The annotated budak

Red guards

Some animals are not content to stick to a single phenotype; these species, known as polymorphs, contain in their molecular blueprint the tendency to express two or more forms across a population, an ability largely unconstrained by epigenetic variables but still subject to selective forces that determine their relative frequency of occurence. Such variations, which affect one or both sexes to a random degree, may simply involve a markedly different colour pattern, longer appendages or sturdier proportions. They can also encompass subtler properties that affect one's ability to digest particular foods, resist certain parasites or mimic sympatric hosts and models. But even simple contrasts, between light and dark, or plain and peppered, can tilt the scales of survival towards individuals that find themselves born into an environment skewed in their favour. How the die is loaded may shift with the seasons or swing to the tune of industrial forces, with the victims serving as trade-offs of a predilection for genetic hedging that preserves the resilience of a species or accelerates its division at the cost of otherwise fit representatives who grow up in the wrong time or place.

Without the benefit of a full series of specimens from different localities, members of a single polychromatic taxon can at times be mistaken for distinct species. This was the case of a small dragonfly that lives in waterlogged portions of Southeast Asian jungles. In 1878, a Viennese entomologist named Friedrich Moritz Brauer described Orchithemis pulcherrima, a libellulid with a bright orange-red abdomen, from specimens collected from the southern tip of the Malay peninsula. In the same year, by chance or competition, Baron Michel Edmond de Sélys-Longchamps, a Belgian odonatologist, christened an insect of like build but with a largely black abdomen Calothemis exsudans, based on types from Singapore and Java. Subsequent comparisons yielded no discernible structural differences between the two and the junior binomial was duly expunged. 

The variable sentinel thus challenges collectors of virtual specimens with a quintet of adults: males in red or blueish black plus females in dark hues as well as andochromatic colours. What determines the donning of one suit over another is unknown, but for some reason, swarthy males and scarlet females are scarce compared to their counterparts. Confined to protected clearings and dense margins in shaded woods, these dragonflies are easily distinguished from other erythraeus libellulids by their broad, flattened abdomens and slim wings, which are nearly in equal in width. Settling on low vegetation by cool waters, the males defend their territories with chlorocyphid-like face-offs and fluttery swoops before returning to their posts. Little else, save passing appetites, relieves these sentinels from their turf, for their hunting grounds, soft, sick and stable only to feet of unbearable lightness, resist intrusion and ring their guardian spirits with stockades of thorns and the sinking tread of a fey swamp thing.

Burrowed time

Tarantula burrows, their apertures lined by a sturdy mesh of silk, can be found in surprising quantities on earthern banks and the crotches of mature trees, in which dry foliage and other debris have landed and lie trapped in the roots of ferns and arboreal figs. The common name of these heavily built, mouse-coloured spiders, however, is a taxonomical misnomer and furthermore fails to capture the diversity of a suborder of Araneae with at least fifteen families. Armed with pick-axe fangs that stab downwards and a not-unjustified reputation for unpleasantness that hinges on their outrageous proportions and a propensity among some to rear up at alarming giants or inflict painful urtications using bristles on the abdomen, tarantulas sensu stricto, namely mygalomorphs in the family Theraphosidae, make no webs but await prey from terrestrial retreats or halfway houses on overgrown trunks. Some add horizontal sheets to the mouths of their funnels, which act as dinner bells as well as traps that hinder the prey's getaway. 

The individuals ensconced in dry banks, alert for victims and passing shadows, are usually females or juveniles of a local species of Phlogiellus (=Phlogius?), who feel no compulsion to wander from their holes, which may open to a sill made from woven fragments of dry vegetation. Mature males, on the other hand, abandon domicility and drag their hairy charms over hills and through houses to locate nubile colonies. There, at the parlours of uninviting targets, the suitor bides his time and taps out, with his finger-like palps and forelegs, a note of interest, a proclamation of his status as mate rather than meal, a beat of primal desires. The occupant may declare her disinterest by withdrawing further into her chambers; otherwise, receptive shelobs may answer the drumming with their own rhythms. The pair then launches into a tango of spurs and if the male fails to disengage in time after hitting her sweet spot, the ritual may conclude with a bride who gets to relish in the afterglow of her conquest the bittersweet taste of fatherhood.

Rice hopper

Crickets, katydids and grasshoppers are among the most abundant large insects along paths in the mangroves as well as landlocked swamps, but the orthopterans seldom enjoy the attention given to fiercer beasts: spiders, snakes, squirrels and skinks that shimmy through the foliage and attempt to skirt the jaws of raptors and varanids. The hoppers, clad in elfin shades and confident in their obscurity, sit on tender shoots, cling to flaky trunks, and bask on waxy leaves that serve as both perch and fodder, leaping away only when they sense a direct hit.

