When we reached the place I was glad to find the place slightly damp and not wet as expected. The highlight of the trip was the encounter of this White-spotted Slug Snake (Pareas margaritophorus) which is not supposed to be indigenous to Singapore but accidentally introduced. This is the second time that I came across this snake, with the first one encountered along Mandai Road many years back. This particular specimen looked well fed and it was not surprising given the many slugs that were at the place when we were there.
As expected, the first beetle for the trip was a Chafer Beetle (Adoretus compressus) on a blade of a tall grass.
Near to the Adoretus compressus Chafer Beetle was another commonly encountered Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis).
Before the trip, we were expecting to find Chafer Beetles for the initial part of the the route and sure enough, we found more Chafer Beetles as we move towards the Pasir Ris Town Park. Here's a photograph of a pair of mating Chafer Beetle (Maladera castanea).
Further down the route was this brownish Chafer Beetle which I previously thought to be the Adoretus compressus Chafer Beetle (but I no longer think it is since the time I encountered a mating pair of this beetle).
Another highlight of the trip was this lovely Ladybird Beetle (Heteroneda reticulata). For a moment when I encountered this specimen, I thought I have finally encounter one of the beetles on my target list to photograph - Harmonia testudinaria Ladybird Beetle, which looked very similar to the Hereoneda reticulata Ladybird beetle at a cursory glance. A simple differentiation between the two would be the markings on the pronotum. Although this is not the Harmonia testudinaria Ladybird Beetle, it was still a wonderful find for the trip.
On a small tree near to the Ladybird Beetle was a 3 mm Darkling Beetle.
There were several Ladybird nymphs encountered on the trip and this is one of them which was less active among those that we have encountered that night.
Next to the Ladybird nymph was a small 3 mm Leaf Beetle which I have not encountered for a long while. Sadly it was in an odd position to get a good shot of it.
Coming to a small patch of Clidemia hirta plants, I was glad to find this Chafer Beetle (Anomala variegata) resting on a leaf.
Unlike places like Venus Drive or Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, the place rarely has any fallen log along the route that we take at Pasir Ris Park and hence finding a fallen log there was a treat. Several of this large 20 mm Darkling Beetle (Eucyrtus anthracinus) was found on the log.
After some walking, we finally reached the spot where we usually find colonies of Golden-spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela aurulenta). We were glad to still be able to find that the colonies were doing well at the place.
All the beetles encountered so far were the usual Chafer Beetle and Darkling Beetle, hence I was thrilled when HW call out to me that he found a Long Horned Beetle. At a glance, the beetle didn't look very interesting until I examined its photographs at home and noticed that there were some markings on its pronotum. Also, this turned out to be a first-time-encountered Long Horned Beetle.
On a small tree nearby was a small 1 mm Fungus Beetle which was in a difficult position to get a good photograph of it.
On another tree nearby was this 3 mm Darkling Beetle.
We were almost at the end of our usual route and on a low ground creeper was this Sweet Potato Weevil (Cylas fornicarius).
Nearby was another Chafer Beetle resting on a low bush.
A surprise find was this Fungus Beetle (Amblyopus vittatus) found on a blade of lalang grass.
The last beetle for the trip was this Click Beetle (Pectocera babai) on a Fish-tail Palm leaf.
The trip was fruitful compared to the recent trip that we had at Venus Drive. I am also glad to be able to find a first-time-encountered Long Horned Beetle on this trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment