A Walk Around The Neighbourhood (09 Jan 2013)

It rained the whole afternoon and subsided soon after the sky turned dark. Feeling bored, I grabbed my camera and decided to walk around the neighbouthood to see what I can find.

The first beetle that came into my camera's view finder was this relatively large bum Chafer beetle (apogonia destructor ?).

 
Another Chafer Beetle.

More Chafer Beetle.

Looking around the trees, found this litte interesting beetle.

This looks very much like a fungus beetle (ID needed). Upon closer examination, the beetle has some interesting red colours and the tiny black dots look very much like mite.  

Lastly, a close shot of another beetle

This beetle is slightly bigger than the apogonia destructor.

I am thankful that despite the wet weather, I am still able to get several different beetles!
  

Morning Walk At Botanic Gardens ( 05 Jan 2013)

The weather looks absolutely nice and so after sending my son to his school for CCA, I took a detour and ended up at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. As expected, the place was packed with people - joggers, family outing, domestic helpers and tourists, etc.
My aim to go to Botanic Gardens is primarily to take some photographs of the Donacia javana, a type of beetle that lives among the lilies in the ponds. Without any delays, I make a bee-line for a secluded small pond that I know will have what I am looking for. Sure enough there are a number of the little critters on the lilies pad.

After a round of photography with the Donacia javana,  I came across a very tiny little beetle which looks like a black dot to the naked eyes. I was pleasantly surprised to see in the viewfinder the brilliant red color, which contrasted beautifully with the black of the beetle.

Moving along to a patch of ferns, my eyes catch hold of what seems to be a housefly. Upon closer look, it is a Tumbling Flower Beetle, Glipa malaccana. I am surprised to see it as I have visited the place many times but have never see them before. May be it is because I always thought that they were houseflies.

After the encounter with the Tumbling Flower Beetle, I decided to go "off-the-beaten-track" and move into a not so popular spot in the garden. Upon entering the place, there waiting on the leaves to greet me is this pretty shiny beetle.

This beetle has an interesting behaviour; when they sensed danger, it will let go of its perch, roll off the leave that it is on and fly off. All of them did the same each time they sensed my presence or felt the light of my camera flash.

Another shot of the beetle, this time the beetle was pretty cooperative and let me photograph it for a while, until it had enough of my camera flashes and do the standard let go, roll and fly. How interesting!
Just slightly before I am due to leave the place, I came across a patch of big palm trees and found a number of Tumbling Flower Beetles. What a befitting end to the trip!

Night Walk At Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (04 Jan 2013)

I was looking forward to the walk at the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and hoping that it would not rain. Well, the sky poured for a while and thankfully it stopped just around evening.  Regardless. I proceeded with the walk knowing well that the rain will washout the trip.
 The place was pretty much wet and at some places muddy, but the allure of finding some interesting beetles drives me on.

The starting is worse than I have anticipated - not a single bug is in sight, let alone beetles. After walking for almost 20 minutes and didn't find many interesting critters, besides a few grasshoppers and crickets. The temptation was to go home and take a nice warm shower, rather than walking in the dark with almost nothing of interests. My fingers were itching for some macro actions.
Finally after almost 30 minutes of the walk that I found this tiny little beetle:

Like our local saying goes "No fish, prawn also good", a number of photographs of the fingus beetle were snapped; more to pacify those itching fingers.

Due to the rain, even this chafer that we commonly see also became a rare sight. Another pacifier for my itching fingers.
As time passes and to much of my relief, more critters started to appear.

The appearance of this fungus beetle marks the turning point for the trip. More beetles started to appear.

Another fungus beetle appeared (Eumorphus dilatatus turritus).

More fungus beetles.

Other beetles started to appear.

A weevil beetle came out. Look how wet it is.

Just when things are getting interesting, I have to leave to catch the public transport back home. Relunctantly, I started to make my way back. Just then a really pleasant surprise appeared.

Yeah! I have been reading about this beetle online but have never got the opportunity to see it. Finally I got to see it in person. I am surprised by the size of this beetle, it is rather small (about 1cm). Thanks to macro photography, all the photographs I saw online make them look like monsters.
I did a check and I believe this is a fungus beetle and is called Amphisternus vomeratus.
This marked the end of the walk and it ended wonderfully. Glad that I have persevered and continued with the walk.

A Walk At Upper Peirce Reservior on New Year Day (01 Jan 2013)

Today is the first day of 2013. The weather was wonderful and  super sunny , especially after a couple of days of rain. The best thing to do is to go for a walk and hopefully snap some beetle photographs. This time the destination is Upper Peirce Reservior.
The very first beetle that greeted me is this orange leaf beetle. It seems to be in great abundance here:

Moving along, I came across a Net-winged Beetle (Taphes brevicollis). Sadly, my camera was a little slow and while trying to get a good shot of the critter, it flew right off the view-finder and disappeared. Despite looking for it around the place,I was not able to find it.