Sparse clumps of reeds, whose blades reach the shoulder but almost always fold before the tip, line exposed parts of the walking routes in the Sungei Buloh wetlands. The vegetation is seldom pristine, sporting rips, curls and creases made by arthropods that have chewed, shredded or rolled the edges to form private retreats or cradles for their young. Some strands have neat margins but are hollowed out, their midribs and surrounding tissue forming a clean strip with parallel sides. The cause of these defoliations, which may serve to check the spread of poaceous weeds, is Euscyrtus concinnus, a little cricket with long feelers on a rounded head, a brown body with pale lateral stripes, and stout spines on the hind tibiae. In other parts of the region, this gryllid is a minor pest of paddyfields, where it leaves its trademark wound on seedlings and chokes the growth of fresh buds. Local populations, deprived of aquatic grains, make do with sundry grasses and scanty sedges in fields and rural fringes, gnawing tough fibrils and scooting under their plates when threatened by eyes that look askance and questions that hardly matter.

Fell lady

She must have dropped on my head somewhere between the overgrown orchard and old electricity post, an artifact of a village so picturesque it now exists only in name. A sharp gust may have swept her off a leaf, a predator forced a leap, or she could have succumbed to a lust for wander and set herself loose on a strand of silk. Through luck or leggy manœuvres, she evaded an evening crush and emerged on a sweaty palm that set her down on a low ridge of mossy rocks, where she ran briefly amuck before assuming a pose of open arms. 

The long forelegs, of little use for walking and bearing stiff spines on their distal segments, serve as snares, helping the pale green thomisid grasp and secure flies, bees or tender wasps that land within range or on the other side of her blade. A sharp bite silences struggling prey and a dose of digestive enzymes turns discrete organs into a primordial soup in a chitinous can. Lacking farsight, she probably relies on other, more tactile, senses to tell if an approaching mass is a likely meal or a would-be lover. Unlike their minuscule cousins who lurk on flowers, male crab spiders in the genus Oxytate (=Dieta) attain sizes that their mates can scarcely ignore, making it paramount for suitors to defuse hale appetites with a wave of good vibes. Courtship in high places is thus an affair fraught with risk, a venture of high hopes and low returns save a chance to hold hands, match haploids and close the accounts receivable of a genetic loop.

Blade dancers

Dancing dropwings are by no means the prettiest of dragonflies, lacking the electric pink of Trithemis aurora as well as the indigo hues of Trithemis festiva. Though markedly larger than its native congeners and, like them, a creature of open habitats, Trithemis pallidinervis probably eludes lazy eyes by melting into the grassy expanses and treeless greenways that line municipal reservoirs and coastal parks. Clad in pale brown and yellow with thin black stripes, and held aloft by largely hyaline wings through which skylight is broken into cells of gold, the insects can appear as untidy extensions of the reeds and sedges they favour as perches, to which they cling with spidery legs with their tails to the sun and faces to the breeze.

Like most of their family, these libellulids greet life in the slow lane, hatching in sluggish streams and weedy ponds to hunt aquatic prey with stealth and minute savagery. The final stage of their lives, however, is a departure on two fronts: from the wells of their youth and in a quiet embrace of wanderlust that sweeps the imagos far from their cradles to fresh yards and offshore pastures. Apart from the central and western catchment zones, they have reached the grasslands of Semakau Landfill, Kranji's unruly farms, the shrinking fields of East Coast Park and isolated gardens in the city's secondary heartlands. There was one on the tip of a snakeweed in the grounds of a vegetarian lodge off Balestier Road, a fleeting streak in a house of slumber, where an old man with a head of lore and his heart in the past offers glimpses of the future to a host that gathers for an annual feast and a tribute to expired spirits. The species also holds court throughout much of the oriental tropics, with outposts in the near east, Taiwan and the Philippines. In Singapore, it is not regarded as common, but where they occur, the dropwings are seldom alone, sharing their twigs and blades with slender skimmers, common scarlets and scarlet baskers, as well as blue sprites, black-tipped perchers and common clubtails. In these arenas of light and harshness, a gallery of odes swings into action when the day breaks and the marshland, shorn of its wilder side by the thud of posh clubs, beckons with a whirl of thrills, a stage of bright darts and beaming colours that give chase to the wind and cruise over the water in a game of silent throes and untethered capers.

