.

This little bird (maybe 6 cm long) was huddled under a knee-high leaf. Ivan suggested it to be a Rufus-tailed tailorbird (Orthotomus sericeus) that was sleeping and got woken up. Apparently tailorbirds sleep like this (link 1, link 2).

Interesting looking moth.

The not particularly good ant mimic Corinnidae.

Looks like a wolf spider but eye configuration seems different. May be a sparassid.

Probably a Leucage as it had awesome trichobothria on its 4th legs.

Nicky spotted a couple of two-tailed spiders (Hersiliidae). This one had something strange on its abdomen.

Gasteracantha hasselti in its natural position, still in its web.

G. hasselti in a typical harassed position, on a twig, vine or leaf.

Quite a beautiful spider in the leaf litter, in perhaps an ambush position.

Nicky spotted this freshly molted sac spider.

He also spotted this large but extremely skittish spider. Looks like a heavily built huntsman, but not sure.

Bright red assassin bug (Reduviidae).

Large katydid, maybe 8-9 cm long.

Fungus beetle?

A couple of scarabs munching on flowers. These scarabs fly into my room all the time.

Strange looking beetle. Cetoniidae?

Dark sided chorus frog (Microhyla heymonsi).

Painted chorus frog (Microhyla butleri).

110619 Terumbu Selegi

2011-06-19T07:08:00.000-07:00

Terumbu Selegi is the place to find Phymanthus anemones. They could be found in all variations here. Another very common find here would be the long black sea cucumbers (Holothuria leucospilota).

Some Phymanthus like this one demonstrate very well why sea anemones are hexacorallians. They have six lines of symmetry.

Phymanthus and more Phymanthus.

And a sand Phymanthus.

And a tiny Phymanthus (8 mm diameter) that was completely covered by rock (both photos of the same individual). I found another one later.

As they resembled the sand Phymanthus, including the orange-red body column, and that sand Phymanthus tend to be smaller than the green varieties, I'm making a wild guess that it is possible the sand Phymanthus are the younger Phymanthus or Phymanthus that somehow lost its rock cover while growing up and therefore the same thing as all the other Phymanthus we see. Dr Daphne has also mentioned before that she believed the sand Phymanthus to be the same thing as the other Phymanthus.

However this green Phymanthus was much smaller than usual, so anything still goes...

Kok Sheng and Meilin showed me this three-spot damselfish (Dascyllus trimaculatus) in a Stichodactyla gigantea. I first saw it on Semakau but could not get a decent shot in the murky waters there.

Carpet eel blenny.

Acropora coral.

Tetralia nigrolineata in the Acropora coral.

Corallimorph carpet.

Ivan was the rockflipping king today:

He found this strange sea star

a large heart urchin (Maretia sp.)

and this pair of spider crabs. Cute couple dressing alike.

Kok Sheng and Meilin also found this cryptic sea star.

Large cluster of Holothuria leucospilota.

This black sea cucumber was found under a rock and might be a young black long cucumber.

Eriphia ferox.

The same octopus changing clothes in a flash.

Elysia ornata. Found in sand far from any seaweed.

Discodoris boholiensis.

Phyllidiella pustulosa.

Phyllidiella nigra.

Jorunna funebris.

Glossodoris atromarginata.

Very long ribbon worm (Valenciniidae).

Trochus niloticus. I saw 2 and Rene found a third one so they should be pretty common here.

These Eunice reef worms seem pretty common too. They creep out of their holes to look for seaweed and the moment the grab a mouthful of seaweed, they retreat in a flash into their holes.

110618 Dr Daphne at Lim Chu Kang mangroves

2011-06-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

Nothing quite like trudging through calf deep mangrove mud! This is the habitat for another mysterious mangrove anemone informally named "Bill" (bumpy Bill?). It is an unremarkable looking anemone with very plain long tapering tentacles and bumps on its body column. Bumps on sea anemone body columns are usually verrucae but according to Dr Daphne, the bumps on this particular anemone do not look like typical verrucae. Another mystery for Dr Daphne to solve.

At first I thought the mud was thigh high at places, but Ria later revealed that Chay Hoon was just kneeling down.

Dr Daphne working on some anemones found on a washed up tyre.

Taking a closer look at one of the smaller mangrove anemones. Although many of the small anemones attached to pillars, fallen branches, driftwood and other washed up substrates look very similar, they can actually be different species. Most will be Anthopleura handi, with the distinctively banded transparent tapering tentacles, and Diadumene lineata, with the characteristic colored stripes down the body column but there are also anemones with spots, and even among those with spots, the spots look different on different anemones.