Just as I was lamenting the missed opportunity (I have always been wanting to get a photograph of a Net-Winged Beetle), adjacent to where I am is a huge birdnest fern. "Perfect habitat for the Tumbling Flower Beetle!", I was talking to myself.  Indeed within a few seconds, I spotted two cute little Tumbling Flower Beetle (Glipa malaccana) :

Not easy to take photograph of this beetle without a tripod but thankfully I managed to get a few clear shots.
Just then a tiny Ladybird Beetle flew near me.

I just simply love the color of this little beetle!
By chance, I stumbled upon a track that I have not tried before.  The track is tucked away in a corner and would not be obvious to any casual passer-by.

Not much happening along the track but I was able to spot a tiny little weevil beetle. It is interestingly patterned - it is like wearing a striped  pyjama.

Walking further on, I came across this really tiny little weevil beetle. I think it should be atmost 2mm if not 3mm in size.

Walking pass two anglers along the trail (or should that be poachers?), a small and colorful beetle caught my eyes.

Pardon the poor shot as I wanted to capture the shiny color of the beetle without using the flash. Incidentally, the place is under some tree canopy. Guess in future, I would need to have flash diffuser to allow better focus and lighting,
After shedding buckets of perspiration and just when I am ready to leave the place, a little beetle came out to bid farewell.

Although I didn't come across many beetles, the walk was pretty good given the fact that I got a glimpse of a Net-winged Beetle and get to snap some photo of the Tumbling  Flower Beetle.
Until then.

Fungus Beetles' Paradise (28th Dec 2012)

My curiosity got the better of me and I make a short spin to the place late in the night.
Interestingly, less than a minute that I stepped into the Venus Drive Trail, this beautiful ground beetle came to greet me:
A beautiful creature indeed.
Next stop - Fungus Beetles' Paradise. Well, I almost lost the location due to the surrounding darkness; almost got disorientated but fortunately I found the Fungus Beetles' Paradise almost 10 minutes later.
At first I thought it was a let down as I don't see as many fungus beetles as I saw a few days back in the day.  Only saw a number of this (which I have noticed but pay no attention to them earlier on) :

Seems like the beetle met a horrible end. Aliens in the beetle world?
Just when I was about to leave the place, this little beetle turned up. I search high and low for other similar beetles but found none. This is the only subject that I need to capture quickly as it was super-hyper, moving all over the place non-stop.

Interesting spot pattern, look like the Halloween's pumpkin, another fungus beetle on the list of the Fungus Beetles' Paradise.
Then later another fungus beetle that I didn't come across during the day emerges :

Another member at the Fungus Beeltes' Paradise.
Moving on to another spot, I got a nice glimpse of a weevil beetle before it fell to the ground. Talk about being camera shy.

Staying in the same tree as the weevil beetle was a small long horned beetle. The beetle is no bigger than a Singapore 5 cent coin.

Further down the trail, I came across a few 'melting' mushroom and interestingly, there are many tiny little fungus beetles having a party on the cap of the mushroom.

The tiny beetles were moving so fast that I was not able to get a decent shot.
Just a few mushroom away is what looks like a beetle larvae:

Here's a shot of another beetle larve encountered on the trip:

ID anyone?
Just when I thought that the walk would not get any better, something flew towards my lights. A Bess Beetle (Aceraius grandis). Wow, this is the first time I come across this in Singapore, even though this is very common in our neighbor Malaysia.

Coming across the Bess Beetle at the end of the night trip was a fabulous way to end the trip indeed.

A walk at Venus Drive (24 Dec 2012)

It's been a long while since I last went for a walk in our nature reserves.  Making the best of the sunny day, I decided to take a walk at Venus Drive. The place was a little bit muddy due to showers over the past few days. Not expecting to find many beetles since most of my encounters with beetle are in the night, but this trip proves otherwise.
My first encounter with a pretty little beetle came after only 10 minutes of walking. (Please let me know the name if you know it.)

Pardon the quality of the photograph as I was trying out first time a 4x macro filter with my Canon SX30 IS camera. Hope to be able to get use to it and get better pictures in the future.
After some walking, I came across a location with a fallen tree. Feeling bored and so I decided to take a closer look. What looked like a boring fallen tree turned out to be a treasure trove for fungus beetles.  I later termed the place as Fungus Beetle Paradise.

Here's the reason why I call the place Fungus Beetles' Paradise - the place was full of fungus beetles. All busily moving about in broad daylight. Not only that they were out in numbers in the day, there were easily 7 or more different fungus beetles on the same tree.
Here's fungus beetle #1 (ID needed):

Fungus beetle #2 (ID needed) :

Fungus beetle #3 (Eumorphus quadriguttatus quadriguttatus):

Fungus beetle #4 (Eumorphus dilatatus turritus):

Fungus beetle#5 (ID needed):

Fungus beetle #6 (ID needed):

This fungus beetle was some character - super hyperactive and easily spooked. So took a bit of 'chasing'  before managed to snap this photo.

Fungus beetle #7 (ID needed):

It was indeed a surprise for me to see so many different fungus beetle on the same tree. Hoping to be able to visit it during the night. Who knows how many more fungus beetles that can be found on that single tree.