Track and feel

Trails of bare earth, broken stone and trampled sand cut the forests, worming their way under stray canopies and between dense clearings, driving a wedge of sweaty passages into the natural order of things and defying, with the force of dirty feet, the woods' attempts to bury these scars under a wildfire of saplings. Understorey butterflies – archdukes in black and brilliant blue, tree yellows, Burmese lascars and elbowed pierrots – light up occasional patches of dull soil, spreading their wings as they sip from puddles of salty ointment, invisible reservoirs of minerals that will fuel their nuptial flights and serve as gifts for a new generation.

But apart from such odd seeps, these paths offer coarse prospects to the creatures of the jungle, which ford them with ghostly haste or forage only on the edges, where the ground still stirs with life under a cloak of dead leaves and busy little bodies bide their time – feeding, digging, laying and falling prey to beasts with sharp noses and stronger claws. Plaintain squirrels and tree shrews dash across the track, giving rein to their appetites only when they reach the cover of tangled banks, where green storeys give way to a maze of growing things – grasping tendrils, sap-stained vines, stringy seedlings and winged fruits – nodes of sustenance for arboreal rodents and giant ants. 

Clouded monitors, paying little heed to life in the heights, rake the litter for grubs. Sun skinks in courting livery give chase up messy slopes. Flies with long legs and white socks beckon to each other on low vegetation, emitting signals of interest that may yield an exchange of happy endings. Cicadas and crickets vie for sonic dominance, sending out shrill pulses of intent from platforms of bark and leaf. Puncturing this serenade is a rain of dry blades which crack, rustle and roll in a burlesque of twisted sounds and untuned melodies that transforms the forest floor into a haunted gallery. With seeming delight, the trees also tease by shedding their old limbs and faded leaves, which bounce off loose twigs and broad palms to lead the eye astray with a pretense of bright nymphs and bold knights. The jungle, even at its worst, is a world of illusions: a hive of deceit and dodgery and home to creatures who have made shifty alliances with their habitat to drown the senses in a sea of blinding lights and falling shadows.

The trails may be barren veins in a lung of plenty, but they provide handy terrain for hunters that like to have room for manœuvre. Sandy flats often abound with Cicindela aurulenta, a colourful tiger beetle that runs down smaller insects and rips up their exoskeletons with vulgar mandibles. When harried, the carabids usually take flight and land a few feet away, and when the day ends, they seek refuge on nearby shrubbery.

Another cicindeline, possibly Cylindera (Verticina) versicolora, is a shiny green monster that usually escapes notice if it doesn't blink; this species stays clear of the dirt, lurking instead on wayside logs, boulders and foliage, which it shares with fungus beetles, wolf spiders and grouse locusts. A few dragonflies also exploit the clear lines of sight and dappled avenues of these shaded flyways; the most abundant of these is probably Cratilla metallica, a strongly built libellulid with blue flanks and dark pennants. Mature individuals of both sexes typically cling to the tip of a sturdy branch with their abdomens held level or aligned with the perch. The males regularly patrol what they regard as their private stretches of the path, skimming over bike ruts and bare scalps to head off challengers before alighting on one of several choice spots by a passage they have reclaimed from old cuttings as a space for common ground.

There are portions of the trail where small trees and tall shrubs form an arbour, turning the track into a dim tunnel with its own microclimate and invertebrate cast. Where the path abuts swampy terraces, it may serve as an ersatz territory for stream cruisers, large dragonflies with dull markings and bright green to aquamarine eyes.

Variously regarded as a corduliid or placed in a family of their own along with Didymops and Epophthalmia, Macromia is a cosmopolitan genus of libelluloids with spidery legs in their aquatic youth as well as in adulthood. They are reckoned among the swiftest of odonates, coursing over rivers and lowland routes with harrowing speed, hovering just long enough to taunt and hurtling themselves into gaps above and along the trail, as if they were making for distant tree-tops. But the emerald soon returns, lest it forfeits its rights to a prime lot with thick eaves and easy access to clear, cool pools.

There were two in the closed quarters of a link through recreational wetlands, but only one, a mature female, found cause to halt, gripping a low branch as she chewed on a body of chitin. A tiny fly joined the feast, but there was little to share, for she soon swallowed it all and resumed her tireless forays, flitting between light and blindness in a cavern of open secrets where the sun strikes in fits and starts and loses, in a season of doubt and fire, what strength it had to cut the pall of a day wracked by thought.