The photo was not taken from the Ultraman TV program.
The answer is Mud Whelks (Nassarius jacksonianus). Have you gotten it right? You may have eaten this disgusting snail before. It is a gastrpoda that can reach 10cm (about 4 inches) in length, and comes in many shapes and sizes. Commonly seen in shallow muddy pool of mangrove forest, it moves slowly on the mud, grazing on algae on the mud surface. Mud Whelks is a scavengers that feeds on dead animals and leaves. It can detect prey using ospharadium, a chemosensory organ near the base of the siphon.
See the picture below. Its head looks like lamb or cow, right? To see its body FULLY extended, I nailed its shell upright in the mud. As you can see, its muscle is strong (look juicy too). I waited more than 5 minutes to get this photo.
Now I show the colour version of the first picture. I guess the black and white picture is very misleading. That’s the purpose. Haha! It is less fun if I tell you what it is in the beginning.
Wasp is a strange insect that looks like a combination of ant and bee. Unlike bee, it usually flies alone and looks harmless. Most of them are very bright in color (usually yellow or orange), which is supposed to mean warning. The end result – I was stung more often by wasps than bees when I was a kid. Even until today, I was attacked occasionally when I walked alone in the wood. The wasp below is in golden color.
Parasitic-wasps are good mother but cruel predator. They paralyze their prey such as the larvae of moth and butterfly, by injecting it with venom via their stingers. The venom is only enough to paralyze the prey permenantly but will not kill it. They will then lay eggs inside the paralyzed prey. When the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the prey alive as food. Parasitic wasps are also used in agricultural pest control. Below are the pictures of a parasitic-wasp storing a paralyzed prey in the nest.
Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu Wetland Centre, Sabah, Malaysia
Guys, I would like to introduce you a friend who has smooth skin and slim body. Happy or not? Mangrove Skink (Emoia atrocostata) is one of the most common animals spotted in Sabah mangrove forest. Normally it has smooth and brownish to grayish metallic skin. This small, short-legged lizard is usually less than 1 foot (30cm) long. Like other lizards, it can detech its tail easily as an escape mechanism.
Basically they are everywhere anytime in mangrove forest. I always see dozens of them in KK Wetland Centre, on the broadwalk, under the mangrove root, on the sandy ground, open space… It looks very much like a skink that lives in our garden. In Hakka, we call it “Choa-Ma-Sa”. Choa-Ma-Sa is smaller and got beautiful red stripes on its body, while Mangrove Skink doesn’t.
They are timid but not quite afraid of human. They always keep a distance from you. If you come too close, they would jump into the water, so I assume they are good swimmer. During low tide, you can always see plenty of them roaming on the ground to look for small crabs, insect and other food.
I notice that they use only one eye to observe something. What I mean is — they don’t look at you face to face. Instead, they turn their head to side, using only one eye to look at you. I am not sure if they are trying to act cute or what. If you don’t believe me, just look at all the photos shown here.
Other two different skink species that I saw were spotted in Sepilok virgin forest and Klias wetland. The later one is only found in Borneo.
Photos taken in KK Wetland Centre, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo
Girls… be careful if you find an ant on your dress, it could be a SPIDER!!! Hahaha… scare or not? This cool ant, no… I mean sipder, is also found in Sabah Borneo. It looks and moves like a normal ant, even the REAL ant also cannot tell the difference. We should call it “SPY-der” instead. If I am not mistaken, this is a type of jumping spiders (family Salticidae) belonging to the genus Myrmarachne.
I discovered it because I was taking some pictures of ants, otherwise I wouldn’t find it. At first, I noticed a funny ant that has a BIG head. Curiosity made me to examine it more closely. It was alerted, so it jumped quickly and hide behind a leaf. I never saw any ant with such agility. And it got 8 legs! We all know that insects such as ant only have 6 legs. This spider is less than 1 cm, so I had to use an additional close-up len to magnify its funny face.
There are two reasons it masquerades as an ant:
1) Most animals do not dare to upset ant, which will risk calling a whole kampung (village) of angry ants to beat them up. By acting and looking like an ant, the ant-mimicking spiders have better chance of survival, as most predators will avoid them like plague.
2) It uses ant disguise to hunt ants. Its deceptive look allows it to get closer to ants.
The long “nose” of this ant-mimicking spider seems like the one owned by arthropod Pinocchio who told lie. Malayan Naturalist, Vol 51 No. 1, August 1997 has an interesting description about it: “This ‘nose’ is in fact a pair of chelicerae (jaws bearing sabre-like fangs) which are normally held together. These oversized chelicerae are a second sexual characteristic… These fangs are also used for killing prey. Spiders normally paralyse their prey by injecting them with venom through ducts inside their fangs…
However, due to the exaggerated length of their fangs, Ant-Mimicking Spiders have lost the ability to inject venom to immobilize prey. They resort to the less elegant method of holding down the prey and stabbing it with their fangs. Also because of their unwieldy chelicerae, feeding is a messy business for the male spiders. They have to stab their prey repeatedly in order to suck up nutrients through the holes.”
