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The Night I Smelt Like Vinegar
Whip Scorpions belong to the order Thelyphonida, and I would consider them to be "cousins" of spiders and other scorpions. They are also called Vinegarroons, because of their defence mechanism --...
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Singapore's Leaf Rolling Weevils
Leaf Rolling Weevils are sometimes known as Giraffe Weevils due to their longer necks. The necks in the males of certain species are extraordinarily long, but we have not seen those in Singapore yet....
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The Walking Leaf
This short post brings us to a close look at one of the walking leaves in Singapore - Gray's Leaf Insect (Phyllium bioculatum). It was found dangling on a roped railing doing some gymnastics when it...
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The Lock and Key of Spiders
In the reproduction of spiders, the male typically transfers it's sperm from it's pedipalps to the female's epigyne. The epigyne is the external genital structure of female spiders located on the...
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Macro Highlights of 2012
As the year draws to an end, I looked back at my haul - over 3000 scenes captured and uploaded! This is a record as I put my tripod aside in June to embark on more hand-held adventures, chalking over...
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Nature Macro Photography Workshop @ Science Centre Singapore
IMPORTANT UPDATESThe workshop on 22 June has been postponed to 6 July in view of the current haze conditions. All registrants have been informed and moved to the new workshop date.The workshop for 29...
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Nikoi Island's Micro World Day 1
Nikoi Island [ Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 ]I had the opportunity to do an arthropod survey in Nikoi Island, a private resort island located 8km east of Bintan. It is a beautiful little island (probably...
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Nikoi Island's Micro World Day 2
Nikoi Island [ Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 ] We had a very short snooze after a whole day of shooting, but I found myself up again at 2am and 3am to check out the stars. Quite unfortunately, the stars were...
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Nikoi Island's Micro World Day 3
Nikoi Island [ Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 ] Final day at Nikoi Island! We finally got our butts up the hill and venture across the island in the morning before checking out. The forest paths were lined with...
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Macro Photography Workshop Session 1
The first macro workshop is finally complete after a grueling 5 hours of yakking away and bug shooting! It was a full house and I got a bit worried because we had some completely new to photography...
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Macro Photography Workshop Session 2
Finally concluded my macro workshop series! While many of the participants are already asking for follow-up workshops and field trips, I'm letting myself get a little bit more sleep for a while first....
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Ultraviolet Fluorescence in Spiders
It is rather common knowledge that scorpions emit a bright blue glow under ultraviolet light. Recently, we've found that some millipedes and harvestmen exhibit the same behavior as well. This made us...
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Transformation of the Mirror Spider
I have long observed the odd behavior of the Mirror Spider (Thwaitesia sp.) where the "silver-plates" on the abdomen seems to shrink when the spider is agitated (or perhaps threatened), revealing the...
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Moulting - A Natural Wonder
In order to grow, most arthropods have to shed their exoskeleton because this hardened outer layer restricts growth. This delicate process of shedding the exoskeleton and expanding to a larger size, is...
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The Roly Poly Pill Millipede
Pill Millipedes are probably the cutest millipedes one could find. When disturbed, it rolls up into a ball, exposing only the tougher segmented backs and keeping the softer underparts out of sight. The...
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Gruesome Tactics of an Ant-Snatching Assassin Bug
This post highlights the gruesome, yet ingenious tactics of the Ant-Snatching Assassin Bug (Acanthaspis sp.) which I shot again on Friday night. This assassin bug sticks the corpses of it's devoured...
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The Plushy, Squishy Velvet Worm
The Velvet Worm (Onychophora) looks like a plush toy. It looks squishy. And it's darn cute. Our night would've been a dull walk had it not been for the sighting of this beautiful multi-legged worm....
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Spider Leg Regeneration
Many a time, we've seen spiders that have lost legs. Some may have lost it in fights, while some may have dropped the legs when escaping from predators that have caught onto their legs. Losing a limb...
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Happy 48th Birthday Singapore!
Singapore celebrates her 48th birthday today. Not many know Singapore for topics of nature, but we manage to continually discover and photograph the little critters around us. Here's a song from our...
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Another Beautiful Spider Under Ultraviolet
In a recent post, I highlighted an instance where a bird dung spider looked radically different when exposed to ultraviolet light. This week, we found another spider emitting a beautiful cyan hue under...
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