Last Saturday, I made my way again to the park that had a small mangrove area, the one that I wrote a note in 2 separate occasions: 5 April and 29 March. Another different set of sightings awaited me.

Unexpectedly, the focus was on the common climber, Mile-a-minute Vine (Mikania micrantha), though not exactly on vine itself but on the creatures harbouring on this vine. There were two different bugs and one beetle on this fast-growing vine. The main difference between a bug and the beetle is at the month part; bugs have a modified tube-liked month part that pierce plants to suck out plant juices while beetles’ mouth part is not modified and they usually chew on leaves.

The first bug was a rather conspicuous dark greyish Leaf-footed Bug, likely to be a Acanthocephala species. This was a common bug found in a few parks in my area and it seemed to attack all kind of plants, typically around the new shoot position or young branches. Its wingless nymph with a pair of swollen front legs were found together with the adult bugs. Adult bug had a red coloured back which was only visible when it opened its wings.

The second bug on the vine was a small black and round shield bug (Brachyplatys subaeneus) that resembled a ladybird beetle. Again, both adult bugs and nymphs were seen to except that they preferred cluster along the slender stem. The status of this bug should also be considered common although most of us did not get to spot them due to their tiny size. One even paid a visit to my home back in 2013. Another host plant that I had found this bug previously was Giant Sensitive Tree (Mimosa pigra).

The final resident on the vine was a real ladybird beetle (Epilachna indica), an orange one with black dots on its hardened forewings (elytra). A few of them were feeding on the leaves of the vine. I recalled seeing a survey on ladybird beetle initiated by Sean Yap in collaboration with NParks’ National Biodiversity Centre back in 2013, though I had not come across the result from that survey yet. Till now, I had managed to capture the pictures of 13 different ladybird beetles in Singapore.

Other interesting finds include: (1) A colony of frog hoppers or Spittlebugs (Philaenus leucophthalmus) gathering along a side branch of the Sea Hisbiscus (Talipariti tiliaceum); (2) A Common Gliding Lizard (Draco sumatranus) moving up a tree; and (3) many light brown mushrooms, likely to be the Glistening Inkcap (Coprinellus micaceus), colonizing a rotting stump and log.

Despite the 4th trip to this park in this year and visitation done at around the same time of the day, between 2 pm to 4 pm, I still got to see many exciting creatures.