Monday, April 7, 2008

Jumping Jewel


It was a Sunday hike with the kid and being Sunday and being Singapore, the nature trails in MacRitchie were choked with joggers and noisy visitors, the latter sometimes in packs of eights and tens....I barely had a chance to aim my lens at anything that can move and was almost indiscriminate, pointing the camera at that chick in her mini shorts ....

Then I found this jumping jewel on the almost spent Costus speciosa flower. It was barely 1 cm across and very active, jumping everywhere, so a tripod would be useless. They walked or jogged past and threw casual glances at this guy aiming a camera at a spent flower. They did not see what I saw for only I had the 150mm macro. So for a moment, I shared this little niche with the spidey and considered myself happy....

Addenda:
This Phintella sp is related to a species of jumping spiders recently proven by researchers from Singapore to utilise light in UV-B wavelength range to attract mates. This is the first confirmation of any animal being able to detect UV-B - the harmful ray that cause skin cancer and cataracts in humans.

2 comments:

Hermes said...

I feel the same as Nancy, great photo but not my favourite subject. Next time perhaps the chick ...

Hort Log said...

: )

....but they are fascinating, more here....if u can conquer your fear !

http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/spiders/text/a-spiders.htm

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