An Alphabet of Mammals #1: A to M

It's almost exactly a year since I offered an alphabet of birds, so maybe it's time to balance the ledger a bit by offering a companion alphabet, of mammals. Where possible I'll offer per letter one species or group from Australia and another from overseas, with some brief comments in the photo caption. For a couple that's not possible, and for a couple of others I haven't been able to cut it down to two, but I'm hoping that won't disturb you too much. In a couple of cases I've not been able to illustrate any common names, so have used the genus names instead. I know, it sounds like cheating, but it's in the rules - I can show you a copy of them if you like. 

A is for antechinuses, anteaters and Aye-aye 

Yellow-footed Antechinus Antechinus flavipes, Chiltern NP, northern Victoria. Still
unfortunately often referred to as 'marsupial mice', this genus of little marsupial carnivores
is indeed superficially mouse-like but they of course are no relation at all to rodents.
This species differs from most antechinuses in being diurnal, and is found throughout
much of the south-east hinterland, as well as in the south-west and the wet tropics.
Famously males never get to celebrate a birthday; their youthful mating is so enthusiastic
that they all then die of compromised immune systems in their first year. 

Giant Anteater Myrmecophaga tridactyla, Pantanal, south-western Brazil.
This is one of the mammals I've most wanted to see since reading all of the Gerald Durrell
and David Attenborough series many decades ago. They are superb. While lots of animals
eat ants (terrible food, but abundant, like gum leaves) there are just four species of
The Anteaters, all South American, and in fact among the very few of the ancient
South American mammals that survived the collision with North America. I posted in
more detail about them here. A Giant Anteater can be over two metres long and
weigh up to 50kg.

Aye-aye Daubentonia madagascariensis, Pangalenes Lakes, eastern Madagascar.
Another dream realised for me - there are a few of them in this post! This big lemur
(head and body about 40cm and tail up to 60cm) shows remarkable parallel 
evolution with the Striped Possum (see my last post), in a long third toe.
Having located wood-boring grubs under the bark by tapping on the trunk and listening
for echoes, it chews into the wood with rodent-like incisors, unique among primates,
and extracts the hapless grub with the elongate finger.
This island population has been habituated to come down to gnaw into coconuts 
with those chiselly teeth, which grow constrantly.

B is for Bontebok and bandicoots

Long-nosed Bandicoot Perameles nasuta, Lake Eacham, Atherton Tablelands,
tropical Queensland. This little beauty came in to a simple feeding station at the lodge
where we were staying. Bandicoots comprise an entire Order of omnivorous 
medium to small marsupials, restricted to Australia and New Guinea. There are
8 living and 3 extinct bandicoot species in Australia. This one lives right 
along the east coast, including in suburbia, feeding on insects, small
lizards and their eggs, fungi and various plant materials.

Bontebok Damaliscus pygargus, Bontebok NP, south-western South Africa. This 
beautiful antelope is found only in the heathy fynbos system of this part of South Africa.
It is a conservation success story, with the population reduced to less than 20 animals
when the original Bontbok NP was established in 1931; 17 were captured and moved
there. Later this proved unsuitable habitat and herd was removed to the current
site near Swellenberg in 1960, where they thrived so that some 2000 Bontebok
have been established in other parks. (Until recently the Bontebok was regarded
as the same species as the more numerous Blesbok from eastern South Africa, 
but its species status is now recognised by antelope experts.)

C is for Cheetah and Colugo

Cheetah family Acinonyx jubatus, Amboseli NP, Kenya, mother and two of three
almost grownup children in the late afternoon, with no other vehicles around. We
watched them for half an hour as the sun set and nearby Mount Kilimanjaro glowed - a 
wonderful experience and privilege. Our local guide had only seen them in 
Amboseli once, and our experienced South African guide never! Because you're reading 
this I'm assuming you've watched plenty of wildlife docos featuring this fastest
land mammal on earth (up to 100kmh over short distances) so I'll leave it there.

