Night Walk At Punggol (15 July 2016)

Despite the heavy rain in day, I decided to go back to the new location at Punggol to see how it is like when the weather is wet. One of the interesting encounter at the place was this small 6 mm Praying Mantis.

The first beetle for the trip was this commonly encountered Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis). There were a number of this beetle at the place.

Near to the Apogonia expeditionis Chafer Beetle was another Chafer Beetle.

Moving further to a patch of low Hairy Clidemia (Clidemia hirta) plant, I found several of this Chafer Beetle (Adoretus compressus) on it.

While I was exploring the new location, I noticed that there were many of this lovely colored Darkling Beetle. I would occasionally encounter one or two specimens of this type of beetle at one location, but on this trip I encountered at least 40 of them. It was so amazing to see half a dozen of them on a rotting log.  Here's a photograph of a pair of mating Darkling Beetle.

Next to the Darkling Beetle was another Darkling Beetle which is matte black in color. This was almost the opposite of the red-legged Darkling Beetle.

Moving to another fallen log, I found this lone Fungus Weevil (Eucorynus crassicornis).

Coming to an open area, I was surprised to find several of this orange color Leaf Beetle (Lema rufotestacea).

There were a number of big trees around the place and I found this 3 mm Darkling Beetle on one of them.

The highlight of the trip was the encounter of this large 40 mm Long Horned Beetle (Batocera rubus) resting on the buttress root of a large tree. It has been a while that I last encountered this beetle.

On another tree near by was this 4 mm Darkling Beetle.

Next to the Darkling Beetle was another surprise, a Long Horned Beetle (Coptops annulipes).

The open area then led to a wet sandy area where a number of this Tiger Beetle (Cicindela aurulenta) were found.

The trail later led me back to the place where I visited last week. Not too sure if it is due to the rain, there were a number of this Chafer Beetle (Maladera orientalis) encountered.

Another highlight of the trip was the encounter of this Ladybird Beetle (Coccinella sexmaculata). It was hiding under the folds of a leaf and so I lightly teased it with my left hand while trying very hard to snap as many photographs as possible using my right hand. Sadly, I didn't realize that my dual flash have shifted until the last few photographs before it flew off. This has led to the appearance of deep flash hotspots in majority of the photographs taken.

The last beetle for the trip was this Chafer Beetle (Maladera castanea). I initially wanted to stay on slightly longer to see if there are any other beetles around but the plan was disrupted when I was badly attacked by a horde of the small reddish-brown ants. Unlike last week's ant attack, this time round the attack was not only by the "worker ants" but also by the bigger "soldier ants". It was a really painful way to end the trip.

The trip was considerably fruitful with the encounter of the less commonly seen beetles. I will surely come back to this location again when the weather condition is better.