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Sunday 29 September 2013

Morning Walk At Upper Seletar Reservoir (29 Sep 2013)

The weather was a little overcast but good enough for a trip down to Upper Seletar Reservoir. This is a familiar path that I usually take when I am at Upper Seletar Reservoir. This path is seldom visited by joggers and hence it remained pretty wild, which is wonderful for beetle watching.


The first beetle that greeted me was this Leaf Beetle (Argopus brevis) which seemed to be the permanent residents of Upper Seletar Reservoir. This is probably because of the presence of several of its food plant.


The next beetle was this Tiger Beetle which initially was pretty hyper-sensitive to movements. After flying and stopping for a few times, it decided to stay put on this wild cinnamon leaf. I am glad that it remained pretty still for me to take some nice close-up photographs.


Moving further into the path, I was pleasantly surprised to find this first-time-encountered Leaf Mining Leaf Beetle (Gonophora xanthomela).


The tell tale signs of this beetle's presence is its straight feeding tracks on leaves. Here's a photograph of some old tracks on a leaf.


Resting on a shaded leaf was this lovely Leaf Beetle. Its color reminded me of jelly sweets.


Near to the Leaf Beetle were several 2 mm Leaf Beetles. Interesting to find different same size Leaf Beetles on the same plant. All these tiny beetles are first-time-encountered beetles.




Moving further down the path, this colorful Leaf Beetle was resting on a low bush.


Moving on, I came across this commonly encountered Leaf Beetle (Hoplasoma unicolor). Although you can easily find them in Upper Seletar Reservoir, photographing them is another matter altogether as they are super alert to movement. I was fortunate to come across this particular beetle that was so engrossed with its breakfast that it allowed me to take a few photographs of itself.


Moving to an area where there is a sand pit where a number of this Tiger Beetles (Cicindela aurulenta) can be found. This is another permanent resident of Upper Seletar Reservoir, but I fear that they will disappear as the sand pit is being overtaken by grass and weeds.


At the entrance of another trail, I found this first-time-encountered Leaf Beetle. It was hiding in a large patch of vegetation.


The trail was not very productive as it took me a good 15 min of walking before encountering this small 5 mm Leaf Beetle.


After walking for another 15 min without encountering any beetles, my eyes finally caught sight of this lovely patterned Chafer Beetle. This is another first-time-encountered beetle. Fabulous!


Coming to a rotten tree trunk, I finally found this colorful Fungus Beetle. This is the only Fungus Beetle that I encountered through out the trip despite the fact that there are many fallen and rotten logs along the trail.


Just when I am about to end my trip since I have been walking for another 30 minutes without encountering any other beetles, this brightly first-time-encountered beetle appeared. You can imagine how glad I am to have encounter this beetle. Not sure what beetle it is but it looked like it belongs to the Lizard Beetle family.


Moving on and after don't know how long before I encounter this tiny 2 mm beetle. It was so hyper-sensitive to movements that I could not get a nice photograph of it. Here's a blurry photograph of it as a photograph record on what beetles I have encountered. Notice the interesting looking antennae of this beetle.


After walking for another long while without encountering any beetles, I decided to turn back. And on the way back, I encountered this chocolate brown slightly hairy Leaf Beetle. This is the second time that I encounter this type of chocolate brown color Leaf Beetle.


Just before reaching the end of my trip, I found this Leaf Beetle with almost transparent elytra.


The trip has been fruitful with me finding 8 first-time-encounter beetles, but the trip was very long and at times frustrating especially when not encountering any beetles after walking for a long while. Guessed that I will continue to come to this place as long as there are still first-time-encounter beetles to be "discovered".

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