Sunda Colugo Galeopterus variegatus mother and baby, Bukit Batok NP, Singapore.
Yet another extraordinary mammal I'd long pined to see; I actually saw them a few
years ago in Malaysian Borneo, but this view, just a couple of metres away, was
amazing. There are just two species in the entire Order, so they have no near
relatives at all (the other species lives in the Philippines). They are commonly - 
and entirely erroneously - known as 'flying lemurs', but they are not lemurs
(which of course are restricted to Madagascar) and they glide, not fly.
We can see part of the gliding membrane on the mother's front leg, but 
it extends from the neck along the limbs to finger- and toe-tips, enabling
it to glide almost horizontally for 100 metres and more.

D is for dik-diks and Dasyurus

Günter's Dik-dik Madoqua guentheri, Shaba Nature Reserve, northern Kenya.
There are four dik-diks, diminutive antelopes, in this genus, all from southern and
eastern Africa in arid environments. This one's range is centred on the semi-deserts of
northen Kenya, Somalia and southern Ethiopia. 

Spotted-tailed Quoll Dasyurus maculatus, Arthur River, north-eastern Tasmania.
And yes, I owe you a justification! I could/should have entered this under Q for quoll,
but a) I already had a candidate for that, and b) I didn't have one for Australian Ds - 
so D for Dasyurus it is. Feel free to boycott it. If you haven't then this was taken
many years ago (pre-digital camera days for me) when I took a group on a boat 
trip up this river in remote Tasmania. There were others on board too, and when
this magnificent animal came poking around while we were ashore for lunch -
no-one outside of our group took any notice! I was gobsmacked. This is the largest
of the three quoll species - a big male can be nearly a metre long and weigh up
to 9kg, a formidable predator. It is in the same family of carnivorous marsupials
as the antechinus which opened today's proceedings. This species (also known,
obscurely as Tiger Quoll, though tigers aren't noted for their spots) is found in wetter
eastern Australian forests below the tropics, with an outlier in the Queensland tropics.

E is for echidnas 

Short-beaked Echidna Tachyglossus aculeatus, Canberra. And while I couldn't find any
other mammals, either Australian or otherwise, to illustrate E, these wonderful mammals would have
got a guernsey anyway. One of the only two living groups of monotremes - egg-laying mammals -
in the world (along with the Platypus of course) these slow, shy daytime mammals
are toothless, living on the eggs and larvae of termites and ants, plus fat grubs, 
which they access by ripping open nests and rotting logs with powerful front claws. This 
species is common enough right across Australia from the alps to the deserts, and is also found
in Papua New Guinea. Also in New Guinea are three species of long-beaked echidnas.
(Which can mean trouble at trivia nights when they ask how many species of monotreme 
there are; are they being uninformed and expecting 'two', or clever and wanting 'five'?)

Yes I really do like echidnas. This is the only echidna 'train' I've ever seen. Up to 10 males will
follow a receptive female for up to a month, unable to stop to feed or rest unless she
 does for fear of missing his place in the queue. Eventually she will stop and the lead males 
dig a trench around her to access her without getting stabbed, and the strongest one gets to 
father her leathery egg, which hatches in 10 days. The blind puggle stays in her pouch until
its spines form, then is left plugged into a nursery burrow for months, fed by her
every few days. And enough now of echidnas, wonderful though they be!

F is for foxes and fruit bats 

Grey-headed Fruit Bats Pteropus poliocephalus, mother and baby, in central Canberra.
There are some 200 species of fruit bats (also unfortunately known as flying foxes, though
that would at least keep them under F here!). They are found throughout the Old World
tropics, and south to southern Africa and Australia.  Most are large, though there are 
also many are very small ones, which are sometimes known as blossom bats.
This species, the largest in Australia, is found along the east coast and has been
expanding south for a while now so there are colonies in Melbourne and even
Adelaide where they arrived only in 2010. Despite the name, they actually don't 
actually eat fruit, but crush it to swallow the juice; they also consume nectar
and play important roles in pollination and seed dispersal.

