Paradisical Phuket

Paradisical Phuket
The Pearl of the Andaman

A beach scene in front of the hotel where we were staying, with the hills in the background

A last-minute decision on the choice of a short vacation with my wife led us to choose Phuket, an island paradise in Thailand that we last visited back in 1997. As can be expected during this holiday period, flights were packed and hotels were fully booked. However, we were fortunate to get tickets on the low-cost airline JetStar, and secured reservations at a newly completed wing of the Kamala Beach Resort.

The island resort was packed with holiday-maker tourists from continental Europe, Australia and the US. As we were walking around the little shops around the Kamala Beach area where we stayed, it was almost like visiting a city in Europe, surrounded by mainly non-Asians (other than the Thais, of course)! There were very few Asians around, and most of the friendly locals were busy with the tourist season and also the celebrations that came with the start of the first year of a new decade - 2010.

A shot of the Kamala Beach Resort where we stayed

The world-renown Thai hospitality was exceptional, and I can say that very few countries have locals who are so sincerely friendly and honest. With a ready smile and the welcoming greeting "Sawadee kap" everywhere we went, it was refreshing that we felt rather safe in a country that is recently rife with political protests further up north in the Thai capital of Bangkok.

The taxi drivers spoke relatively good English (which can be expected, since English is the common communication language of most foreign tourists) and are honest. For us, after a bad experience with the taxi drivers in Kuching, we were rather cautious about bargaining for fares, after being advised by the hotel staff what the going rates were.

A roadside hawker stall where we had lunch on our first day. It served very good Phad Thai noodles!

However, our fears were unfounded as the two taxi drivers that we encountered quoted very reasonable rates, and one was willing to even wait for us at an appointed place, even though we could have just reneged on our deal and desert him. But as I told my wife, the Thais have a strong belief about bad karma, in that a person who does bad things will suffer just retribution for his misdeeds.

Phuket Island



Phuket, at about 570 sq km, is Thailand's largest island. Phuket's topology is exceptional with 70 percent of its area covered with mountains (the tallest peak is 529m above sea level) which stretch from north to south and the remaining 30 percent being plains located in the central and eastern parts of the island. The island does not have any major rivers except for a total of 9 brooks and creeks.

A typical street scene at Kamala Beach area

The island has many beaches and the number of hotels and resorts is mind-boggling. Tourism appears to be the main source of income for the locals, where all sorts of outdoor activities like diving, island hopping, trekking and so on form most of the tourist activities. Many shops sell the local Thai handicraft and souvenirs, local foodstuff, and also the 'forbidden fruits of modern technology' - pirated DVDs, which can be had for just 100 Baht (or just slightly more than S$4). I noted that the recently launched movie blockbuster, Avatar, was amongst the DVDs being peddled!

Cheap transport is available with the local buses plying the main routes around the island. The bus shelter is a far cry from Singapore's spanking steel and glass bus stops, but is appropriate for the rustic island.

The famous (or should I say, infamous?) Patong Beach, where most of the island's colourful nightlife and shopping is located, is always a must-visit destination for the thousands of tourists to Phuket.

One of several memorials erected for the victims of the 2004 tsunami

As we were walking along the beach at Kamala, we saw several memorials erected for the people who perished as a result of the 26 Dec 2004 tsunami that hit the island. Then, about 5,300 people perished in Thailand in various areas, and many of the Phuket resorts and less robust buildings were wiped out by the massive waves that hit many parts of Asia as a result of the Indian Ocean earthquake.

Unlike many of my previous travels, due to our short stay in Phuket, we decided to skip the rougher mountain treks, and opted to visit the local butterfly park instead.

Phuket Butterfly Garden and Insect World

The Phuket Butterfly Garden is located towards the south of the island, near Phuket Town. A sign at the garden explains the history of the garden, which claims to be "the only genuine butterfly garden" in Thailand. It was founded by Dr Prasit Koysiripong in Feb 1990. The renovated premises featured more educational exhibits with a strong conservation message.

