LIME CATS

On 13 Nov 10, I found 2 small Lime Butterfly (scientific name: Papilio demoleus) caterpillars on one of my Citrus aurantifolia (common name: Key Lime) plants with several eggs. A couple of days later, they grew much bigger and I transferred them to a bigger plant. Then I counted 6 more young caterpillars.

The young cats do look very much like bird droppings and that is how they prevent themselves from being eaten by higher predators like birds. However, they are really voracious eating machines that devour a whole lot of leaves and I am always amazed by how fast they can grow in a single day. I find it very amazing that despite me watching them so closely, they were able to develop from one instar to another distinctly different instar within a matter of hours with me failing to see the gradual transition.

Just a few days ago, I transferred 5 of the 6 cats to the bigger host plant and by then, the 2 earlier cats were no longer present. One of my peeves about the cats is that they always crawl elsewhere to pupate and I lose track of them after that. I would love to watch the pupation process and the eclosion, but unless I deliberately transfer the 5th instar to a container, I never get to see the pupa and eclosion.

Today, there were only 2 cats left in their final instars. Soon, they would be gone too but I certainly hope that of the 8 that developed, some would come back and visit the nectar plants I planted for them and lay their eggs on the host plants to start off a new breeding cycle.

AQUATIC HABITAT

Then I was at the natural stream near the Venus Drive area and saw the following.

There was this school of spotted fish swimming at the lower stream against the currents of the very clear water. I am not sure if this is the Saddle Barb (scientific name: Systomus banksi).

Along the edge was this beautiful white-flowered broad-leaved marginal plant Echinodorus palaefolius (common name: Mexican Sword Plant) from the Alismataceae Family.

There was also a pair of mating dragonflies on the leaf of the Colocasia esculenta. The dragonflies appeared to be the rare Scarlet Adjudant (scientific name: Aethriamanta brevipennis).

Amongst the fishes in the clear water was this interesting halfbeak fish, which was likely to be the Malayan Pygmy Halfbeak (scientific name: Dermogenys collettei), so named because the lower jaw protrudes longer than the upper jaw such that insects can drop into them and become food for the fish.

As for plants, I am highlighting this invasive weed of our rainforests, the Dioscorea sansibarensis (common name: Zanzibar Yam; Family: Dioscoreaceae), that somehow always reminds me remotely of the bat symbol used in feng shui. A link is shown below.

http://www.natureloveyou.sg/Dioscorea%20sansibarensis/Main.html

The floating plant could be the Asiatic Pennywort (scientific name: Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides) which is also uncommon.

A family of Long-Tailed Macaque (scientific name: Macaca fascicularis umbrosa) was nearby and the young ones were playing above me on the high branches etc but I only managed to capture this clear photo of the adult.

Before I left the place, I took this photo of this interesting and awesome green bristled moth caterpillar with a cricket on its left. I have absolutely no idea what moth it is.

CATERPILLARS

I had not been looking out for my bat or butterfly friends recently. So I went searching for some of them and I was straining hard against this mass of climbing plants to see if I managed to see some familiar friends.

And I did. I found not just one caterpillar, but instead I found at least 5 Common Rose and 1 Common Birdwing caterpillars of various stages on the Aristolochia acuminata (synonym: A. tagala; common name: Indian Birthwort, Dutchman's Pipe) climber.

The bad news was, none of the 5 bats were around and I hoped there were still around somewhere. Anyway, links on the Aristolochia are below:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristolochia_tagala
2. http://www.boic.org.au/01_cms/details.asp?ID=37