In Australian discussions of ecology and wildlife conservation 'fox' is a bad word indeed,
since the calamitous introduction of the widespread northern Hemisphere Red Fox
(Vulpes vulpes) in the 19th century, to give the landed gentry something familiar to hunt.
However across the rest of the world foxes are an attractive and fascinating part of the
landscape. Technically the term applies only to the 12 species of the genus Vulpes but it is also 
applied to various other fox-like dogs, including this Crab-eating Fox Cerdocyon thous
in the Pantanal of south-western Brazil. It is found throughout much of northern and 
eastern South America and does indeed hunt for freshwater crabs, as well as insects, 
small reptiles, carrion and fruit.

G is for gorillas and gerenuks 

Both of these g-mammals were among those species I'd long wanted to see - hands up if you're surprised! No, I thought not...  

Southern Gerenuk Litocranius walleri, Shaba NR, central Kenya.
These ridiculously graceful arid land antelopes may be on the way to evolving like a giraffe, 
with long legs and neck enabling them to reach foliage inaccessible to most competitors.
Moreover they will stand up on their hind legs to get even higher inyo the foliage. They are
found from northern Tanzania through Kenya to southern Somalia, with another
species in the Horn of Africa.

Mountain Gorilla mother and baby Gorilla beringei in Bwindi Impenetrable NP,
western Uganda. This was an extraordinary moment in my natural history life, and 
one that I had to work hard for in the steep mountain forests. There was also the 
satisfaction that this family, along with some other habituated groups in the park, 
was both heavily protected and providing a reliable income to local communities. 
Mountain Gorillas are a subspecies of the Eastern Gorilla; there are perhaps only 
1000 left in the highland forests of western Uganda, Rwanda and the DR Congo.
I wrote more about them, and Bwindi, here.

H is for hyraxes and Hypsiprymnodon  

Yellow-spotted Rock (or Bush) Hyraxes Heterohyrax brucei Tarangire NP, northern
Tanzania. There are six species of hyrax (or dassie, though I think that's mostly a
South African term) across most of sub-Saharan Africa. They are all solid short-tailed
medium-sized herbivorous mammals (weighing up to 5kg) which are surprisingly agile. 
It's fun to be able to say that their closest living relatives are elephants and dugongs/manatees
- it's true but it's still a pretty distant relationship. This species lives on rocky outcrops
through much of east Africa and across the continent in western Angola.

Hypsiprymnodon or Musky Rat-kangaroo Hypsiprymnodon moschatus 
Atherton Tableland, tropical Queensland. This is an intriguing little diurnal species
endemic to the Wet Tropics area of northern Queensland. It is the smallest
kangaroo, the most ancient living kangaroo species (giving us an idea of what the 
ancestral kangaroo may have looked like), and the only one that doesn't hop.
I think that it's one of the most fascinating of all Australian mammals.

I is for impala 

Common Impala Aepyceros melampus, Lake Mburo NP, Uganda.
To be honest, as much as I like impalas, this one probably wouldn't have made the cut
here if there were any more unusual i-mammals available to me. But as it is I'm 
quite happy to feature it, as a representative of the plains antelopes of eastern
and southern Africa. Impala comes from the Zulu language, and the species
is an important food item for many predators.

J is for Jaguar 

Another excitingly memorable moment was seeing these young brothers looking for
dinner (and probably mischief) along the Rio Piquíri; we were in a small boat.
Jaguars Panthera onca are the only true American great cats (ie genus Panthera)
and the third largest in the world, between a Lion and Leopard in size. They have a notably
powerful bite that can pierce turtle shells and mammal skulls. They are comfortably
aquatic and in the Pantanal caimans (South American crocodilians - more
on them here) form an important part of the diet.

