Sungei Buloh Guided Tour

Followed wildshores guide for a guided trip. As I need to keep up with the pace, so I did not take much photos. Saw the usual sea almond fruits and sea holly which has no relation with the christmas holly. Sometimes it does look like the christmas holly with its jagged edges. Other times, it looks plain.


Also saw the sea hibiscus. In mangroves, it indicates the high water mark and the boundary between the end of salt water penetration and the beginning of freshwater swamp.

This plant secretes a substance that attracts ants, not in its flowers but through its leaves. Each of three leaf veins on the under surface near the stalk have a small slit. It is from here that the substance exudes, and ants of all sizes can be seen drinking from them. Among these, are the fierce Weaver Ants (Oecophylla smaragdina), which may help keep off insect pests. Some insects that feed on the plant include the Cotton Stainer Bug (Dysdercus decussatus) that feeds on its seeds.
Sources: naturia


Guess who made these holes? The Asian longhorn beetles!

Unfortunately, these Asian longhorn beetle can cause a lot of damage to trees. Its larvae dig deep into trunks in order to feed on the vessels that provide the tree with water and food. The larvae may spend up to nine months living off of the tree as they grow into adult beetles. As the bugs mature they start to burrow back out of the tree leaving noticeable holes in the trees. At this stage, there is not a lot that can be done for the tree. The damage is done..
Source: Ask The Exterminator

Oh and it was only today that I knew only the male fiddler crab has a bigger pincer mainly for attraction. Female fiddler crab pincers are of equal sizes.

Take a look at wildshores photo on the Nipah palm (Nypa fruticans) or Attap Chee as it was blooming! The ball-shaped thing is the female inflorescence, while the yellow sausage-shaped ones are the male. Nearby is a brown developing fruit ball.

Caught sight of the dog faced water snake sleeping too!


On the way back, my friend brought me to walk out to the nearest bus stop (quite far though). On the way, we caught sight of bag worm.

Bagworms are a group of highly specialized lepidopterans belonging to the family Psychidae and exhibit extreme development of sexual dimorphism. Males are winged whereas females lack functional appendages. Larvae of both males and females, soon after hatching from the eggs climb up to the top of their host plants in order to have an access to the soft and palatable tips of the growing shoots. They construct a small but tough bag of silk of either cylindrical or conical shape and glue small fragments of plant tissues around their cases. Larvae always keep their body inside the cases. While moving about, their head and thorax are protruded out so that they move forward on their thoracic legs dragging the case behind them, which is gripped by hooks on the abdominal prolegs. When taking rest, the rims of the cases remain attached to a twig by means of silken thread so that the cases hang vertically with both their openings remaining closed.

Sources: Clubsnap uforest

Related post:
Sungei Buloh

Why Flamingos are pink... and more interesting facts learnt

Testudines

Turtles, terrapins and tortoises are all reptiles and belong to the order Testudines.

Tortoise are land-dwelling (terrestrial) subgroup of turtles. They use water for drinking and bathing only. They have high, domed shells and have trunklike legs with stumpy, clawed feet. Testudines found in coastal, brackish waters are called terrapins. They are sometimes called "diamondbacks" due to the unique, angular designs on their shells. They have webbed feet with claws. Other turtles are marine or freshwater dwellers. These aquatic turtles have longer toes that are webbed or limbs that look like flippers to help with swimming, and they typically have a more flattened, streamlined shell. About 70% of all turtles live in freshwater.

FYI A group of turtles is called a bale. The largest turtle living today is the leatherback.

Read more from Itchyfingers.

Source:
Why Flamingos are pink... and 250 other things you should know
by Valeri R. Helterbran


Pygmy Hippopotamus
A rare and endangered species of animal, the pygmy hippopotamus (or 'hippo' for short), has been found in Liberia. Pygmy means smaller than the usual type. And these are nocturnal creatures aka active during the night.

Photo here.

Source: BBC English

Why are flamingos pink?
They prefer to live in the warm, shallow, salty lagoons and lakes of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. One species, however, lives in the cold lakes of the Andes Mountains. One of the most obvious characteristics of flamingos is their reddish or pink coloration. Interestingly, many of the foods that they eat are rich in carotenoid pigment, much like the pigment in carrots. They eat shrimp and other crustaceans, algae, aquatic insects, and plankton. Without this diet, the flamingos' feathers would become grayish white. Zookeepers are careful to supplement flamingo food with special pigments to maintain their birds' beautiful color.

Flamingos have unusual, boomerang-like bills. To eat, the flamingo immerses its bill upside down in the water so that its head is actually facing backward. In that position, it uses its fleshy tongue to pump water through its bill, which acts like a strainer or filter to catch food items.

Here are a few more interesting flamingo facts:
* Flamingos live in large colonies called pats
* What looks like the flamingo's knee is actually its ankle
* Roman emperors considered flamingo tongue to be a delicacy.

Source:
Why Flamingos are pink... and 250 other things you should know
by Valeri R. Helterbran

Komodo Dragon
All reptiles shed their skin (remember snakes), so it is no surprise to see a komodo dragon mouliting.  Except it shed by bits and pieces.  That piece of skin beside the dragon is the best proof!

 Bamboo Chicken
In Central America, where iguana meat is frequently consumed, iguanas are referred to as "bamboo chicken" or "chicken of the trees." Large females are a favourite, because of the availability of eggs. But if everybody vie to eat these females, then how is reproduction going to be successful for this species?

