Night Walk At Mount Faber Park (04 Jun 2021)

My last blog post was more than a month ago, partially due to the Covid-19 measures, termed as Phase 2 (Heightened Alert), and partially due to the exceptionally warm weather that we are experiencing in Singapore. In fact, I was all ready to go for a macro photography session last week, but cancelled it last minute due to the warm weather. Although the weather was still as warm today, there was some rain in the afternoon. As such, I decided to proceed with the session with my friend HW, and go to the Mount Faber Park as previously planned.

Here's a photograph of some small mushrooms growing on a fallen log.

The first beetle for the trip was a pretty commonly encountered Chafer Beetle (Maladera castanea).

The next beetle encountered was a commonly encountered Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis), hiding behind a curled up leaf.

A surprise find was a 12 mm Long Horned Beetle (Pterolophia melanura) resting on the underside of  a tree vine.

After encountering the Long Horned Beetle, it took us quite a while before we found this first-time-encountered 3 mm Leaf Beetle. I am not too sure of the identity of this beetle, but it could possibly be Basilepta anthracina.

Immediately after encountering the Leaf Beetle, I was happy to find several of this Tiger Beetle (Cicindela aurulenta) resting together on some low bushes.

The next beetle looked similar to those Darkling Beetles that I previously encountered, except for the size of the beetle is half the size of previously encountered beetles, at about 10 mm. As such, I put this as a first-time-encountered beetle. 

While I was looking for other beetles, HW called out to me that he found this False Click Beetle, resting on the underside of a leave. To photograph it, I had to carefully turn over the leaf with my left hand while using my right hand to photograph it.

The trail that we took seemed to have been disused for a while and we ended up bashing through the thick undergrowth for a good part of the trip in order to reach the summit of Mount Faber Park. By the time we reached the summit, I was drenched through to my skin by my own perspiration. Pretty tired from the unexpected "exercise", we decided to call it a day and headed towards the way to the bottom of the hill.  Just then I found this small 3 mm Darkling Beetle on a small stool made from a sawn tree trunk. 

The trip was particularly tiring due to the unexpected "exercise" needed to get to the summit of Mount Faber Park. The number of beetles encountered during the trip was a great dismal as I was hopeful that we will be able to find a lot more beetles than this. Nevertheless, this is still a wonderful trip as I am able to test out my DIY fix to the camera problem mentioned in my previous blog post. 

Lastly, I have decided to go back to my previous style of writing more for the blog post. Personally, I prefer to write more as compared to just putting the information on the beetles encountered, even though this will take a lot more time to write the post. May be I will do this for the moment while the Covid-19 pandemic is still going on. 

Until my next post, stay safe and stay at home! 

Night Walk At Mount Faber Park (23 Apr 2021)

It has been a while that I did any macro photography session, this is mainly due to some problems with my camera recently. Taking advantage of the fine weather, I decided to recce a part of Mount Faber Park that I saw on Google Map. 

Sadly, my camera was still not working properly in that the camera was not able to detect my macro lens. Nevertheless, I decided to continue with the "default" setting of 1/200 and F-- (yes, the aperture was not set according to my selection, probably due to the problem of not able to detect the macro lens). Hopefully, I can do something to resolve the problem.

Enough of my "sorrows", but before I continue I would like to apologize for the quality of the photographs as I was not able to gauge too well the focus due to the mentioned problem.  Here's an ant-mimic spider that I came across during the trip. It looked so much like the commonly encountered Golden Ant (Polyrhachis illaudata).

Darkling Beetle ~ 4 mm

Fungus Beetle (Amblyopus vittatus) ~ 10 mm

Chafer Beetle (Matadera castanea) ~ 8 mm

Long Horned Beetle (Aeolesthes holosericeus) ~ 15 mm

Darkling Beetle ~ 10 mm

Fungus Beetle (Eumorphus quadriguttatus quadriguttatus) ~ 10 mm

Darkling Beetle ~ 10 mm

Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis) ~ 8 mm

Tortoiseshell Beetle (Aspidimorpha miliaris) ~ 12 mm

Darkling Beetle ~ 2 mm

Tiger Beetle (Cicindela aurulenta) ~ 15 mm

Although during this trip not many beetles were encountered, I am glad that the location seemed promising and I will surely go back there in the near future.

Afternoon Walk At Windsor Nature Park (08 Mar 2020)

I was feeling under-the-weather for a good part of the week and so when I have fully recovered, I decided to go for a walk at the Windsor Nature Park, despite the hot weather and afternoon time. From my past experience, hot weather will see a drastic drop in the number of beetles encountered, let alone in the afternoon time. Nevertheless I decided to proceed with the plan in order to ease the itch of my trigger finger, albeit that my expectation of finding beetles was not very high.