K is for kangaroos and Klipspringer 

Young male Eastern Grey Kangaroos Macropus giganteus sparring while using their
tails as props, Tidbinbilla NR near Canberra. They are amazing mammals whose abundance
can lead to complacence on our part. They are one of the largest, and almost 
certainly the commonest, of the 60 or so members of the family Macropodidae.
So much to say about them, but perhaps I'll just direct you to the first of a two-part
series I wrote a while ago, here.

Cape Klipspringer Oreotragus oreotragus, Augrabies Falls NP, north-western South Africa.
(I'm almost sure I've got the species right, especially re the non-white belly.) Until 
recently only one diverse species was recognised, across much of Africa, but more
nuanced examinations now reveal 11 of them. They are stocky little antelopes,
specialists in rocky landscapes. They remind me of Euros Macropus robustus in Australia.
Both are nimble but powerful and totally at home in boulder piles and on cliff faces. 
One of my (many) favourite antelopes.

L is for lemurs 

Ankarana Sportive Lemur Lepilemur ankaranensis, Ankarana NP, northern
Madagascar. This little sprite is at home in the dry northern forests,
but there are lemurs, over 100 species of them, in every Madagascan habitat.
There are five lemur families in Madagascar; as many primate families
as there are in each of Asia and South America. Nearly all lemur species are in dire peril 
- Madagascar is an environmental tragedy - and in the relatively
brief time of human habitation at least 17 lemur species have become extinct.
It is not hard however  to see an array of the survivors in the system of mostly small 
national parks. For more on these wonderful primates, see what I wrote about them here.

M is for mongooses and marmosets

Yellow Mongoose Cynictis penicillata, Augrabies Falls NP, northern South Africa.
This one is found only in dry south-western Africa, but there are 34 species found throughout
sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia. They are medium-small active carnivores, some
highly sociable, others solitary. They hunt invertebrates, birds and, famously, reptiles
including venomous snakes. To this end they have evolved chemical defences against certain
aspects of snake venom. Probably the best-known and most 'popular' mongooses
are the Meerkats of southern Africa, but I understand that certain cartoon
movies have cast mongooses as villains. Shame on those movies I say!

Black-tailed Marmoset Mico melanurus, Pantanal, south-western Brazil.
The marmosets and tamarins are a family of tiny South American monkeys, with at
least 47 species but that won't be the full tally. They are found mostly in the Amazon
basin and Atlantic coast rainforests, though this one is well outside of that.
They are highly sociable, and males play a much greater role in child-care
than those of other primates. Tree sap is an important food for many species,
along with insects and fruit.

And there I'll leave it until next time. I've run out of time to include the whole alphabet today, and in any case it really is a big ask of you to get through all 26 letters in one sitting! I hope this enables you to read as much of this as feel like reading, and maybe even give you time to follow some of the links to learn a bit more about some of these wonderful mammals, if you so desire. Thanks for your interest and your support.

 

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 23 APRIL

I love to receive your comments and I will notify you personally by email when a new posting appears, if you'd like me to. This will mean one email every three weeks at the current rate of posting. I promise never to use the list for any other purpose and will never share it. Should you wish to be added to it, just send me an email at calochilus51@internode.on.net. You can ask to be removed from the list at any time,or you could simply mark an email as Spam, so you won't see future ones.
If you do leave a comment - and I love it when you do - please remember to click the
box below your comment that says 'Email follow-up comments to...[your address]'
so you'll know when I reply - and I always do!

 

Wild Singapore

We're just back from a near-six week overseas trip, which started with five nights in Singapore. Shortly before we left a friend, to whom I'd commented that one of my aims was to try to see some birds, said "I'd not have expected there to be any birds there". Well! It wasn't an unreasonable comment actually as Singapore, with some six million people, has an area which is only a third the size of Canberra, so it's very densely populated indeed (in fact only Monaco has a higher population density). However they have put a lot of work and planning into building a 'garden city' so that any walk is likely to take you past or through parkland with lots of trees - and birds. Moreover there are a surprising number of nature reserves, including some original rainforest, and lots of regenerating and restored forest. This post features some of the natural delights we enjoyed.

