Eco Field trip #1

Today was the first ecology field trip. Super packed time-table on mondays, after I decided to squeeze in my Professional Communications module into my only 12-2pm lunchbreak... God, its a continuous stretch of lessons from 8am to 6pm! Faintz... Whats more the ES lesson doesn't end earlier and I had to request for us to be excused. Quickly bought some handy food and rushed to the foyer where I heard my TA called me. Such a coincidence that I met her during the Team Seagrass orientation. Small world indeed. =)

During the briefing at carpark B, Jinghui pointed out this little mushroom and said that this was a baby stinkhorn fungi. I remembered reading that in Dr Chua Ee Kiam book Nature in Singapore. Kinda forgot its content except that it had a beautiful netted veil running down when fully mature.

We were sent off soon after and wandered into the jungle trail. There were many interesting things to see. Or maybe because I wasn't really a jungle person, all seemed new to me. The pictures below were mostly if not all spotted by Denise. Amazing eye for creepy crawlers ;p (can anyone identify those caterpillars?)

Ermm... R u 2 having sex? (Stilt-legged fly)

Caterpillar 1: camouflaged like part of the branch

Caterpillar 2: Big green head worm. So cute!

Caterpillar 3: cotten wool?

Cicada! wow, this is my first time seeing one! Contrary to what I thought, there are actually about 3000 species of cicadas! They are actually the loudest sound-producing insects. Unlike grasshoppers and crickets which produce sound by stridulation (rubbing), cicadas use their muscles to vibrate their drum-like membranes in the abdomen producing sound through resonance. And only the male sings. Cicadas feed on plant sap as this one is doing now.

Pictures below not for the faint hearted. Man...Feeling the goose-pimples again when seeing at these.

Weaver ants' nest

With easy access to food

Black Termites. Looks like they can deliver a painful pinch!

But of cos, we still carried out our field work on $$ plants. Here are Kaiqin and Jinhui, the male models posing with them for height estimation.

Trip ended soon. And I let my exhausted body slp for the entire 1.30h journey back home.

Interesting place, definitely worth for another trip. =) Eh...Forgot to mentioned the trip was at labrador =S