Walk in the Park

Singapore has suffered from haze pollution for the last one week but fortunately, the condition has improved during the weekend. It was a good decision to venture out for my usual park walk on last Sunday because it gave me the chance to find the second long-necked beetle (Korotyaevirhinus necopinus orientalis) within a month! This one was not cutting up leaf. Instead, it was sun bathing on the edge of a leaf.

I went back to the mango tree to check out on the work of the previous long-necked beetle (Paracycnotrachelus sp.) seen in my last park walk. At least 5 nests were constructed and concentrated on a single branch of leaves.It should be the work of one beetle since I did not see any other beetle on that day.

The close-up view of one of the nest:

While checking out the mango tree, I spotted this interesting looking Assassin Bug (Sycanus collaris). This was the second time that I saw this bug on this tree.

It took me quite a while before I know where to look for this hairy caterpillar that belongs to the Baron butterfly (Euthalia aconthea gurda).

Several tiny caterpillars of the Autumn Leaf butterfly (Doleschallia bisaltide) had just emerged from their eggs about a day ago. The one and only hostplant (Caricature Plant, Graptophyllum pictum) was heavily trimmed recently and not much leaves were left on the plant. The caterpillars are going to run out of food very soon.

A bag worm was munching on the leaf of a Syzygium species. The next picture showed a closer view of the head region while the rest of the body was hidden in the bag.

 A bright orange-yellow skipper (Yellow Palm Dart) that was first observed in Singapore back in 1999.

The male counterpart of the Golden Web Spider (Nephila pilipes) is quite small when compare to the large female spider.

This Flower Chafer beetle (Glycyphana nicobarica) is fully engross with the pink colour blooms from the Feather Cockscomb (Celosia argentea).

The park continued to surprise me with interesting little creatures.

Walk in the Park

It has been over a year since I last posted something on my blog. The park that I often visit over weekends for my nature photography plus exploration had completed a partial upgrading of facilities in the last one year. Judging from the varieties of little creatures that I managed to find during this walk on 8 June, the impact of the upgrading to the surrounding nature seemed to be quite minimum.

The first creature spotted was a ant-mimicking jumping spider (Myrmarachne maxillosa). Without close examination, one would have easily mistaken it to be an ant.

The next creature was a very tiny yellow ladybird beetle (Illeis koebelei). The 2 prominent dark spots at its head region are not the eyes. The real eyes are smaller and located at the front end of the head region.

Forest cockroach (Pseudophoraspis nebulosa) is rather common around the area. It usually rest in the day. This time round, I managed to snap a partial view of the underside of its body and head region. Its other common name is Dried Leaf Cockroach.

Though the weather was rather dry, mushrooms were still available. These mini-sticks with white tips are actually mushrooms (or fungi). They were found growing on a fallen tree trunk. The second picture below showed a close-up view of this stick mushroom.

These are the more common mushrooms with a cap and a stalk below. The second picture below showed the underside of the one of the mushrooms.

There were quite a numbers of these grasshopper nymphs among the leaves of different plants.

The rather common giant shield bug nymphs (Pycanum rubens) gathering on the underside of a leaf of its hostplant, the Simpoh Air shrub (Dillenia suffruticosa).

Seven bug eggs arranged in a single row were found on the leaflet of a fern. It might be from the Leaf-footed Bug (Acanthocephala sp.) which is a common bug in this park.

Two juvenile praying mantis were spotted along the way. Both were relatively small. One was black in colour and looked like an ant while the other one was green in colour.

The Painted Jezebel (Delias hyparete metarete) was one of the 2 butterflies that I managed to take some decent pictures. The other one was Tawny Coster (Acraea violae).

A rather unusual find was this caterpillar standing still under the hot sun on a leaf of a young mango plant. Judging from the feature of its head region, it should be the caterpillar of the Blue Nawab (Polyura schreiber tisamenus). The recorded hostplants of this butterfly are Adenanthera pavonina (Red Saga), Chorisia speciosa (Silk Floss Tree), Nephelium lappaceum (Rambutan). As it was not feeding, I was not certain whether mango tree is one of its hostplant.

At a first glance, there was nothing unusual about this little creature on a young leaf. I had thought that it was a spider. But, after taking 2 shots, the "spider" remained undisturbed which was unusual.

After taking a closer look, it was not a spider but a strange-looking beetle with a narrow neck region. It was actually responsible for the cuts on the leaf.

Yes! I had finally found a giraffe weevil or long-necked beetle (Paracycnotrachelus sp.). When I first seen this beetle at Kurt's Blog, I was fascinated about this long-necked insect. The one that I saw was a female since its male counterpart has a much longer neck. The purpose for cutting up the leaf is to build a nest. I did not wait till it completed its nest-building work as I suspected that it was going to take quite a while.

There were more creatures seen with their pictures taken. The ones shown here were the more interesting lots.