The flight cage, which is about the size of the Penang Butterfly Farm, features lush landscaping and water features. There are areas which display the early stages of the species found in the garden, and lots of information on butterflies.

The breeding of the South American Julia Heliconian (Dryas iulia) appears to be still as successful as during my last visit in 1997, and the species is common in the Phuket Butterfly Garden. The flight of this species always reminds me of a helicopter, with the long wings flapping ceaselessly as the butterfly flutters around looking for nectar. It is a skittish butterfly, and is not easy to get a good photo of, especially during a hot sunny day. It is likely this subspecies that has made its way down south to Malaysia where ButterflyCircle members saw it on a recent trip there in Pulau Langkawi.

Male/Female shots of the Julia Heliconian (Dryas iulia) being bred at the Phuket Butterfly Garden

As with many butterfly gardens in Asia, the larger and more showy species, like the Taiwanese Tree Nymph, Dark Blue Tiger, Leopard Lacewing, Clipper, Leaf Butterfly, Scarlet and Great Mormons, and the more common local species like the Common Mormon, Tailed Jay, Lime Butterfly were featured in the flight cage.



The caterpillar breeding section showed several of the more common species found in the garden, including many interpretative signage to explain the species being bred and the life cycle of the butterflies.

Caterpillar rearing cage (above) and a close up of the caterpillar of the Leaf Butterfly (Kallima limborgii)

A section featured sericulture - the rearing of silkworms in order to obtain raw silk. Typically using the larvae of Bombyx mori, silk is harvested from the pupae of the moth and weaved into the final product that is famously sold all over the world - Thai silk.

Happy 2010 !!!

Our New Year's Eve was spent with a quiet dinner at Kamala Beach after a tiring day of shopping at Phuket Town. As expected, the resorts were packed with party-goers and tourists all bent on celebrating the dawn of a new decade. The fireworks started at 11pm and continued way past midnight. It was amazing, the amount of fireworks that were blasting all around us, heralding the start of a new year and a new decade.

Text by Khew SK ; Photos by Khew SK

Butterfly Survival Strategies - Part 1

Butterfly Survival Strategies - Part 1



As most of us would know, butterflies are pretty, and virtually harmless insects. They have no primary defense weaponry, like bees, wasps, beetles and so on. They have no biting parts, nor possess any stings, claws, spikes, thorns or the like where they can hurt a would-be predator or attacker.

A Leopard Lacewing displays aposematic colours to warn predators that it is distasteful

How then, do butterflies survive the constant dangers and threats to their peaceful existence? As we have seen in this earlier blog article, butterflies' daily lives are fraught with danger, and indeed, a probably high proportion of adult butterflies form part of the daily diets of various predators and organisms in the animal world, like spiders, mantises, birds, wasps and so on.

A male Jacintha Eggfly (Hypolimnas bolina jacintha) dices with death in front of a bird

In this blog article, we take a look at the various strategies employed by adult butterflies to even the odds of surviving the web of life, and improving their chances of living their lives to the fullest extent of their life-span (which is, on average, 2-3 weeks for most species, some more, some less).

A skipper takes off in a flash if disturbed, using its speed as a primary defence to escape would-be predators

The first, and most fundamental defence mechanism that most butterflies have, would be speed. Coupled with their alertness, and enhanced sensitivity to movement, the majority of butterflies use 'fright' and 'flight' as their main means of escaping predators' attacks. As they have no 'fight', all that they can do, is to fly for their lives. Indeed, many a butterfly collector will have stories of the "ones that got away" - where butterflies that they have encountered, made that last-minute change in direction to frustrate collector and evade his net.

