Critters & Creatures

Yeah, yeah, I know. I haven't posted in awhile. A whole entire month. I'm sorry. I got busy with schoolwork (midterms) and.. World of Warcraft. I'm bad. I know. I apologize profusely. Now, let's move on, OK?

Singapore has not been without its share of creepy crawlies. The first or second week we were here I discovered that cockroaches are completely normal here, and, to my surprise, there are 4 kinds in Singapore. And 2 kinds in my kitchen. Luckily, the American cockroaches decided to stay far, far away and I am fortunate enough to only have the German and Oriental. The German cockroach is tiny and brown, and proliferative in my kitchen. One even got on me. Here is his picture, taken after I screamed like a little girl, shook like a wet dog, and freaked out like a junky taking a bad trip.

Luckily, the buggers do not like Pandan leaves - some sort of long tropical leaf that the Malaysians like to cook with. Which means they are cheap ($0.40 for a bundle) and easy to come by. The pandan leaf is now my friend - we replace our fresh leaves every week or so and just leave them on the counter. They don't really smell to us, but the roaches dislike their odor.

Next up - we have... lizards! Lizards are pests here, but Mathew and I like them a bunch. They are EVERYWHERE. And not just one kind, either - like 3 different kinds that we've seen and dozens that we haven't. Every day we go to eat or take the train we look for lizards around our condo. There are always the same ones in the same places. Here are a two (or three?) of our favorites:

They are all geckos, but of different varieties. There is another that we see all the time but he's really zippy so we've never gotten a photo of him. We named him Harry.

Then, we had a gecko visit us in our kitchen! I was going in to get some ice cream or something and I saw something scurry across the counter - I thought at first it might be a roach, but I thought by the way it ran that it might be a lizard. I called Mathew to come be a big strong man and find it (it was hiding under the knife block). He came in and prepared to squish the roach. When he removed the knife block he saw it was a TINY lizard and instead decided we needed to catch it. After a brilliant but failed attempt at creating a trap with a paper towel tube, we got him under a plastic measuring cup on top of a plastic cutting board. Mathew switched the measuring cup with a drinking glass and I got out my camera. The little guy was probably 2 - 2.5 inches long, including his tail. He was terrified. But cute. After we had enough pictures, we took him outside and tried to put him in a plant. He was so scared he didn't move when Mathew pet him. Then, he realized he was free and he lept off the balcony, down an entire storey onto the balcony below us. It's far. Trust me. We have no idea how he made it without going "splat" but he did. He might be a baby lizard, or he just might be little. Either way, he's about half the size of the other guys in length and waaaay thinner in width.

Aww, right? Well, let's move on to a bad picture of a cool moth. He's big, too, and I don't know anything about him except that he was by the sign near our elevator. And I was scared of him fluttering on me so I didn't try and take too many pictures of him. In fact, I only took the one.

He was about 1.5 - 2 inches long and the same wide. Pretty big, if you ask me.

But not as big as the SNAIL! Holy cow, I've never seen a snail this big. The second week we were here we were walking and there was what I thought was a snail shell on the ground. But it was dark and I didn't want to touch it to find out. I couldn't believe a snail could be as big as this shell was. I was wrong. Snails are big. Really big. Those little garden snails and escargot you see everywhere are babies. Seriously. Three days ago we were coming home and I nearly stepped on this guy:

Size comparison of the snail. Mathew's shoe is a size 11 US.

Additional size comparison. That (an EZ Link card for the MRT) is the size of a credit card. He moved at a pretty good clip, too. I mean, he was by the grass a minute or two before.

The only other insects we've encountered have been ants. Also in the kitchen. (Have I mentioned before that we don't cook, ergo, we have no food in the kitchen?) They came in behind the microwave somewhere. And they are super tiny. The size of gnats. I can't even see them most of the time. I just know they're there. So now there are ant baits and roach baits in various corners and cabinets. Yeah, poison!

I have a few more pictures to post on other topics. Thanks for all caring about me and wanting to know what's going on. :-)