Marathon Walk in Central SG

I've never walked for so looong in.. forever I think. haha. but it was really fruitful. Our day started from 6.30am at Lower Pierce, then we went on towards Venus Link near Macritchie and after a lunch break, chugged on to Bishan Park's Herbal Garden. About 9 hours of walking in all.. !!! My virgin terrestrial exploration so forgive me for the 101 things I can't/ mis-ID. Help in ID would be greatly appreciated! :)

= Lower Pierce =

Short-horned grasshopper (ID?)

The difference between grasshoppers and crickets:

• grasshoppers are diurnal (active in the day) and crickets are mostly nocturnal (active at night)
• grasshoppers blend into the grass and crickets tend to be dark to blend into the shadows or are pale green or brown to blend into the vegetation.
• grasshoppers fly and crickets have wings that are either absent or atrophied and they don't fly
• grasshoppers have shorter antennae than crickets
• grasshopper's 'ears' are at its abdomen and cricket's are located in its legs

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native land snail.
LK told us the genus but.. *sheepish grin* i forgot.
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cricket nymph
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Mr Cool - assassin bug

"Assassin bugs probably has the most painful bites caused by insects." ouch.
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damselfly (ID?)

*back blogged* thanks SJ for correcting me.
The difference between damselflies and dragonflies:

• When at rest, dragonflies almost always have their wings spread fully open, while damselflies habitually close their wings and hold them over their 'backs'
• Dragonflies have broad wings, broadest where they meet the 'body' (thorax) while damselflies have narrow wings, narrowest where they meet the thorax.
• Dragonflies are generally bigger with a thicker abdomen.
• Dragonflies have huge eyes which take up much of their face and join in the middle on top of the head while damselflies have eyes which protrude from the sides of the head, almost as if on stalks.

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See that intricate pattern of white in the middle of the web? It's the stabilimenta of some white spider. Cool shit right. Here's what I've learnt from LynnK (and from surfing) on the function of this structure: there are a few theories:

• as the name suggests, stabilimenta adds extra structural support to the web
• helps attract prey to the web
• helps to make the web more conspicuous so that birds don't crash into it

read more about it here (blog of a US bio undergrad tt I chanced upon).

oh oh and! did you know that... (sorry if this is obvious to some of you... spider lab pple do correct me if i'm wrong): only female spiders make webs! males are kinda just existing to mate. -ha.

= Bishan Park =

from left: S, R, LK, LynnK
contemplating the qn: how many types of ferns can there be on a single tree?
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5 different ferns spotted (clockwise from top left):
ribbon fern, staghorn fern, rabbit's foot fern, shoe string fern, oakleaf fern
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many birds spotted too.. all around one island in the middle of a pond. But my lousy camera can't capture it. Here's link to mantablog and tide chaser's blog for the bird photos.

= Herbal Garden =

welcome to herbal garden, where a TCM practitioner comes every Sunday to give guided walks.. have yet to go on one of those walks though so here's the plants without explanations of their medicinal purposes.

the garden is small but has a wide variety of herbs
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mostly chinese labels
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love this lovely heart-shaped fruity thing
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literal translation from chinese: lantern grass (herb)
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the fruit inside (from plant above) tastes like tomato
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now you know who's been eating your curry leaves
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lynx spider?
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Wasp moth (Amata huebneri)
this was the moth I used to catch in primary school, coz it flies really slow :)
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