Here's a photograph of an interesting looking jumping spider encountered at the place.

Darkling Beetle ~ 2 mm

Tiger Beetle (Cicindela aurulenta) ~ 15 mm

Tumbling Flower Beetle (Glipa malaccana) ~ 10 mm

Fungus Beetle (Episcapha xanthopustulata) ~ 15 mm

Ladybird Beetle ~ 4 mm

Ladybird Beetle (Chilocorus circumdatus) ~ 4 mm

Fungus Beetle ~ 10 mm

Ground Beetle (Pericalus depressus) ~ 4 mm

Fungus Weevil (Acorynus pictus) ~ 8 mm

Fungus Weevil ~ 10 mm

Unknown beetle ~ 3 mm

Hister Beetle ~ 3 mm [First-time-encountered]

Pintail Beetle ~ 5 mm [First-time-encountered]

Checkered Beetle (Omadius seticornis) ~ 20 mm

Jewel Beetle (Habroloma lepidopterum) ~ 2 mm

Leaf Beetle (Galerosastra sumatrana) ~ 8 mm

Long Horned Beetle (Coptops annulipes) ~ 20 mm

Beetle larva ~ 5 mm

Night Walk At Windsor Nature Park (20 Dec 2019)

The weather in Singapore has been rainy for the past few weeks and today the weather seemed good, so HW and I decided to go for our night macro photography session at the Windsor Nature Park.

During the trip, I came across some brightly colored critters which I think were the larvae of Thrips. If you know what they are, appreciate that you can leave me a note.

The first beetle of the trip is the commonly encountered Chafer Beetle (Adoretus compressus) feeding on a leaf.

Near to the Adoretus compressus Chafer Beetle was another commonly encountered Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis).

There were many fallen logs along the trail and on one of the fallen logs were a small aggregation of this Fungus Beetle (Episcapha quadrimacula).

On the same log was a lovely Ground Beetle (Catascopus dalbertisi).

Walking along the trail, I was surprised to find this lone commonly encountered Tiger Beetle (Cicindela aurulenta) resting on a low bush.

Near to the Tiger Beetle was a Long Horned Beetle which was hiding under a Air Potato leaf. Owing to the awkward angle, I was not able to get a good shot of the beetle.

On a small tree near by was a 3 mm Fungus Weevil (Habrissus omadioides).

On the same tree was a 1 mm Darkling Beetle.

Walking further down the trail, this Chafer Beetle was found on a leaf node of a low bush.

On a small tree by the side of the trail was a Fungus Weevil (Eucorynus crassicornis).

On the same tree was this pupa of a Fungus Beetle.

Coming to a dying tree, several of this Long Horned Beetle (Coptops annulipes) were on the tree.

On the same tree was this long-time didn't encounter Long Horned Beetle (Thranius bimaculatus).

Centimeters from the Thranius bimachulatus Long Horned Beetle was a female Fungus Weevil (Anthribus wallacei).

On a small tree next to the dying tree was a 5 mm Darkling Beetle.

On another tree nearby was this 5 mm Weevil Beetle.

On the same tree was a 1 mm Fungus Beetle.

Moving on, a Ground Beetle was found resting on a Clidemia hirta leaf.

Nearby was another black color Ground Beetle.

At the base of the tree where the Ground Beetle was found was this 10 mm Fungus Beetle (Eumorphus mirus).

At the part where there were two rows of sawed tree trunks, this 10 mm Darkling Beetle was on one of the tree trunks.

Near to the sawed tree trunks was a small tree where this pretty Ground Beetle (Neocoptodera tetrapitolota) was found.

On another fallen tree further down the trail was this beetle larva, likely belonging to the Drakling Beetle family.

On the same log were several of this Darkling Beetle (Ceropria superba).

Next to the Ceropria superba Darkling Beetle was a 1 mm brown color beetle, likely to be a Sap Beetle.

On another fallen log nearby was this 10 mm Darkling Beetle (Ceropria induta).

On a tree next to the fallen log was this colorful beetle larva, likely that of a Fungus Beetle.

Just slightly before we turn back and call it a day, this Sap Beetle was found chewing on the fungus mushroom growing on the log.

Below the Sap Beetle were several of this Fungus Beetle (Eumorphus assamensis).

The highlight for the night was the enounter of this Ground Beetle (Physodera eschcholtzii). I rarely encounter this Ground Beetle and was pleasantly surprised to find several of them around the same area.

The last beetle for the trip was a 5 mm Darkling Beetle. This particular specimen was quite different from the other beetles that I encountered previously in that this specimen does not have a purplish sheen on it.

This trip was very fruitful even though we did not find any first-time-encounter beetles. Hopefully we will be able to go for more night macro sessions in the next few weeks as we are still in the midst of the wet phase of the Northeast Monsoon season.