Weekly Series
Nature Weekly
Short Notes on Nature Singapore

3 January 2016 | Walk at the Park | Admiralty Park |

This was a Christmas Day morning walk at the Admiralty Park with the aim of looking out for spittlebugs, which I had shared last week. While searching high-and-low for the spittlebugs, I came across quite a number of litter creatures or minibeasts. The first group was spiders: (1) Female Wide-Jawed Viciria (Viciria praemandibularis); (2) Female Six-spotted Jumping Spider (Bavia sexpunctata); (3) Mirror Spider (Thwaitesia sp.); (4) Comb-footed Spider (Meotipa sp.).

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The second group was caterpillars though I did not capture any picture of butterfly or moth. Of the 4 caterpillars spotted, one belong to a butterfly while the other 3 were from moths: (1) Common Bluebottle (Graphium sarpedon luctatius); (2) Owlet Moth (Asota Plana); (3) Hawk Moth (Enpinanga borneensis); (4) Unknown caterpillar on its host plant, Bintangor Bunut (Calophyllum soulattri).

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The last sizable group was snails and slugs: (1) Unknown tiny snail; (2) Another tiny snail, Coneuplecta olivacea; (3) Macrochlamys resplendens; (4) Yellow-shelled Semi-slug (Parmarion martensi). These slimy creatures were abundant likely due to the downpour the night before.

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photo photo The most interesting find at this trip was a Terrestrial Flatworm that coiled round a spider, which was probably going to be the food of the flatworm. This flatworm was likely to be Dolichoplana striata. A detailed write up on the Terrestrial Flatworm in Singapore is available at the Lazy Lizard Tales blog.

I went to the spot to check on the lone Tectaria incisa seen in October. It had grown taller over the last 2 months. What surprised me was the numerous young Thinleaf Brake fern (Pteris biaurita) growing around the Tectaria incisa. This was the first time that I saw this fern in the wild. My earlier encounter was in my pot back in 2010 where a colony of this fern grew spontaneously out from my pot though it was gone now.

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