Morning Walk At Venus Drive (01 Nov 2014)

I was wanting to test out my "new" diffuser set up to see how well it works in the day, so I decided to go to Venus Drive for a walk. When I reached the location, I was sadden by the sight of the destruction made by the wild boars. Guessed that the wild boars problem was still not resolved.

During the walk, I came across this lovely flat worm (Diversibipalium rauchi).

The first beetle that greeted me was my all time favorite - a white Ladybird Beetle. It was found under a leaf of an elephant ear plant.

Under the same leaf was an Ant-like Flower Beetle (Anthelephila cyanea).

Moving on to the usual spot where I would find different types of Leaf Beetle, I am a little disappointed as I was only able to find one Leaf Beetle (Lema diversa). This is probably due to the rain earlier on as all the vegetation at the place were very wet.

Sifting through a large patch of knee-high grass, I managed to find a first-time-encountered Leaf Beetle on a blade of grass.

The human traffic along this trail was very high and this is probably the reason for the low number of critters encountered, beetle included. Searching carefully, I managed to find a beetle larvae on a huge tree.

To my pleasant surprise, I was able to find four of this Flower Chafer Beetle (Taeniodera monacha) near to a pile of chopped branches.

On a large tree was three Fungus Beetles, all nicely lined up in a row.

Next to the muddy path was a pair of Fungus Beetle (Eumorphus quadriguttatus quadriguttatus).

A stone's throw away from the Fungus Beetle was another Fungus Beetle (Stenotarsus nobilis nobilis).

On a dying tree next to the trail, I found this lovely Fungus Beetle.

On the same tree was another Fungus Beetle.

Further down the trail, I found a newly transformed beetle pupa.

Moving away from the busy trail and into the lesser human traffic trail, I was glad to find this Fungus Beetle (Eumorphus mirus) which I have not encountered for a while.

Coming to an area of shaded grass patch, I was surprised to find several of this Spiny Leaf Beetle.

Sadly, one of the Spiny Leaf Beetle seemed to be covered with some sort of fungus. It looked like the days of this beetle is numbered.

Coming to some vines, a familiar bronze color Leaf Beetle (Graphops curtipennis) was hiding under a leaf, probably preparing for the impending rain as around this time, the sky looked very much like it was about to rain.

Picking up my pace, I walked past an area with some creeper vine and on it I found this lovely metallic blue color Leaf Beetle.

There seemed to be an increase in the number of wood piles along the Venus Drive trail and one of the piles, I found the only Checkered Beetle for this trip.

Hiding under some tree shade was a Ground Beetle (Coptodera marginata).

The sky started to rumble and it looked like it will start raining any moment. Just then, I found this tiny 1 mm Leaf Beetle that was moving about a leaf restlessly. It was a challenge to photograph such a small moving beetle and I decided to tilt the leaf to get a better angle for me to photograph. Just as my hand touched the leaf, the beetle did something unexpected - it stopped moving and froze. With it not moving, I was able to get a few good shots of it.

Along the trail was this long fallen tree - easily 6-7 meters end-to-end. To my surprise, there were several types of Fungus Beetle and beetle larvae on it.

Several pairs of this Episcapha quadrimacula Fungus Beetle were found on the fallen tree.

Crawling on the fallen tree were also several of this colorful beetle larvae.

I was elated to find this interesting Fungus Beetle on the fallen tree. It was only last week that I found this type of  beetle at the Upper Pierce Reservoir.

The sky started to drizzle and it looked like it will continue on. Before leaving the fallen tree, I managed to find another pair of Fungus Beetle. This beetle is about 1/4 of the usual Fungus Beetle.

Under the thick tree canopy, the rain was not very heavy and some critters can  still be found. A 2 mm first-time-encountered beetle was found motionless on a leaf under the thick tree canopy. It looked like a Fungus Beetle or is it a Darkling Beetle?
[Afternote :I was informed by David Gall that this is a Sap Beetle in the Nitidulidae family. Thanx.]

Venus Drive has never failed to yield a decent number of beetles even if the weather was not so favorable. This has once again proven by the number of beetle encountered on this trip. As the monsoon starts in Singapore, the chances of me going on walks will greatly be reduced - so I do hoped to be able to maintain my weekly photography sessions if the weather permits.