SZ Tale 12 - First FF Duty

My first FF Duty... very excited. Reached zoo at 9am and did a biodome tour first to see where are the animals so that I will know what animals are around today should I conduct a biodome tour today.

And I could just wile the whole of Sunday away, stuck in the biodome, see the animals sleeping, eating, swimming, flying, running...


Caught sight of the Tree Kangaroo.. just can't resist its cuteness... curl up the tree. Sadly I left my camera at home and had to use my handphone as substitute camera...


The black and white ruffed lemur seems so active and yet so lonely.. because its best buddy - the ring-tailed lemur is not in the biodome today.


SLOTH! SLEEPING! SO SWEETLY!
Makes me wanna sleep though... cannot, I still got duty to do. Oh and I happened to be walking around with this family and I kindly pointed the tree kangaroo and sloth to the granny haha. The little boy was trying to catch butterflies (managed to get them land on his cap later on).. and the little girl pointed 2 bird eggs to me...

Anyway duty wise, I had only manned the fixed station today. And time flies very fast when visitors just kept asking questions and children and adult just kept getting fascinated with the live specimens...

Questions asked include:

1. Tree Nymph Butterfly
How long does the caterpillar takes to become a butterfly?

>>More facts about Tree Nymph Butterfly

• Japanese Name: Ogomadara
• Scientific Name: Idea leuconoe
• Chinese Name: 大白斑蝶
  
• The larvae are known to feed on plants of the species Aganosma cymosa (Apocynaceae).
• Another species of Apocynaceae, Parsonia spiralis has also been noted as a larval host plant. By the way, parsonia is the plant used by the zoo.
• The plant alkaloids apparently have a similar structure to the male pheromones of this butterfly, so it appears that there has been an ancient evolutionarily relationship between the butterfly and its food plant.  
• The caterpillars accumulate the bitter alkaloids in their bodies, protecting them from predation.
• The tree nymph is attracted to the color red, and will land on red shirts and hats.
  Source: JapanTimes

2. Mousedeer
Someone had asked about the mousedeer describing that it look like a deer but a smaller version. She then commented they were coming up to get close to her (odd because mousedeers are supposedly very shy?). She also asked if mousedeer is related to rodent or deer. (From the internet, it is of the same order as the deer.)

3. Malayan Gray Stick Insect
A father mentioned he saw a lot of the Malayan Gray Stick Insect in Malaysia in his younger days and was fascinated with the eggs. He asked about the dried skin too but at that time, I did not know stick insect moult.