I very rarely give plugs to commercial enterprises, so when I you do you know I really mean it. We spent a day with Shamla Jeyarajah Subaraj and Yeo Suay Hwee, and through them we enjoyed most of the natural reserves below and learnt a great deal about Singapore and its birds, mammals, plants, butterflies and dragonflies, and had a most memorable day (and excellent lunch) into the bargain. It was the undoubted highlight of our time in Singapore and I would recommend them unreservedly. You can contact Shamla at shamla@subaraj.com.

I guess this is many people's expectation of Singapore; it was mine until I started doing some homework.

However it could as well be represented by this...

Meraga Adina eurhyncha Family Rubiaceae, growing in remnant rainforest in the
fabulous Singapore Botanic Gardens. For us, these gardens were the jewel of Singapore. Covering
82ha they were founded in 1859 and have evolved ever since. In 2015 these gardens were declared
a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

...or this...

Rainforest, Bukit Batok NP.

... or this ...

Tidal lagoon, Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.

...or this.

Mangroves, Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.

These are substantially natural areas, but there are also areas in the process of restoration.

The Quarry Reserve, which is part of the same reserve system as the Dairy Farm Nature Park
(see three photos down). This reserve is just what is sounds like, a former quarry
which has been turned into a nature reserve by flooding the excavation and
assisting the return of the surrounding forest. We found a couple of other examples too.

 

Fig growing on the wall of a flooded quarry in Bukit Batok NP; I think that much of
the rainforest is original here, but it regrows quickly and it's not always easy to
be sure which is primary and which is secondary forest, though I think that most
of the reserves are dominated by secondary (ie regrowth) forest.

Massive bird's nest ferns growing on the infrastructure in Bukit Batok;
it doesn't take long!

This is a clearing in the rainforest at Dairy Farm NR. The forest was cleared
in the 19th century for plantations of pepper and gambier (whose astringent leaves were
used for tanning, dyeing and herbal medicine). By the 1920s it was a pig farm, then in
the next decade it laid claim to being the world's first tropical dairy farm. The National
Parks Board began the regeneration process in the 1980s and the result is remarkable.

Like most of Singapore's reserves, Dairy Farm is heavily used by walkers on the sealed paths. Many of them were walking (and talking) for exercise and recreation rather than the natural values, but this is surely inevitable in such a densely populated country. The shared system seems to me an excellent compromise in the context, though it takes a little while to get used to; we were in most of these reserves on a Saturday too which exacerbated the situation.

Lily pond at the amazing Gardens by the Bay, an area of just over 100ha (though the
most-visited South Garden is about half this size), of gardens, ponds, pathways
and enormous greenhouses and cooled conservatories, which draws visitor numbers of
tens of millions a year. While not really a nature reserve - perhaps too structured for
that - it really is a must-visit and there is certainly plenty of wildlife present (including
the famous Oriental Small-clawed Otters which sadly didn't make an appearance
to coincide with ours).

And that, I think, is probably enough background - it's time to offer some actual animals of these landscapes before you nod off! There are a few of them to offer you, so I'll keep the information relatively brief. I'll start with one I'd actually wanted to see for some time, and which turned out to be very easy - in fact just about my first Singaporean bird.

Red Junglefowl Gallus gallus, in Fort Canning Park, central Singapore. These are the
ancestors of domestic fowl (ie chooks in Australia). The ones in the city parks are all
partial hybrids with domestic birds, though they look very like the true wild ones,
which do occur in some of the rainforests. A handsome bird indeed, and this one
is (inadvertently) advertising his mixed parentage by not cutting off the end of his
enthusiastic crowing quite abruptly enough.

And they are breeding well in this situation.

Pink-necked Green Pigeon Treron vernans snacking in the botanic gardens on fruit
of a Melastoma species (thanks Duncan!). A common south-east Asian pigeon,
but nonetheless lovely for that.

