The annotated budak

Year of the (Water) Dragon

A flash of blue is usually the only sign of a satinwing as one approaches jungle streams hemmed by rampant vegetation. Restricted to clear brooks with log jams and fringing detritus in which their nymphs reside, Euphaea impar is a beauty at home in beastly parts, a body of refractive lightness that haunts the radiant gaps of diffused swamps. The males are reputed to be nervous creatures with little tolerance for intrusions into their territories; their default response to breaches of their personal space is to flutter upwards, turning near-invisible the moment they leave their sunspot to ascend into the canopy. Females are even scarcer; their olive-green bodies and clear wings offer scant contrast against the dull understorey of waterlogged forests.

Euphaiedae is a small family of odonates with stout limbs and stalkless wings. Only three species are known from the Malay Peninsula, but in Borneo, millennia of isolation from the asiatic mainland have caused a modest explosion into at least eight species, including five island endemics. Four of these are congeners of impar, but bear extensive patches of metallic blue-green on their hindwings. This feature invites confusion with metalwing demoiselles, but the latter group can be distinguished by their long, spidery legs and a preference for riffles and bouldery rapids, while euphaeids are more wont to rest on riparian foliage by quieter creeks. Another species closely resembles its more widespread cousin, but lacks dark wing markings and has only been found in Brunei and the Lambir Hills of Sarawak. 

A second Euphaied genus, Dysphaea, consists of heavily built damselflies with the habit of spreading out their purplish wings at rest in the manner of typical anisopterans. Recorded more than 150 years ago in Singapore, Dysphaea dimidiata has since vanished, having perished when its sunny streams surrendered to a chronic obsession with clean banks that still plagues the managers of urban parks. The sole survivor of the family on the island, Euphaea impar clings to the edges of existence on the few waterways that course through the reserves without the impediment of straight and narrow plans. Here, by shaded channels flowing over leaf litter and soft, sinking silt, it is still possible to find a bold relicts who guard their share of a refuge at risk of depredation and land on each new perch with the trepidation of half-opened wings.

Duskhawks

Most libellulid dragonflies revel in the sun, becoming active towards noon when they bask, battle and beget new nymphs to terrorise the smaller creatures that share their habitats. A passing cloud can transform a creek of aerial dancers into empty airspace as the insects flee the shadow for the comfort of higher canopies. The return of harsh rays triggers, in the blink of a blank, a fresh whirl of wings ready to capture passing midges, defend their corners from covetous neighbours and conquer the nether parts of dragon ladies who typically tease in veiled outfits.

This love affair with bright skies is shunned by at least one tribe of libellulids, namely those in the subfamily Trameinae. Like their close relatives, Zyxommatinids have long hindwings with greatly expanded bases, the better to coast through the air with minimal flapping. But the abdomens of members of this tribe are long enough to convey a sense of regular proportions lacking in their stubbier kin. It could well be that this is an adaptation that mirrors the length of aeshnids and similarly allows these crepuscular dragonflies to orchestrate complex manouervres in the dark.

Having turned their backs on the sun, Zyxommatinids spend the daylight hours on obscure perches away from the bustle of their diurnal counterparts. White-barred duskhawks favour twigs and bushes in shady spots, from which they hang tail-down in the manner of some of the larger members of their subfamily. The females are unremarkable brown things; male, on the other hand, sport unmistakeable patterns. A dull orange coats the body of mature animals, while the hyaline hindwings bear smoky patches just before the nodus. Most prominent of all are two post-nodal drops of opalescence that strike the eyes as the dragonflies emerge shortly before sunset to patrol the edges of tropical waterbodies.

Distributed across Asia and Africa, the duskhawks are catholic breeders who deposit their eggs in sewage lagoons, scummy pools, village water tanks and lacustrine marshes. Locally, I have found them near back mangroves, by an inland trail through swampy forest and cruising over the banks of a flooded quarry; we have also crossed paths at the fringes of a service pond in the Maliau Basin and a deep canal that doubles as a dump for residents of a Malaysian housing estate. The males have been compared to ghosts as they skim over their territories with stop-start darts and Brownian trajectories, their pale wingpatches aquiver and agleam against the darkening waters of their home. Their flight paths are predictable enough to facilitate low-light photography, but the sight of a rival or potential mate will spark off-tangent chases that may end up high over swamps and streets before the pursuer breaks off and resumes his regular beat.

The nominate genus of the tribe are also dragonflies that occupy the domains of daytrippers when the latter are in roost. Only one species was known to occur in Singapore until recently, when a small population of Zyxomma obtusum was spotted in a zone of natural recovery. These smallish odonates similarly save their energy for twilight skirmishes along the weedy edges of ponds and drains, which become the haunts of restless males with bright wings and powdery bodies. Having established themselves in the rural periphery, these dim-time flyers now have a foothold and staging ground from which they might launch nocturnal sorties to take over the lower reaches of a mainland rich in kind but sorely lacking in kindred spirits. 

Sit and wade

We don't always see them, but they never fail to haunt each clumsy stride along the rock bund of Tanah Merah that divides a sandy flat from deeper reefs. To the jaded, their profile is etched in half-imagined memories of pain and suffering, but it's still entirely possible, during focused attempts to spot prettier things, to overlook a jagged frown amid slabs of slimy filaments and frenetic snails.

The epiphytes and bottom-feeders appear to make no distinction between broken stones and stubby bodies with broad fins and a tapering end. It probably makes no difference to the fish, as long as juicier inhabitants of the reef continue to come within range of its pout. What gives the game away, though, are the hollow cheeks, facial indentations that confer form to a pair of lidless eyes on bony ridges and a gape of ill-intent. Though damaged by a crude accident, the flats still seethe with gobies, cardinalfish, damsels and silversides that lose their confidence in the grey hours between day and flight. For these tender swimmers as well as toes who wander the shore with barely covered soles, it's a time of misgiving that could well end in a fatal stab into the dark.

