When: April 2014 Weather : 25C and hot
A night ramble in rifle range road, Singapore started off quietly……a few usual grasshoppers and spiders….
big grasshopper
garfield spider!
close up of wolf spider
assassin bug
And as the night wore on, it looked as if it was going to be one of those quiet nights with nothing too dramatic..and then we saw it…just sitting on a concrete bollard in the middle of a conduit…..the rarely seen Barred Kukri snake…apparently only a handful of sightings ever in singapore/malaysia. Much less common than the Striped Kukri…
draped over a bollard…
Barred Kukri
barred kukri
the much commoner striped kukri for comparison
It was a tiny little thing, about 12 inches long, pencil thin and feisty! ( I guess I would have been too had I been disturbed in the middle of the night.)
close up of head
adopting the cobra pose…
just gorgeous from the dorsum
orange ringed ventral surface
it was not amused and started gnawing at my friend’s knuckle…
drawing blood…
Fortunately the Barred Kukri is not venomous but the bite is still painful! We left him where we found him in a remote part of Rifle Range Link….
On the way out, this cute fellow was standing guard…
crab eating frog
And there was a spectacular variable lizard..how cool are its eyes!
Dinosaur like variable lizard with awesome eye detail
Singapore, the garden city never fails to amaze …you just do not expect to see such wonderful fauna here!
The Natural Traveller 