Common Emerald Dove Chalcophaps indica at Dairy Farm NP.
This is a close relation to the Pacific Emerald Dove of eastern Australia
and nearby islands.

Zebra Dove Chalcophaps indica, a common urban bird, again with a close
Australian connection in our Peaceful Dove.

There are plenty of opportunities for waterbirds, including a couple of large ones which are recent arrivals.

Asian Openbills Storks Anastomus oscitans, Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve - and
I'm sorry that I couldn't get any closer to them. It's only in the last decade (since 2013)
that these fascinating big storks have started to appear in Singapore from further north,
with a huge influx of some 5000 birds in 2020 and a smaller one currently. In brief summary
they have a gap in the bill, and the lower mandible is also twisted to the side to allow
the extraction of big apple snails from their shells. I wrote a little bit more on this here.

Somewhat more controversial is the status of this Milky Stork Mycteria cinerea (accompanied
here by Little Egrets Egretta garzetta and a Medium Egret Ardea intermedia*). They breed in
Cambodia, Thailand and Sumatra, but the Singapore population is believed to have derived
from escapes from the Singapore Zoo.
*The Medium Egret, found throughout south and south-east Asia, is now separated from
the Australian and New Guinea Plumed Egret A. plumifera, as well as from the African
Yellow-billed Egret.

And while we can see the Little Egret in Australia, especially in the north,
this one was too glorious in flaunting its breeding finery to overlook.

Common Redshanks Tringa totanus, Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.
These birds may have wintered here (remembering that Singapore is in the Northern
Hemisphere, though only just) or were on their north from Africa. Either way they
would soon have been continuing on their way north to breed on the Arctic tundra.

White-breasted Waterhens Amaurornis phoenicurus foraging by a lake in the
botanic gardens. One of the prettiest rails I've met, though this photo doesn't show
the lovely clear white underside.

White-breasted Kingfisher Halcyon smyrnensis, a bird with a huge range from the
western Mediterranean to the Philippines but I'd not seen it and our guides put in
some effort to find it for us. This photo doesn't at all do it justice, but you can just
see the bright blue back, wings and tail. (The photo that does show them is even
worse so I'll keep it to myself.)

And while I'm on bad photos I'm going to slip in an even worse one, in late afternoon gloom, but a spectacular bird that I'd not expected to see. Please squint.

Chestnut-winged Cuckoo Clamator coromandus, Bukit Batok NP. It is regarded
as an 'uncommon migrant' to Singapore from south and south-east Asia.

And rather than calling it a bad photo (though it doubtless is) I prefer to think of this one as arty...

Silhouetted Greater Racket-tailed Drongo Dicrurus paradiseus in early morning
non-light at Dairy Farm. A spectacular bird.

Laced Woodpecker Picus vittatus, Bukit Batok NP, feeding at the base of a tree. It's apparently
fairly common, in Singapore and from China to Bali, but I'd not seen it before.

Blue-tailed Bee-eater Merops philippinus, Singapore Botanic Gardens. These are
winter visitors to Singapore, so this one was likely to be flying further north to
breed soon after this. Meantime it was feeding up by swooping on insects above the pond.

Yellow-vented Bulbul Pycnonotus goiavier Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.
Bulbuls form a big family of birds, some 170 species across Africa and Asia.
This appears to be the commonest one in Singapore (in fact I've just discovered
that it's the second 'most observed' bird there).

Brown Shrike Lanius cristatus, another winter visitor which would soon be
leaving for the far north to breed.

Ashy Tailorbird Orthotomus ruficeps, Kranji Marshes Reserve. The tailorbirds
literally pierce and sew a large leaf with spider silk or grass to form a cup
in which the nest is made.

Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker Dicaeum cruentatum, closely related to the Australian
Mistletoebird, Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. A common little beauty, but
like most flowerpeckers it doesn't sit still very often!

Given that it's the most commonly reported bird in Singapore, I can't really ignore it,
but the Javan Myna Acridotheres javanicus is an introduced species here.