Day Safari

Disclaimer: This post will not contain any photos out of respect to the NS protocol which disallow any photography regarding the behind-the-scenes. What it does contains are the interesting facts that the keepers shared with me and the memorable observations that I made.

Interesting fact 1 – Operations
NS works very differently from the Zoo mainly because the animals have to be active at night. Thus most feeding must be done in the evening to condition the animal to sleep in the day and eat at night. However conditioning is not the correct word to use in this case because these animals are usually nocturnal animals and are just exhibiting their natural behaviour. So I should say is we i.e. the human have adapted to their natural cycle of cleaning their compounds, preparing their food and doing the daily housekeeping chores in the day. Then we will start the feeding in the evening. (By then I wasn't around to participate already.. a pity I suppose.. )

Interesting fact 2 – Baby giraffe

A giraffe begins its life by falling six feet to the ground. The shock of the fall starts its breathing.

The first species of animals I met is a family of 3 African giraffes where baby girl Kayla (Not sure if the spelling is right) is almost a year old already. When she first arrived in Earth, she was almost 1.8m. That sure is one tall lady. A calf grows fast when young such that by 6 months, it can be quite independent of its mother if in the wild. However after that, the growth rate would be greatly decreased thus mama giraffe is not much taller than baby Kayla. And if you are wondering, baby giraffes unlike human, comes out legs first so as to balance themselves immediately. Nature fear that if the head comes out first, there might be some serious struggle which might cause breakage of neck. And yes, you guessed it, mama giraffe gives birth while standing.

Interesting fact 3 – More on giraffe

Giraffes only need to sleep deeply for 20 minutes each night.

I also learnt that the papa giraffe has a darker skin colour than the mama giraffe and that their print is like a finger print with nobody else having the same print as them. But what I like best about giraffe is the fact that they only need to sleep 20 minutes to 4 hours. Thus they were awake the whole time I was there, constantly munching their leaves and walking around. I sure wish I have such ability to gain the extra waking hours hmmm...

Interesting fact 3 - Food
Badger food was stewed! Keeper says this is to prevent choking. And I have to admit the smell of the stew is pretty tempting with the potatoes, carrots, quill eggs (unshelled, apparently the badger knows how to shelled eggs too), bean stalks etc. Oh and I was quite a klutz in the kitchen, being unable to even chop the chicken parts into smaller bites. Somehow the bones don't seem to get chopped up under my knife. Thus I ended up tying fruits with string and doing some simple tasks.

Interesting fact 4 - Porcupine
After the food preparation comes the food delivery (suddenly felt like those delivery man delivering those daily cooked food haha). While following the keeper, I met more animals e.g. the porcupines. There are 3 types of porcupines in NS-Leopard trail. The Long-tailed porcupine which had sadly lost her tail through some fright and will not be growing back again (exhibiting a behaviour much like the lizard except some lizards are able to regrow their tail).

The other 2 species were the Malayan and the Indian crested porcupines where the Indian crested are bigger in shape. Thus they were quite cool when they saw me and were not a least afraid of me. I even had the chance to feed the Indian crested porcupine each a bean stalk. They look so much like a big rodent when they were clawing the glass panel. Their neighbour, the Malayan porcupine on the other hand never stop rattling upon catching sight of me, turning her back towards me and raising all her quills at me that I got quite afraid too haha.


Interesting fact 5 – Slow Loris

The world's only poisonous primate.

Keeper says slow loris is not as slow as what the name says, especially when it comes to food. And that it may looks cute, but it is known to be toxic! Its venom is stored in an elbow patch and the loris will suck in the poison from the patch, then mix it around in its mouth before delivering a toxic bite. Scary right? But if you do not know this fact, it actually looks very cute. See here for a photo of a slow loris.

Interesting fact 6 – Flight or Fight distance

This was mentioned when we were giving food to the female Malay Civet cat. When the keeper placed the food in her cage, she kept pacing around even though she was hungry. It was only when we backed off that she came forward for her food. The keeper said that was flight distance. If I were in the cage though, it might have been fight distance. Hmm I don't really want to be involved in a cat fight though.

Interesting fact 7 – More on civet

Civet Cat Coffee is the rarest type of coffee in the world.

Oh and this female Malay Civet cat is the mother of the two male Malay Civet cats on display. These 2 males stay together with the Asian Palm civet cats which you can easily differentiate because the Malay Civet are usually on the ground while the Asian Palm Civet prefers to be on the tree. It is also this reason that the Malay Civet cage has to be closed so that the Asian Palm Civet will not bunk in with them haha.

Sidetrack, the Asian Palm Civet is famously known for its role of coffee. Both Kopi Luwak and Motit Coffee is coffee that is prepared with their faeces. These civet were fed with special diet. Guess is the same theory as the stick insect whose main diet is guava leaves and thus their faeces is nice smelling.

Conclusion

It was really fun to explore the night safari in the day. Plus the leopard trail has a wide variety of animals for me to visit and pat haha. I even caught sight of the flying squirrels cuddling in the nest. Clip (because his ear was clipped) opened his eyes the moment he heard me coming in haha. Wonder if I will ever recognise him the next time I see him though. But while I really had fun exploring the day safari, I guess it is still best the safari stays open at night.