A Big, Shiny, Green Ant

I was at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve as our school was guiding Fernvale Primary School. Luckily for me, I didn't need to guide as I was the photographer. Just as we reached the Visitor Centre, I was about to sit down on the bench when something shiny caught my eye. A Huge Green Ant was pulling a leaf.

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It soon gave up and decided to move away. It may have sensed our approach though.

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I didn't think it was very safe for it to be on the bench as I feared that someone would accidentally sit on it, or the ant would bite the person if it feels threatened. The ant's jaws looked big and fierce too. With the help of a dead leaf, I moved it to the plants beside the pond.

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We're seeing Mantids Everyday

It was another day. The recess was 45 minutes this time, giving me an additional 15 minutes to hunt. The garden looked lifeless to me this time. We found absolutely nothing after lifting up the stone slabs, flower pots and bricks. But as I walked by a particular plant, something, upon knowing my presence, moved from the top to the underside of the leaf. At first thought itself I knew what it was. I immediately called my friend and moved to the other side of the plant. There, hiding under the leaf was a tiny Praying Mantis.

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I could not get such a good shot though. After distracting it to the top of the leaf, it showed up its front legs, as if it was trying to scare me away. I took this as a good opportunity and photographed it.

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Very quickly it tried to escape to the underside of the leaf, but I was determind to get a better photograph of it, so I made it stay where it was, taking a few more shots.

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Now with a Bird's Eye View of what it looks like.

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Well, this is not the only mantis that I spotted. Within a few minutes after taking my shots, I found another mantis on the same plant! It was very weird why there would be two mantises on a single plant. I went forward to look at the second mantis and I soon started to photograph it. I tried my first shot. Well, I did capture its body but its head was hidden behind a leaf.

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The soft flash disturbed him slightly, so he decided to move about onto the next leaf. But I did make sure it didn't go towards the other mantis or both of them will be in hot soup.

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So that was were it would stay. Under that particular leaf. My recess was nearly over by the time I took all these shots, and hence I had to take my shots faster. After taking a shot of it as it dashed to the flower, I left it and ran to class.

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Apparently I think that these mantises are juveniles as they still have not developed wings, and use the 'hopping' method to escape from predators. The mother may have laid her eggs somewhere close by, causing these two particular mantises to end up on the same plant. Well, I am still hoping to find a few more of these tiny mantises, as these surely should be animals that have adapted to an urban environment.

Colours of the Rainbow

I had to post all these spider pictures first as I'm still not done with the rest. As I had said, I managed to find a variety of animals in the garden. I was chasing after a House Shrew when I nearly hit this colourful spider and its web. If it wasn't for my friend who warned me about the web, I would have hit it and the spider. It was a very unique and attractively marked one. With help by showing a leaf behind, I managed to take some pretty shots.

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The spider soon realised about our presence, and slowly made a dash to the other end of the web, which was the fence. As it moved, I managed to take two pictures of it.

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I didn't want it to abandon its web so I distracted it the other way, causing it to go back and onto its web. Although I didn't take any shots then, I have to show one last picture of the spider as it walked slowly on its web.

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On another plant, we came across a different species. This one was much smaller and was less colourful than the previous one we encountered.

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And in the very middle, waiting to prey on some of the Pygmy Grass Blues was a long-legged spider, about an inch in length with a big white patch on its back. Is it a Daddy Long-Leg?

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Good enough for a Mini-Hunt.

Urban Garden Caterpillars

I've got dozens of photograph of creatures that I saw in that particular garden itself to show. I've got to show them one by one, following their categories. Well the particular animals here are caterpillars. I managed to find two species (maybe three) of caterpillars in the garden. First one is a Lime Butterfly or Common Mormon Butterfly Caterpillar. I spotted one of the green one and another one of the small, bird-dropping like one. Here's the older green one.

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I'm not sure if these caterpillars belong to the Lime Butterfly or Common Mormon Butterfly. Both feed on the same leaves, and their caterpillars also have an exactly similar look; the newer one disguised as a bird-dropping, the older one full green with a black 'eye' at the back to scare away predators.

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And the younger form, with the disguised bird-dropping colour. Best shot I have of it was when it was making its lunch out of a lime leaf.

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The other species I have is the caterpillar of another very common butterfly here, that is often seen flying around in the hot sun. Their Caterpillars are hairy with a mixture of colours. I encountered this particular one on a leafless twig. It actually 'jumped' to the floor upon seeing me.

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I got it onto a leaf and it soon started to feed on it.

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Attracting Butterflies

I was back in school the next day and during recess I headed straight to the garden where I saw the Ant-Mimic Spiders. There were many butterflies there at that time, especially the tiny Pygmy-Grass Blues. As I walked by the flowers I tried to get some shots of them but didn't really manage to. But I spotted another common species sitting down motionlessly on the leaf. I went close and took two shots.

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A few minutes later, a number of other butterflies came for a visit. I'm not sure about their species. I managed to get a single shot as they were rather quick.

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And once again, I found another of the same butterfly that stood motionlessly till I photographed it.

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Left with a Tarantula

We were just about to leave to school when I curiously lifted up a rock close to the vegetation. Something brown moved a little, and at first look itself I knew what it was. A Singapore Tarantula, the only species of tarantula that can be found in Singapore. It took me quite a while to get a full shot of it. First I managed to get a shot of it with its head hiding under its nest.

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These are hairy, robust spiders with heavy jaws projecting forward horizontally from the cephalothorax. The fangs point backwards, instead of facing each other like a pair of pincers as in most spiders. On the underside of the abdomen are two pairs of book-lungs, whose positions are marked by four pale patches.

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Soon it moved out of the nest cautiously and I was just there to get a shot of it with its entire body out. This is one of the pictures that I took:

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This is a common species found in and around leaf litter and under rocks and pieces of wood. Gardens and wasteland are its favoured habitat, thus making it common in urban areas.

Frog Faces

I wasn't really expecting to find any frogs at West Coast Park that day, although I could hear the calls of Field Frogs from the Paddy closer to the Marsh. But as we got out of the path, I noticed a large dead frog. I moved closer and figured it out as an American Bullfrog.

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This is a native of the U.S. and southern Canada, that has been released into ponds and reservoirs in Singapore as a means of religious merit-making. This is potentially dangerous to the other native species of frogs as American Bullfrogs eat almost anyhting, including their own kind. This leaves less food and space for our native species of frogs, causing their population to decrease. Luckily, this specimen did not manage to survive here and has hence died. If they were to survive, they could populate in such a high number that almost all other living animals here could vanish.

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Well, apart from the American Bullfrog, we spotted another Bullfrog, this one also an introduced species, the Banded Bullfrog. This frog is considered as a highly succesful introduced species, because it is the second most common frog in Singapore. Unlike the American Bullfrog, it has not done much damage to our eco-system as this frog feed mainly on ants and termites. Here are a few pictures we took.

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It was originally resting on the underside of a small piece of wood. I have seen this frog many times, but I never cared to photograph it as it was such a common species. And most of the time I had an encounter with this frog, I did not have my camera with me. This time I did, so I decided to take two shots of it.

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