Black and White

Last week, I had the most wonderful experience of doing a night hike on one of Singapore’s offshore islands. The many islands surrounding mainland Singapore are famed for their rich biodiversity on terrestrial and aquatic fronts, and visits have always been highly rewarding.

And this night walk did not disappoint at all. Our little team was on the lookout And this night walk did not disappoint at all. Our small team was on the lookout for the rare and highly venomous Banded Krait (Bungarus fasciatus), a distinctly coloured member of the elapid family, containing cobras, coral snakes, and sea snakes. And like the latter, the banded krait in Singapore favours coastal and other aquatic habitats. Thus, we had to coincide our visits with ever-shifting tides.

Armed with torches, snacks, definitely not enough water, the whole trip lasted us about 6 hours and yielded so many amazing animals, many of them lifers. I had the opportunity to see my first ever white-spotted slug snake (Pareas margaritophorus). As the name suggests, this small snake specialises in feeding on slugs and snails, the latter of which it expertly removes from their shells.

While not a white-spotted slug snake, a member of the same genus (Pareas) feeds on a snail.

This species, interestingly enough, is a non-native lifer and is thought to have been accidentally introduced to Singapore via the horticulture trade over two decades ago. The small island-state plays home to many such non-native and invasive species that have wound up here either as stowaways or been deliberate releases from the pet trades, both legal and illegal.

While the rest of the night did not bring up any more non-native species, we had a pretty spectacular showdown of native herptiles and invertebrates, including a gorgeous leaf insect, which I think might be a Gray’s Leaf Insect (Phyllium bioculatum) and a giant forest scorpion (Heterometrus sp.).

And finally, towards the end of our walk, our target species was spotted by someone, as the call (and messages) of “Krait!” went up. Boldly marked with black and white bands, the krait stood out from the browns and yellows of the leaf litter and was quite a pretty sight to behold. Elsewhere in the world, banded kraits are typically yellow and black. In fact, according to Daniel (2002), the genus name ‘Bungarus‘ could have been derived from ‘bangara’ in Kannada or ‘bangarum’ in Telugu, both words meaning “gold”, referring to the yellowish-gold bands around its body.

The Banded Krait (Bungarus fasciatus) is a beautiful snake that is striking in more ways than one.

Like its king cobra and coral snake relatives, the banded krait feeds predominantly on other snakes. While we did not observe any snake-eating behaviours with this krait, it was simply happy to give us a few poses before moving on with its krait-y business.

It was a great find and a greater night overall, and aching legs and the 22000-steps clocked were definitely worth it! Now, it is time to plan a future walk and keep my eyes peeled for the longest and most regal venomous snake in the world, and local native, the King Cobra!

SGSTEM 16: ‘Biomimicry in Singapore’ with Dr Anuj Jain

What does the front of a Japanese bullet train, sonar, and Velcro all have in common? They are all human inventions that were conceived and adapted from evolutions that exist in nature. How does nature inspire us, and how much more can we learn and adapt from nature? And can we embrace a biomimetic future, as we have done with biophilia?

Dr Anuj Jain, co-founder of the Biomimicry Singapore Network, walks us through biomimicry, its various forms and applications in this session.

Nature has had a lot of time (about 3.8 billion years) to work on the solutions to many problems, and some of these adaptions continue to stymie us to this day. For instance, spider silk is five times stronger than steel, but we cannot produce something so sustainable and quickly, even under perfect laboratory conditions. How close can we get to this perfection?

While many indigenous cultures have been observing and adapting from nature for centuries, it is within that last few decades that biomimicry has taken off on various fronts and modern innovations. And Anuj reckons that this innovative increase is exponential and will only continue to grow.

Biomimicry can be split into three major areas or levels; form, process, and ecosystem. Form-based mimicry is when an organism’s morphological characteristics are mimicked, such as the overlapping scales of a pangolin in the production of armour. Process-level biomimicry is based on an organisms internal process, and ecosystem-level biomimicry gets its inspiration from the interactions between various organisms.

In Singapore, biomimetics is at the forefront of cutting-edge technology, even though many are not aware of it. Did you know that our desalination plants are an example of biomimicry? And it does not stop with science processes. Biomimicry components are also found in architecture and transport infrastructure, such as the Solaris building (below).

The Solaris at Fusionopolis is based on a termite-mound and helps to keep the building cool, along side other biomimetic and biophilic components in its architecture

Biomimicry is more prevalent and common than we think, and looking around us, we have overlooked many cool inventions that have nature at their centre. And lastly, if you are keen on where else we have or can adapt from nature, Anuj recommends checking out Ask Nature to find out other cool ways nature has evolved to overcome its problems.

TRIVIA & DONATIONS

There were no tie-breakers this week, as Team Fishy emerged a clear winner!

Team Fishy’s initial charity of choice was Comcrop. But since they are a commercial company, Team Fishy picked ACRES. ACRES received this session’s trivia pot of $20.

WHAT IS NEXT?

For our next session, we are hosting a very familiar face, my co-host, Marcus Chua! When he is not co-hosting #SGSTEM and making puns, Marcus curates the mammals and birds at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum. But it is not museum-y stuff he will be talking about.

There are hundreds of awareness days catering to many flora and fauna. Some, like penguins, have multiple days. But do these days actually work in promoting the species and driving conservation? Or are we just using them as good social media hooks? Marcus will tell us and advise us on how we can improve conservation communication.

Sign-up now at tinyurl.com/sgstem20210304 to join us!

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