Malayan Mistletoe and Caterpillars

This afternoon, while I was doing my routine round at the park, I spotted a Crepe Myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) with a Malayan Mistletoe (Dendrophthoe pentandra) sitting on one of its branches.

While scanning the mistletoe, I saw a lump of material underneath one of the leaves that looked like bird dropping. I suspected that it could be a caterpillar since the leaf at one end had been eaten away. Later, I did confirm that it is the caterpillar of the Peacock Royal (Tajuria cippus maxentius).

With this find, I started to search more thoroughly to see whether there were more of the caterpillars. Indeed, there were more except that this newly discovered group of caterpillars were not of the same species as the one above. They belong to the butterfly, Painted Jezebel (Delias hyparete metarete).

Both the caterpillars of Peacock Royal and Painted Jezebel are known to feed on this mistletoe. While searching for caterpillars, I also found more mistletoe on this Crepe Myrtle shrub.

There were at least 10 or more mistletoe but most of them were seedlings. This one had just started to germinate on one of the branches. [Update: This was not the seedling of Malayan Mistletoe but another mistletoe known as Common Chinese Mistletoe (Macrosolen cochinchinensis).]

Besides this lone Crepe Myrtle shrub, this mistletoe had also invaded quite a few of the Penang Sloe (Kopsia flavida) trees in the park. One of the trees was so heavily infested that none of the leaf from the host plant was left. These were some of the mistletoe flowers seen on the tree.

If you are interested to read more about mistletoe in Singapore, there is a book titled "The Singapore Mistletoe Story" written by Francis Lim.

Erycibe tomentosa - A Woody Climber

Despite the cloudy weather this morning, I decided to go to the park for a walk. While walking along a path, I noticed a strong scent that smell like that from Jasmine flowers. A few minutes later, the mystery was solved --- the scent came from the flowers of Erycibe tomentosa, a common woody climber.

The sepals of the flower are dark brown at the part toward the tip. The flowers bloom at night and usually withered by early morning. The cool morning temperature today probably help to extend the life span of the flowers a little, thus allowing me to take their pictures.

Although it is a common climber in parks, especially though with remnant of natural vegetation, it rarely attract attention as its leaves are pretty much like any of the surrounding plants and it seldom flowers or bear fruits under the shade of tall trees.

A way of identifying the climber is to look at the tip of the branch where the young leaves appear. This tip has an orange-brown appearance and is cover with tiny hairs.

I had identified this climber at least 2 years back and since then, was actively looking for its flower and fruit. The first breakthrough came in August 2011 where I found some flower buds at this same park. I return a week later in a morning but could only find a lone flower while the rest had withered. Back then, I did not notice the scent from the flower.

While I was eagerly waiting for its fruits, a storm took place one night and brought down the tree where the climber was hanging on. This created a mess across the track. Fortunately, the cleaning up of the mess did not remove all the climbers. Eventually, in October, I get to see the lovely fruits.

With that, I now have the complete set of pictures from leaves, flowers to fruits. The new thing that I learn today is the unique and strong scent from its flowers.

Persian Violet - Exacum affine

Finally, I seem to find a nice-looking flowering plant that is able to naturalise at my balcony garden. I have been trying to find herbaceous plant that bear nice flowers and are able to continue its generations at my little balcony garden with little care from me.

Persian Violet (Exacum affine) appears to be the answer. The light purple flower is about 1.5 cm in diameter.

The parent plant was obtained from a nursery in March 2011. Persian Violet is native to the Island of Socotra, a Yemen archipelago in the Indian Ocean. It is a rather common horticulture plant.

It adapted very well at its new home. By May 2011, it has almost tripled its size with plenty of purple flowers.

When in full bloom, the whole plant looks spectacular with the small violet flowers.

When the plant started to age, I thought that it would follow the course of most of the exotic plants that I brought back --- become history after the last leaf turns brown. In July 2011, I noticed the first seedling growing in the pot next to the mother plant. It even had a tiny flower bud.

Two months later, the young plant has at least 8 flowers on it. This probably means that the second generation is adapting well to the condition. My balcony has half a day of sunlight in the morning and the soil in the pot is usually moist most of the time.

At the same time, I started to discover more seedlings in a nearby pot, at least more than 10 of them. The seeds must be really small as I had never seen them on the parent plant.

Although it is reported to be a biennial, it only lasted about 6 months. Either the condition at the balcony is too harsh or the soil texture did not suit its taste .In the last few months, I have been spreading the seedlings around. This picture, taken today, is from one of the healthy seedlings.

Interestingly, there is not a single seedling under the parent plant. The seedlings are only found on the pots next to the parent plant.

Let's see how far the next generations can last. [Update: The last plant was seen in March 2013. It soon succumbed to the attack of the mealy bugs. This ended my journey with this plant.]