Lunar New Year Day 3: Chestnut Avenue

After a failed attempt last Saturday night due to the torrential rain, finally we made it back to our planned trip to the forest. It's my first time at Chestnut Ave! According to James, this is a site where there are lots of beetles.


My most favourite beetle find of the day will be this yellow ladybug! It is so tiny and cute, like those we saw in cartoon or drawings.


But for the others on the trip, I bet their favourite beetle find must be this Longhorned Beetle (Family Cerambycidae). In fact, this was the first creature I found when we entered the forest!


This beetle was feeding on a fig where its tree had been fallen. Yum yum!


Later on the trip, another longhorn beetle was found.This looks different from the previous one.


Talking about feeding, here is a pretty photo of a half-eaten Simpoh air fruit.


On the underside of a leaf, James found this intriuging caterpillar which has this extension from its head.


On a fallen log, there were many of these earwigs. Why are they called earwigs??

There is this myth that "Earwigs are so named because they crawl into people's ears while they're sleeping and eat their brains." Find out more about the truth behind this on the Urban Legends page.


These worms looks exactly like the ribbon worms we see on our shores.


Also a worm, this black terrestrial flatworm is quite commonly found on the forest floor.


Along the way, James requested all of us to switch off our torches. Low and behold, he found his favourite glowing mushrooms. I did not take a long exposure shot of them glowing though.


We were excited to find a tree with a number of these tiny praying mantis (Leptomantella sp.).


Here is another one that is more brownish in colour, in its praying position. At some moments, their heads will turn and look towards me, which I thought was very cute.


Ivan found this really huge caterpillar that looks interesting. I have not seen such a caterpillar before.


Later on, I also found this caterpillar with a mesh of thread-like nest over it. I'm not too sure what it is for.


I also found this giant centipede that made Ivan very excited!


A really large stick insect was found, which stayed in position for a while for us to take nice photographs of.


What excites me will be this hopper nymph with hairy projections on the back which James had found.


This ground beetle was found on a fallen log. Strangely, we did not see as many beetles as this place should contain. It was a pity I missed the pretty tortoise beetles (Aspidomorpha sp.).


In the middle of the trip, a firefly was spotted! It gave off a faint glow in the dark. However, after settling on the leaf for a while, the firefly flew away. This was the only decent shot I had.


There were many of these slugs found at Chestnut Ave forest.


Moths were not commonly sighted though, except for a few such as this white moth with black dots.


Ivan found many of these bugs which I have unfortunately forgotten their identity. My brain simply went into hibernation mode after 11pm. :(


This is a cranefly that I've also seen at Venus Drive before. Ron probably got a better shot with his far lens.


Here is another species of cranefly. It was moving non-stop, making macro photography very challenging. I could not really get a sharp image.


Last but not least the spiders: this garden spider looks quite out of the world to me.


Here is a huntsman spider, which we saw about a couple during the trip.


Last but not least, we found this two-tailed spider (Family Hersiliidae) towards the end of the trip.

Our forest are alive! Especially at night. Haha! I will try to find time and continue my terrestrial exploration if possible. Look out for our next adventure.

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/02/05/