Other Aquatic Fauna

Also known as the Jesus bug.

Water strider legs are covered in thousands of microscopic hairs scored with tiny groves. As reported in National Geographic, “These groves trap air, increasing water resistance of the water’s striders legs and overall buoyancy of the insect

The water skipper’s legs are so buoyant they can support fifteen times the insect’s weight without sinking. Even in a rainstorm, or in waves, the strider stays afloat.

As with all insects, the water strider has three pairs of legs. The front legs are much shorter, and allow the strider to quickly grab prey on the surface. The middle legs act as paddles. The back legs are the longest and provide additional power, and also enable the strider to steer and “brake.”

The buoyancy and paddling legs allows striders to be fast. Very, very fast. The National Geographic article reports striders are capable of “speeds of a hundred body lengths per second. To match them, a 6-foot-tall person would have to swim at over 400 miles an hour.”

Unfortunately for the water strider, these extraordinary capabilities don’t extend to land. Their legs are almost useless on hard surfaces.

They are particularly effective predators of mosquito larvae. As the Backyard Arthropod Project blog writes, “Since mosquito larvae breathe through a snorkel that they poke through the surface of the water, the water striders can grab them by the snorkel and eat them. I approve of this.”As do I. It’s always good to have some striders around. However, if there are too many water striders around and they run out of mosquito larvae, they eat each other.

The golden apple snail is usually found in urbanised freshwater habitats such as reservoirs, ponds and ditches.

This species of snail is native to South America and notorious for its reproductive ability — it lays eggs in clusters of up to 1,000 eggs.

As such, it often out-competes other species of snails which lay eggs in smaller quantities.

One native species threatened by the golden apple snail is the apple snail, which has to compete with its invasive cousin for food and shelter as well

The eggs can be toxic if ingested but in a statement to Mothership, PUB assured that the eggs do not affect the water quality of reservoirs

Golden apple snails were introduced to Asia as a potential source of food but the species has become a major pest in rice fields. When left uncontrolled, this highly invasive species can lead to more than 50 per cent yield loss.

The bright colour is thought to act as a visual deterrent to predators while a study published in 2010 revealed that proteins deposited around a fertilised egg, are involved in egg defence.

One of these proteins, PcPV2, is a neurotoxin with a strong lethal effect on the central nervous system of mice.

Its also popular in the aquarium trade, like a cleaner fish, it eats up the waste materials.

When water is absent, apple snails are able to bury themselves in the mud and hibernate for up to six months . When water is re-applied to fields, snails may emerge.

Red-eared sliders originally originate from the United States and Mexico, where they inhabit different areas of waters such as lakes, ponds, streams, and rivers.

They Can Live As Long As You

the sliders live longer in captivity than in the wild. They live up to 40 years in wild whereas, 50-70 years in captivity.

Red-eared sliders or terrapins are one of the most widely traded turtles for the pet trade, and can legally be sold/kept as pets in Singapore. These exotic turtles are imported into Singapore in large numbers to meet the demand for the pet trade. They are sold in pet shops and aquariums in for just a few dollars, meaning that anyone is able to purchase one as a pet.

Sadly, many people who buy a red-eared slider as a pet are unaware of their long lifespan and their various complex needs – in terms of space, food, water quality, sunlight and privacy.

Did you know that the most common pet turtle is the red-eared slider turtle? It’s a very popular pet in the United States, and all across the world, as well. And the reason is simple. 

They don’t require special conditions to be kept, they live long enough, and most importantly they make a great pet companion. 

Red-eared sliders are one of the most invasive species of turtles. They even rank on the top 100 invasive species in the world. This has been a problem for a while in lots of countries all around the world, especially in Eastern Australia, and it’ll hardly get any better soon.

Another interesting fact about red-eared slider turtles is the way genders form. The biggest factor that determines whether the baby turtle is a boy or a girl is the temperature within the nest. If the temperature during the process of incubation is between 22 and 27 degrees Celsius, the turtles will turn into males. 

On the contrary, if the temperature is warmer, the turtles in the eggs will turn into females. 

