Post by Dr. Anna Latour

Takahē

Dr. Anna Latour

@anna@mathstodon.xyz

lizard

Yesterday, I also saw a couple of big Malayan water monitor lizards, chilling around

I also saw clouded monitor lizards, so cute!

#Nature #Wildlife #Singapore #Hike #Outdoors #MonitorLizard #Lizard #Lizards

A big monitor lizard chilling on a path. It is laying flat on its belly in a star fish position that spells "Sunday mood", soaking up the warm sunlight. It is a greyish brown colour and has a very long tail with faint thick stripes in an alternating dark-light pattern. Its belly is very round.

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A cute little clouded monitor lizard standing on a board walk. It is mostly dark grey, with light-coloured speckles on its sides. Its very long tail has a pattern of thick light-and-dark stripes. It is sticking its long tongue out (its tongue is at least as long as its legs), so you can see how the "tip half" of the tongue is blue, while the "throat half" of the tongue is purple-pink.

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Dr. Anna Latour

@anna@mathstodon.xyz

Crabs and snails and mangroves

I had seen mangrove forests before, elsewhere in Singapore, but I had never seen tree-climbing crabs or telescope snails. Also: seeing what looked like cockles on tree roots was just new and weird and special to me. Fab!

#Wildlife #Mangrove #Mangroves #Crabs #Snail #Snails #Crab #Singapore #Hike #Outdoors

The roots of mangrove trees in a mangrove forest. The roots are in the water, and make the trees look like a person who has just stepped in a wet spot while wearing clean socks.

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A lot is going on on these mangrove tree roots. There are at least four tree-climbing crabs chilling on the roots and the trunk of the tree. They have very square bodies. There are also a ton of telescope snails, who have very conic, spirally shells. Finally, there are a ton of what looks like cockles attached to the roots, mostly a bit closer to the water.

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Dr. Anna Latour

@anna@mathstodon.xyz

Crab, fish, mention of ants

I had never seen this before: a water-spitting fish.

Turns out it's called an Archer Fish, and it was hunting for ants on a tree by spitting water at them to make them fall down from the tree, ready for the fish to snack on. As I was watching, another archer fish actually came by and was repeatedly chased away by the first one. "My tree!" It looked like the needle fish were *also* trying to munch on the fallen ants, hanging around the first archer fish and speeding towards any fallen ants whenever they dared.

It was amazing to watch, but hard to capture in a picture. This was my most successful attempt, but the fish could easily spit water up to a height of 50 cm, probably more!

#Wildlife #Fish #ArcherFish #Hike #Outdoors #MangroveForest

Close-up of the root of a mangrove tree, rising up from the water. On the left size, a tree-climbing crab is chilling on the root, having a perfect view of the deadline hunt going on below. In the water are six or so needle fish (you can guess their shape), and one archer fish, which has a white belly and a light grey back and four or five black spots on its flank. From the archer fish, you can see a white sprite of water being spit up to the tree root, targeting the little black ants that are crawling on it.

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$Same scene, just a fraction of a moment later, where the sprite of water goes up higher, but is less dense, so only barely visible.$

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Dr. Anna Latour

@anna@mathstodon.xyz

Crocodiles

I also saw this sign for the first time. I had been to the Woodlands before, and people had mentioned that there were crocodiles there, just as I was ankle-deep in the water because it had *rained*, but now I actually saw this sign.

As a Dutchie, I always believe that other cultures are way too "betuttelend" with their warnings for everything, so naturally, I thought "Aw. It's Singapore. How bad can it possibly be!?"

That naiveté only lasted for about 15 minutes, after which I went "yo wtf!?"

#Crocodile #Wildlife #Crocodiles #Hike #Nature #Outdoors #MangroveForest

Picture of lush forest with a nipah palm in the background and in the foreground a sign that shows a red triangle with a picture of a crocodile in it, and below it the text "Watch out for Crocodiles. Stay clear of the water's edge".

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Picture of the giant face of a crocodile, chilling at the water surface in a mangrove forest. Its eyes and nostrils are above water, and you can see two massive white teeth just under the water's surface.

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Massive crocodile swimming right along a board walk in the water in a mangrove forest. Its back and tail are mostly above water, and it is swimming towards another boardwalk.

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