The annotated budak

Monkey's munchy moment

This unflappable boy was prancing by the narrow road leading to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve with his extended family one evening. Putting aside my ducky pride, I stooped to their level, sitting a couple of feet away from the relaxed group pretending to be a fellow primate while they groomed each other and nibbled on blades of grass (which seems to form a part of these macaques' natural diet). It was a weekday, so there were happily no passing bodies of fair intentions to sow a fate of ill ends for these monkeys in no hurry. With luck, this young munk will swing and stare from the grills to no avail and feed on wild fruit not food in shiny packs that lure his kind down the path of complacency and calamity. But such fortune seems ill-conceived, for islanders here are wont to go ape when they are told to rein in their natural instincts. The fiercest creatures live not in the forest but in flats...

Bugged eye views

Probably the only vaguely useful purpose that the fancy advertisements pasted on the exterior of buses serve for passengers is to offer an inkling of the vision of insects. Hanging from the rubber grips in the rear, one gets a pixellated view of the world outside through the perforated stickers. The clarity of vital landmarks is reduced to low resolution silhouettes that beckon goodbye as you miss your stop, particularly in the darker hours when every housing estate looks alike and alien.

The compound eyes of hexapods similarly convey sight through the filter of myriad tiny lenses, each a perfect hexagon that focuses light onto a crystalline cone linked to a retinal tunnel of photoreceptive cells. But with far more finely-packed units than the crude network that lines public buses, insects probably enjoy a far clearer mosaic of their surroundings than hapless commuters. Aerial hunters such as robber flies and dragonflies wield heads that are almost all eye, while less active predators make do with much smaller peepers. Prey species too, from flighty hoverflies to nervous hoppers, have eyes that readily betray ducks that attempt to go up close and personal with these bugs in the bush. But this stubborn bird keeps on trying, hoping that these minute monsters will grant fleeting moments of lucidity to banish the burden of hare-brained schemes.

Bears from bikes

chirswong0bike1. Originally uploaded by
Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Center

Wong Siew Te's work with Malayan sun bears in Borneo is tracked by the crew of BEARTREK, an upcoming feature length documentary that combines a globe-trotting motorcycle road trip with the lives of the world's rarest bears and the people they live with. Click here for the story behind the scenes (a preview video's here, unfortunately nothing on Youtube yet).

Meanwhile, Wong has shifted his site to a new host, where there's painful updates on the plight of sun bears who face the soup pot as adults and a grueling life behind bars as cubs in the cages of men whose minds remain trapped in the cruel vanity of base desires. If you find this unbearable, spare a thought or more for the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre and help Wong save the world's smallest bears from a fate of tragic proportions.

Monkey hopper

At Khao Phra Thaeo National Park, Phuket. Photo by Joe.

National colours

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