Beachy

It's child's play to explore the rocky beach of Labrador Park when the tide is middling and the sky is mounting a campaign of fear and error against the plans of obstinate picnickers. The natural shoreline begins at the foot of a recursive seawall, where a huddle of turtlegrass punctured by patches of longer blades grows just beyond the sand. The beds were out of reach last week, however, as the winter monsoon had put paid to the spring cycle with a dip in atmospheric pressure and conspiring surges of stormwater that stained the sea with the loam of the land.

A broken range of boulders and miniature canyons begins soon after the columns of the fishermen's pier. The basal portions of the pillars are dotted with the spires of resting periwinkles, sea snails that have conquered the air but captured little new ground in a narrow belt of safety between the waves and the wind. Other grazers occupy the slopes of the rocky mounts; dove shells gather in messy gangs on damp terraces, while turbans and tops squeeze into cracks between and under the shelves. Nerites and slugs, having a higher tolerance for exposure, remain active in their assault on filaments that had survived their first foothold on a harsh terrain. Equal violence lurks in the coils of robust hunters – drills with bumps, knobs and spines – that menace barnacles and limpets with the force of tooth.

The chain soon splits, sinks and resurfaces to form a tumble of rock and rubble close to the base of Labrador's cliffs and under the shade of weather-beaten ketapang and twisted sea laurel. It was too late in the day for Melastoma to unfurl its lavender blooms, but the buttery drapes of Dillenia still hung from pliant stalks that aid the birds after the bees by twisting toward the sun when their seeds are ripe for the picking. The fruit of the coastal forest probably trickles down to feed many of the creatures that roam over sand and stone. Sea slaters, bug-eyed analogues of roaches with more segments and greater sense, scatter and circle back with pestilential speed when shadows approach, while shore crickets simply hop away and purple crabs edge into crevices that invite a nick.

The slugs of this elevation, which borders wet and high, are different from the coarse grey things that glide over the lower ranges. Covered with tiny bumps and ranging in size from a sesame seed to a quarter, these onchs are dull black with pale trails on their backs. They share the algal mats with tiny crabs and elusive worms that sneak in and out of gaps in the thalli or loop to finer hoards. Here, too, are secretive blobs that cling to the dark side and crawl out to capture careless isopods when the waters reach their crannies.

The foothills of this mountain chain form temporary barrages that hem pools of glassy shrimp and insignificant gobies. One of these is an animal a little more robust than the red-nosed carideans that swarm offshore flats and sporting yellow dots on its joints and the base of the telson. Sharing the puddles are small snapping shrimp who appeared nonplussed at the random motions of fellow decapods and unruly fish before their organised parlours. Zoanthids and Phymanthus have settled in some shallow nooks, and a lone black sea cucumber lying in an overhang revealed in hindsight a hanger-on in the form of a pigmented shrimp with a striped abdomen.

Hollows in the same rocks provide shelters for intertidal gastropods and their executioners. Snug in a hole at waist-level, a red-eyed reef crab glared at a premature intrusion into its retreat by a slim body and blind lens. In about an hour, when the gates are locked and the sun is down, the crab would emerge to scour the beach for unfortunate snails and break into their homes with a crushing grip. It was a welcome find on a day of drops, for the feisty beast has few strongholds left on the mainland save this strip of grass and coral that once guarded the passage to a new harbour and is now besieged by the growing arms of a port intent on sustaining its status as master of the sea and a prime mover of earth in harrowed water.

Belly up

It's still not clear which came first, polyps or medusae, but jellyfish have floated around for millennia and withstood the onset and extinction of many other pelagic orders. Even in a world of anthropogenic climatic change, scyphozoans are expected to thrive, as their predators suffer the double whammy of hotter oceans and inhuman appetites. 

Typical jellyfish are bells of gelatinous tissue that propel a dangle of tentacles, a ring of fire laced with stinging cells and venom powerful enough to stun fish or scar face. But one family has retraced the route of sessile polyps and discovered the attractions of life in the shallow end. Cassiopeids still sting, albeit to little effect, but these former hunters have acquired cellmates that allow the jellyfish to live easy, lying on their backs and basking on flats between coral reefs and mangrove swamps. The latter also provide homes for young medusae and this may account for the seasonal abundance of the animals around Pulau Semakau, where the jellyfish share the seagrass with fellow harvesters of light. In the Caribbean, cycles of blooms and bust have been reported and traced to nutrient spikes from nearby settlements. Only minor explosions of orange ribbons affect local waters, which in their lack of clarity may offer Cassiopea little room for expansion. Perhaps half-a-century of dredgery was enough to hold back a tide of drifters from overwhelming a bed of more rugged blooms.

A mite troubled

Weevils can appear scarce in local forests, despite their overwhelming dominance of the animal kingdom. But it's likely that many dwell within the trunks that line the trails, infest the seeds of the forest and lurk in the gills of fruiting hyphae, showing up only at points of dispersal that cross the paths of nocturnal prowlers. Others hide in plain view on bark or roll up leaves that serve as nurseries for hungry grubs.

Like longhorns and scarabs, adult curculionoids are not infrequently the bearers of mitey things, which form clusters of rotund bodies at the joints of laden beetles. A free ride is usually cited as the goal of these acarines, which hop off when their beast of burden lands on promising ground. Some hitchhikers, however, have taken to hanging on for good, turning their appetites to haemolymph or the eggs of their host. It's not always a losing proposition, though, for some beetles have salvaged the relationship, turning what might have been a bad deal into a more complex arrangement in which both parties stick together for better or worse.