Shark Sighting

Definitely a worthly enough topic for posting even though theres no pictures! Wow, me and E1 saw a shark at Raffles Lighthouse while helping YJ to collect eggs from the corals' mass spawning. It definitely does seemed to be a nurse shark (Family: Ginglymostomatidae) as YJ said when she saw it this Monday, since it looks like a benthic dweller (flattened body) with "moustache". Those moustache are actually chemosensory barbels to aid prey detection from the bottom. It was about 1.5m long, rather cute and harmless looking. But it swam off quickly despite our attempts to follow... alas. Still, a wonderful memory :)

It looked very similar to this.
Source: wikipedia

Snakes (RoadKill)

Apologizes for neglecting my blog for so long. This is because I'm extremely busy with school work during this period. That said, I finally had the chance to squeeze out some time for a short trip with a few friends for a night exploration a few days back.

As it turns out, the nocturnal settings in the forest of the Central Catchment is so much different compared to the day. We saw frogs, fishes, crabs, a few interesting insects and other critters. Due to time constraints, I won't be blogging about them, but you can check out some selected photos from my flickR. :)

However, snakes always make a worthy topic to talk about and considering this is my first decent shots of one. We saw this Puff-faced Water Snake, Homalopsis buccata, about a metre long in a pond. It was practically motionless for about half an hour, which allowed me to take several nice close-up pictures. According to the SLOG blog, it is mildly venomous, but not lethal. SJ also commented on its bad temperament, which we were lucky not to experience.

We also saw another species, the Spotted Keelback Snake, Xenochrophis maculatus while walking back from to the main road. But it was barely identifiable (thanks to SJ and SD for the ID), being flattened with the innards bursting out after being evidently squashed by a vehicle. As to whether they are lethal or not, there seems to be some conflict between sources. #1 It was written that keelbacks are generally not aggressive with this species not being venomous while #2 another stated that human fatalities have been involved and all keelbacks should be handled with caution.

Perhaps someone can enlighten me on this?

Worm Baiting

At Sembawang Park, I saw an uncle doing a most peculiar thing. He was sprinkling water along the sandy shores from a container which looked like it contained orange peels. Observing attentively at the spot were he sprayed, with a swift motion, he dug his fingers into the sand probably observing some movement. And wow..., out came a worm which he passed to his daughter, probably to be used as fishing bait later. Quite amazing, I wonder how the water soaked in orange skins lured the worms out...

For people who have a passion for fishing, please do not throw away unwanted lines and hooks anywhere. This may pose a potential danger to birds which can get entangled or cut by them. See the sad story of the heron killed by such in BESG blog.