Hey there! I’m Breanna and I joined the Tropical Ecology and Entomology (TEE) lab briefly during the December holidays as a research attachment of sorts, hoping to learn more about ecological research.
My first encounter with the lab was when I chanced upon the lab’s website before the holidays had started, while looking for possible internship opportunities. At first, though I was fascinated by what was written on the website, I was a bit hesitant because I wasn’t the biggest fan of insects and the like. Still, even after checking out the various labs and their many areas of research at the Asian School of Environment (NTU), I decided to contact Prof Eleanor. This kickstarted my very fun and enjoyable research attachment experience!
I started off by joining Zann and Yong Xu in their fieldwork to collect dung beetles! The very first time that I helped with the collection of beetles was very memorable. I was out with Zann and we went to Macritchie. There were scarcely any beetles in each trap until the last one, where there were a lot and there were many Catharsius beetles! On a side note, the traps were on elevated ground and I almost tripped and spilled the cup of beetle juice on my way down the slope :] It took me a while to get used to the smell of the bait and I would be lying if I said they didn’t throw me off when I first started, but fieldwork is so fun!
1. The trap with many dung beetles in it! 2. A small praying mantis on the underside of a leaf.
3. A large, palm sized spider being carried away by a very pretty wasp.
I also helped out with sorting everything in the lab which was cool, and I got to look at what was caught in the trap under a microscope!
1. A fly was caught in the trap as well and I thought its antennae/proboscis was cool
2. All the beetles that we caught in the last trap!
Oh and also one time I helped Yong Xu with fieldwork in Thomson Nature Park. We saw a colugo on a tree and also a wild boar stared at us while eating his lunch! I remember that it was very hard to dig holes for the traps because it was the site of an old village and there were many rocks in the ground. One of my favourite parts was when we noticed that one beetle died with his genitalia out hehe.
1. A colugo on a tree! 2. Dung beetle with its gentitalia out haha.
3. Some beetles collected from Thomson nature park! 4. A blue centipede that I thought was cool.
I also helped Xin Rui in her dung beetle surveys!! She is very cool 😎 We saw live beetles and they are very cute. I even got to see a beetle rolling a ball of poop. It was very fun to follow Xin Rui into places like Pulau Ubin and also the forest beside the zoo at Mandai, which I wouldn’t have been able to enter if not for the internship. I really enjoyed the fieldwork done in the Mandai forest next to the zoo because we got to walk across the Mandai Wildlife Bridge and it was cool to walk through the long grass at one point (during which a mouse appeared and ran off, very much like Pokémon).
1. Xin Rui’s canopy trap! 2. A slug was caught too. 3. Palm-sized spider with very good camouflaging skills. 4. A cute toad. 5. Unfocused image of a golden orb spider that was everywhere in Pulau Ubin :(
In December 2021, I also took part in the TEE Lab’s annual pinning party! The collection of insects in the lab amazes me! I learnt how to point mount a fungus loving beetle and I got to pin a butterfly, a beetle and a carpenter bee hehe. I got to meet even more people at the lab from whom I got to learn more about the environment and what they studied, which was fun! It was impressive to see how much they enjoyed learning about their areas of research.
1&2. A butterfly from the collection. 3. The carpenter bee and beetle that I pinned!
4.I tried to open the wing on the beetle I pinned. 5. The point mounted beetle.
Last but not least, I helped Alexis with butterfly catching! I only joined her for one session but it was so fun! I learnt how to identify a bunch of species and I also got to hold some of them (though they were squirmy). It took me awhile to get the technique of catching butterflies down (we need to swing the net in a figure 8), but it was very rewarding when I finally caught some and it was very fun to try and catch different species of butterflies, some of which were flying too quickly for me to catch up :( I also chanced upon a butterfly laying its small eggs on a leaf, which I definitely would not have seen if I was just walking by.
1. Had a crash course of butterfly species. 2. We caught a caterpillar as well haha!
Overall, this research attachment was a super meaningful and memorable one that I really enjoyed! It was awesome gaining cool and unique experiences and I was able to gain a new-found appreciation for invertebrates! I’m also thankful to have been able to meet people who are very knowledgeable and whose passion for what they do is very inspiring :DD
Written by: Breanna Lim :)
