QUESTION : White stripped black caterpillar

From : Leong
Hi Gurus,
please tell me what species does this caterpillar belong to ? Saw this in Panti in Johore.

Thanks in advance !

From The Butterfly Guys

Hi Leong,
The caterpillar in your photo is most likely the larva of the Lyssa mennoetius moth from the Uraniidae family, a relative of the Lyssa zampa moth we see in Singapore.

Click here to go to BIG Website

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T3 walk cancelled

The Changi T3 butterfly walk has been cancelled due to complications in getting security clearance from the Changi Airport police. BIG is currently following up with CAAS and will announce a date once we sort out the security clearance requirement.

We would like to apologize for this last minute cancellation.

Changi T3 Butterfly Walk update

The date for this walk has to be postponed due to additional requirements by CAAS for security clearance. Please send us your :

1. Full name
2. NSS membership numbers
3. NRIC or Passport and Work Permit number for foreigner
4. Date of birth
5. Home address
6. Contact number
7. Nationality
8. Country of birth

In addition, we are only allowed 15 visitors per day. As such, we will have to split the walks over the next few months.

Walk #1 Dec TBD

1. Tan Hang Chong
2. Lena Chow Sow Ying
3. Koh Cher Hern
4. Lim Chien Fang
5. Rachel Teo Shi Hui
6. Norbert Lehming
7. Tang Peck Chan
8. Nur Aishah Binte Abdul Rahim
9. Sophia Tan Chay Lee
10. Low Kheng Eing
11. Peh Siow Hiong
12. Tsang Mei Ling Susan
13. Edzra Bin Iskandar
14. Norlinda Binte Ishnin
15. Lea Binte Edzra

Walk #2 Jan Saturday

1. Linda Oei
2. SU CHOON LIN
3. CHOY WAI MENG
4. Tan Foong Heng
5. Mr.Tham Chong Ho
6. Mrs.Tham Kwee Ling
7. Lim Poh Bee
8. Wu Xi Yu
9. Tan Meng Ching
10. Lee Yi Xiang
11. Lee Hwa Yong
12. Wong Kong Kin, Johnnie
13. Lin Poo Suwan
14. Rosalind Tan
15. Tan Wee Lee

Walk #3 Jan Sunday

Changi T3 Butterfly Walk registration

The response for the Changi T3 walk on Sunday Nov 16th is overwhelming. However due to space and time constraints, we are only able to accomodate 30 persons this time. This is the first 30 who sent us their registration. We apologize for not being able to accomodate more NSS members this time. However, we will organize a few more walks at T3 Butterfly Garden next year

We will be sending the list to CAAS for approval and will confirm the final list and date of the walk by Friday Nov 14 .

1. Tan Hang Chong
2. Lena Chow Sow Ying
3. Koh Cher Hern
4. Lim Chien Fang
5. Rachel Teo Shi Hui
6. Norbert Lehming
7. Tang Peck Chan
8. Nur Aishah Binte Abdul Rahim
9. Sophia Tan Chay Lee
10. Low Kheng Eing
11. Peh Siow Hiong
12. Tsang Mei Ling Susan
13. Edzra Bin Iskandar
14. Norlinda Binte Ishnin
15. Lea Binte Edzra
16. Linda Oei
17. SU CHOON LIN
18. CHOY WAI MENG
19. Tan Foong Heng
20. Mr.Tham Chong Ho
21. Mrs.Tham Kwee Ling
22. Lim Poh Bee
23. Wu Xi Yu
24. Tan Meng Ching
25. Lee Yi Xiang
26. Lee Hwa Yong
27. Wong Kong Kin, Johnnie
28. Lin Poo Suwan
29. Rosalind Tan
30. Tan Wee Lee

New Sightings !

Recently, a pretty butterfly known to be extinct from Singapore and a resident insect of Taiwan made brief appearances at Alexandra Hospital's Butterfly Trail.

The former was a Yellow Glassy Tiger (Parantica aspasia aspasia) and was sighted by Laurence Leong on 19th March. Laurence sent BIG this photo thinking it is a rare find and new record at AH. It is indeed a new record for AH but an a very rare find as this butterfly has not been sighted in Singapore for more than 20 years !

It is not clear how this butterfly arrived in Singapore. Did it come along with plants brought in from Malaysia ? It is an escapee from butterfly park ? Did someone brought it into Singapore ? We don't know. While we would like to see the Yellow Glassy Tiger reappear in Singapore, this is very unlikely unless there is human intervention. As far as we know, in Singapore the host plants for Yellow Glassy Tiger exist only at Pulau Ubin and Alexandra Butterfly Trail. In addition, this individual is a male.

The other butterfly is the Mangrove Tree Nymph (Idea leuconoe clara). This tattered individual was sighted by Rosalind Tan and Tan Wee Lee on 14th Jan. Wee Lee managed to take a few shots of the individual and sent BIG this photo.

This individual is most likely an escapees from the Fragile Forest enclosure at the Singapore Zoological Gardens, where a large population of this species are being reared. Over the past years, there were a few sightings of this species in central part of Singapore but this is the first time this species has made its way so far south. Will this foreign beauty establish itself in Singapore ? Unlikely as its preferred host plant is a non native vine that can be found only at the Fragile Forest and Alexandra Hospital Butterfly Trail.

If you come across these butterflies, try to take a photo and send BIG a note with the time and location of the sighting.

A butterfly guide for everyone - Part I

There you have it - a comprehensive (146 pixs), compact, friendly butterfly field guide specially for all of you who have attended our walks !


This guide is designed based on the feedbacks we have gathered over the years. It has taken us one and a half years to produce, much much longer than we expected.

When we started we thought it will be a piece of cake since there is not much text to be written and we already have most of the photos. How wrong were we ! First, deciding what species to include and to exclude is more challenging than we thought. We wanted a guide which will have 95% of the butterfly species we will likely to encounter during a walk. We could easily include all 280+ species but that will make the guide too bulky and too expensive. After many many email exchanges and we finally decided we will need somewhere around 150 species for the guide to meet our first objective.

Our next task was to come out with a layout that is handy and easy to use in the field. We looked to the many nature field guides in the market but we don't like what we saw. The traditional multi-folds leaflet type guides are too cumbersome to use in the field and will disintegrate into many pieces after repeated use. Other guides were too big to fit into our palm, shirt pocket or bags. Finally we decided on a 21mm x 90mm size fan-fold format which we believed is handy and easy to fold and unfold in the field.

To be continued ...

Birdwing at Alexandra Hospital