However I won't finish the bird section with the myna; I've left what was probably my favourite Singaporean bird until last.

The White-crested Laughingthrush Garrulax leucolophus, Bukit Batok NP, was another
I was especially hoping to see, and at the end of the day we were rewarded by a bustling little
gang of these rowdies, swaggering up the path to inspect us and comment loudly
and doubtless rudely on our presence. In the past half century this species has expanded
its range south to Singapore, probably with human assistance.

Mammals didn't feature heavily, unsurprisingly, but here are three that we greatly enjoyed.

Lesser Short-nosed (or Dog-faced) Fruit Bats Cynopterus brachyotis, roosting on the
Sungei Buloh Wetland visitor centre ceiling. These are tiny fruit bats, less than 10cm long.
Below is a mother with baby.

Plantain Squirrel Callosciurus notatus, Singapore Botanic Gardens.
This is another common urban Singapore mammal.
While they're mostly arboreal, the one below was helpfully feeding on the
ground at Butik Batok NP.

Again I've left my favourite until last in this category. Since I encountered them in one of my treasured animal books when I was a boy, I've been fascinated by the mysterious colugos, two south-east Asian arboreal species of utterly misnamed 'flying lemurs' (they glide, not fly, and are definitely not lemurs!). We now know that they belong to their own Order of mammals, ie with no close relations at all. I had previously met them in Borneo, but on our late afternoon walk in Butik Batok NP we came upon two different ones (plus a third as you'll see) typically roosting on a tree trunk, but quite close to the ground. Very exciting.

Malayan Colugo Galeopterus variegatus with baby. Part of the marvellous spotted
gliding membrane can be seen below the front leg.

The only reptiles we saw were two species of monitor lizards (what we'd usually call goannas in Australia). One of them, the big Asian Water Monitor Varanus salvator, was surprisingly common in busy areas like the Botanic Gardens and the Gardens by the Bay. They and the people they encountered seemed in the main unperturbed by each other, which seems a satisfactory situation.

Asian Water Monitor nonchalantly crossing the path in the Botanic Gardens.

And yes, they are definitely at home in the water; this one at the Gardens by the Bay.

A less common species is the smaller Clouded Monitor Varanus nebulosus.

This one was basking by the cafe at the Botanic Gardens; I'm pretty confident based on the thin end
of the tail, the shorter nose and the nostrils halfway from the eye to the nose (see below),
but comments always welcomed.

And finally, a few invertebrates - mostly dragonflies actually!

Branded Imperial Eooxylides tharis, The Quarry Reserve. Love the 'tails'!

Blue Dasher Brachydiplax chalybea Singapore Botanic Gardens.

Common Parasol Neurothemis fluctuans, The Quarry Reserve.

Common Scarlet Crocothemis servilia, Kranji Marshes.

Yellow-striped Flutterer Rhyothemis phyllis, Singapore Botanic Garden.
This one comes as far south as northern Australia.

Variegated Green Skimmer Orthetrum sabina, Kranji Marshes.
It too is found in Australia, but in its case down much of the east coast.

And that is definitely enough for today; if you're still reading, thank you! I know that many people visit Singapore, for pleasure or business; if you have an interest in the natural world, don't miss any opportunity to explore Singapore with that in mind next time you're there. You'll be rewarded.

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 5 JUNE

I love to receive your comments and in future will be notifying you personally by email when a new posting appears, if you'd like me to. All current subscribers have been added to this mailing list and have already been contacted. This will mean one email every three weeks at the current rate of posting. I promise never to use the list for any other purpose and will never share it.
Should you wish to be added to it, just send me an email at calochilus51@internode.on.net. You can ask to be removed from the list at any time,or could simply mark an email as Spam, so you won't see future ones.
If you do leave a comment - and I love it when you do - please remember to click the
box below your comment that says 'Email follow-up comments to...[your address]'
so you'll know when I reply - and I always do!