Red-eared sliders reach sexual maturity at the age of 2 to 5 years of age. One of the surprising things about the red-eared sliders is only 1% of the hatchling can make it to their adulthood. The rest of the eggs are often fallen prey to the birds, snakes, raccoons and other animals.

Singapore is home to some 124 native species of dragonflies and damselflies

What is the Dragonfly Watch all about?

The Dragonfly Watch is a citizen science initiative to involve the community in collecting valuable information about dragonflies and damselflies in our parks, gardens and reserves.

You can when you participate in our Dragonfly Watch surveys! In Singapore, you can find more than 120 species of dragonflies and damselflies that come in different colours and sizes

Singapore researchers are studying if dragonflies are nature’s best pest busters. Discover how they could keep the mosquito population in check.

They swoop in at high speeds to capture their prey with their legs, then devour them while flying. Dragonflies are such skilled hunters that one study put their success rate at 90 to 95 per cent.

That and their ravenous appetite for small insects, including mosquitoes, have drawn the interest of researchers in Singapore. As the country faces yet another dengue fever outbreak, dragonflies in urban areas could be a natural solution to keep Aedes aegypti mosquito populations in check.

floating platforms were constructed and planted with vegetation. The emergent, submerged and floating aquatic plants provide dragonflies with places to perch, roost and lay eggs. Waterside vegetation also offers them shelter and refuge.

Dragonflies, which eat insects as adults, are a great control on the mosquito population. A single dragonfly can eat 30 to hundreds of mosquitoes per day

In time, perhaps there will be more of the acrobatic insect hunters, the buzzing of their wings replacing that of pesky mosquitoes

Dragonflies were some of the first winged insects to evolve, some 300 million years ago. Modern dragonflies have wingspans of only two to five inches, but fossil dragonflies have been found with wingspans of up to two feet.

In their larval stage, which can last up to two years, dragonflies are aquatic and eat just about anything—tadpoles, mosquitoes, fish, other insect larvae and even each other.

Some adult dragonflies live for only a few weeks while others live up to a year.

American Bullfrogs originated from North America, they are big and strong creatures being able to reach up to 20 cm long

Brought into Singapore as part of the food trade, this frog is commonly sold at coffee shops and markets for food, and in the pet trade as pet or bait for other aquatic animals.

Use for the frog leg porridge

80-90 per cent of animals kept in captivity — including birds, fish, insects and turtles — usually die on the first day they are released into the wild:

"Many of these animals are kept in captivity in crowded conditions, sold for slaughter for food/cooking. When released in an unfamiliar environment, they go through tremendous stress from that and die

“A handful of private groups or individuals still carry out such activities believing that they are helping the animals away from being slaughtered”

And their diet? Anything goes. As long as the American Bullfrog can fit the animal in it’s mouth, it’s food. Now the native animals we have here in Singapore aren’t all as big as the American Bullfrog. Since they can’t retaliate back, they’ll be eaten and forced to extinction by these American Bullfrogs.

Now if the food chain of the ecosystem in Singapore is broken, several of the animals in Singapore will be affected. For example, if these American Bullfrogs ate all the insects like grasshoppers or caterpillars, there won’t be enough food for the local frogs and toads in Singapore. These out-competed local frogs and toads will starve and might even end up being extinct. This means they’ll be gone forever!

Turning American bullfrogs into Asian delicacies, one frog-skin chip at a time:
https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/turning-american-bullfrogs-asian-delicacies-010257565.html

At the farm, the mortality rate is 80% at every stage of their life cycle, from egg to tadpole to adult frog.

"It takes a very long time, about seven to eight months from the egg to go to the adult stage. Because it's a very long life cycle we need to import to be able to supply (the market)," says Jackson Wan, a member of the Jurong team.

Asia has a huge appetite for frogs. Singapore alone is thought to chew through at least five million kilograms of frog flesh each year.

That equates to around 15 million frogs each year

Croaking: Only male Bullfrogs croak. It sounds like “jug-o-rum!” They croak to attract mates and establish territory. You can hear them singing in spring and summer during mating season.