To me, this nose makes it seems like it is carrying a short gun (but function more like a knife). But don’t worry, to other ants, it looks like it is carrying a baby ant. I believe there are other types of ant-mimicking spiders around. I will update this blog if I find any new species.
Photos taken in KK Wetland Centre, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo
Crickets come with many sizes. Some use it to feed the fish. Some use it to make weird food. Some use it to gamble. For those of us who grew up without Playstation, Internet, Astro TV and computers, crickets were our friends, our pet and even toy.
There is one type of Giant Cricket that live in caves and it preys on defenseless baby birds. I will try to get its picture if I visit Gomantong Cave or Madai Cave of Sabah. The green one in this picture is about 3-inch (7cm) in length. The colour and shape of its wings look like green leaf. For this shoot, I was using fast shutter speed with fill-in flash. That’s why the background looks dark even though it was afternoon.
Cricket is my favourite photo shooting target coz they are the most cooperative, if compared to other insects that always try to flee. You also can see the photos of cricket I took in Klias and Tawau.
When I looked back the photos, I found something odd near its tail (see photo at the left below). Are these eggs or parasite or something else inside the holes? They look quite disgusting.
Photos taken in KK Wetland Centre, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo
This bug is really a good house builder. As you can see in the pictures below, it can bind three leaves tightly together without using hands. Most of this nest is found on rhizophora mangrove tree. Yes, you guess it right. It belongs to a caterpillar.
Until now I don’t know the species name of this beautiful caterpillar. Most likely it will turn into an ugly moth and fly stupidly into fire to end its life. I deeply concern they will go extinct coz Sabah uses more candles than other states, due to frequent power blackout.
While I was busy watching it, it used something look like “silk” from its mouth to build the nest. The picture below shows its semi-transparent body shined through by morning sunray. You also can see the hair on its body. My past experience told me not to touch it, as it would cause hours of unpleasant skin irritation.
Another shot of it. I was holding the leaf (and try not to let it crawl to my hand). I did a bit of stage setup, to make the photos look more artistic.
Photos taken in KK Wetland Centre, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo
Nature world is a cruel world. Big eats small. Strong kills weak. Due to limited food supply in mangrove forest, it is very common that big crab prey on the smaller of its kind. Though the photos below are not colorful, I can feel the lives in them strongly. I especially like the first one and make it my wallpaper.
Small Crab: “Don’t kill me please. I got 4 old mothers and 7 old fathers to take care.” Big Crab: “You are such a BIG liar. You deserve to die!”
Small Crab: “I also got 1,503 children who need me badly…” Big Crab: “Just shut up and say cheese to the camera.”
Yeah, I know you will say that you have sick of reading my blog about crabs. Heheh… I am a “Crab King” now. In fact, one publisher has contacted me for using my fiddler crab photos in their new book. Hopefully can make it. Seriously, if I got enough stories and photos, I will setup another blog that only talks about Borneo mangrove forest.
FYI, my next target is a green snake. I have been looking for it for weeks but still no luck. But I take other good photos along the way.
Update
Thanks to Dr Chris Glasby from Darwin, Australia! Finally I know the identity of the bugs I posted in my Creepy Beauty blog. You may check out the last paragraph for the answers.
More weird creature brought to you by Smoke Head. I think you all have seen the slug (a.k.a. Running-Nose Bug. Named after its wet and mucous body), right? The normal slug is usually smooth and black in color. When I first saw it, I thought it was a snail that forgot to bring its shell.
Slug is one of the most hatred pests of the farmers coz it can wipe out the leaf vegetable overnight. To kill it, just pour a bit of salt on its body. Very soon, the osmosis process will suck the water and fluid out of its body, and murder it eventually.
The Mangrove Slug (Family Onchidiidae) is totally different. Its skin is rough and spiky. I wonder if this is the secret protection that enables them to crawl on the salty floor of mangrove forest. They are only about 1 inch (2.5cm) in length.
Guess what? They don’t eat leaf. During low tide, you can see them busy grazing above muddy ground and surface algae. Their brown skin color blend well into the soil and they move very slowly. So it is not easy to spot these tiny creatures. I discovered they could change color too.
This morning I saw about 10 of them resting in a small and exposed area, with part of their bodies immersed in the water. I thought they were all death coz their skin color was so pale (see picture below).
I used my fingers to touch their eyes and they contracted (still alive then). And most of them opened their anus fully. I stood there and waited, hoping to see something such as shit or egg came out. But nothing. After hour of sunbathe, their skin color back to normal then they moved to the dry and shaded area. Anyone can explain this behaviour?
Note: Whenever I find new info and photo, I would update my old blog. Just to let you know that I have added a few disgusting photos and video to my old blog entry named “Creepy Beauty”.
