Sunday, July 17, 2011

Mud Lobster in Crab hole

I was back in Pulau Semakau again for a continuation of the plant survey for Project Semakau. It was quite a satisfying trip with a few new sightings of plants not found in the last 2 surveys. But, the highlight of the trip was probably of this mud lobster, Thalassina sp. on the sandy shore.

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The upper portion of its claw is much elongated, probably used for digging.

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It retreated to a hole made by a ghost crab soon after.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Ugly duckling

Was at Pearl’s Hill City Park today and was amazed to see a family of White Breasted Waterhens crossing the road. 2 parents and 3 black furry chicks! How adorable~

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Unfortunately, it took me awhile to get out my camera, on it, zoom and focus (now I can truly appreciate having an SLR), but they ran off into the undergrowth. Luckily I saw one parent and a chick wandering about later and managed to catch a lousy picture.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Mandai tree falls

Here are some pictures of the devastation bought by the storms in Mandai forest earlier this year in February. Tony gave a good description about this incident in his website.

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Tree falls

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with young saplings.

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Look at the amount of staghorn ferns on this tree fall!

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More tree falls~

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Probably some seeds passed out by a civet cat.

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We saw quite a few bat lilies flowering.

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A saw this web like thing with caterpillars on it. Initially we thought that they were trapped in a spider web.

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But later we realised that they can actually move freely in the web. Apparently, Horace said that these are moth caterpillars living in a communal web made by themselves.

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