A group of Common Bluebottles (Graphium sarpedon luctatius) puddling together. Under normal circumstances, this butterfly is a fast and erratic flyer and is difficult for predators to capture it

Many species, like the Graphiums in the Papilionidae family, are exceedingly efficient at flying at extreme speeds and also with their erratic flight pattern, they would probably be a very difficult prey to pursue. Others like the Nymphalidae are skittish and very alert to movements within their Circle of Fear. The Pieridae often fly rapidly and restlessly, making them moving targets that are not easy to hunt down. And not forgetting the Skippers - the Speedsters of the Butterfly World with their rapid and darting flight.

A female Leopard Lacewing is vulnerable to predators as it stops to lay her eggs

However, the advantages of speed and alertness are somewhat diminished when the butterfly has to feed, mate, rest or oviposit. So how do they overcome the dangers of being eaten, when they are distracted by these necessary daily activities?

A Tree Nymph (Idea lynceus lynceus) displays aposematic contrast colouration

For some genera in various families, they are endowed with 'biological warfare'. In my recent article, on aposematism - the phenomenon of warning colouration in butterflies has been studied by none other than the famous Alfred Russell Wallace. Some species have been able to evolve by natural selection and evolution, to synthesise the chemicals in the plants that their caterpillars feed on and to present a distasteful and impalatable adult butterfly as a primary defense against predation. However, in the field, this phenomenon can work only with the sacrifice of a percentage of the individuals of the species - i.e. the predators have to first "learn" that the species is distasteful, or gives it a stomach ache if consumed. Then it knows well enough to avoid this species (or anything that looks like it) in future.

The high contrast aposematic colouration of black and yellow warns predators of its unpalatability

How then would the other species that are less fortunate in that they have no natural protection from predators? What strategies do they employ to ensure that they survive long enough to feed, find a mate, procreate so that the species avoids extinction?

Mimicry

The first strategy that butterflies employ is that of mimicry. The theory of mimicry was first explained by Henry Walter Bates in 1862, whereby he discussed the resemblance between insect prey that are defended by virtue of being "unpalatable" and those which lack such a defense. Batesian mimicry is therefore a form of deceptive mimicry because "palatable" prey deceive predators by their resemblance to undesirable species.

The classic case of mimicry as often quoted by Wallace - the female Common Mormon (Papilio polytes romulus) mimics the unpalatable Common Rose (Pachliopta aristolochia asteris) for protection. The black-bodied mimic sets it apart from the red-bodied model.

Wallace also explained the phenomenon of "sex-limited mimicry" where the mimetic resemblance could be limited to the female sex of the species. He continued to explain, with particular reference to the female of the Common Mormon (Papilio polytes) that "the female needs to survive for longer for oviposition.

Two examples of Batesian mimicry. Top : Female Courtesan (Euripus nyctelius euploeoides) [top left] mimics the Magpie Crow (Euploea radamanthus radamanthus), whilst the form-nivas of the Malayan Eggfly [bottom left] (Hypolimnas anomala anomala) mimics the Striped Black Crow (Euploea eyndhovii gardineri)

Mallet and Joron (1999) argue that, for example, females may need to engage in mimicry because selection of oviposition sites requires slow flight, and one way to be protected while flying slowly is to copy the colour patterns of typically slow-flying and chemically defended aposematic species.

A classic example of sex-limited Batesian mimicry where the female Wanderer (Pareronia valeria lutescens) mimics the unpalatable Danainae, the Yellow Glassy Tiger (Parantica aspasia aspasia) for protection. The female Wanderer even mimics the slow-flying characteristic of the Yellow Glassy Tiger

Batesian mimicry in which the mimic not only looks like the model, but also behaves like it, was easy to grasp and accepted by the scientific community during Wallace's era. It was easy to explain that this disguise increases the chances of the mimic being mistaken for the distasteful model which then gives it some “immunity” as it is avoided by its predators.

Example of Mullerian mimicry where a number of aposematic coloured, chemically-protected species mimic each other for even greater protection. In this case, the four species are, clockwise, Smaller Wood Nymph (Ideopsis gaura perakana), Common Tree Nymph (Idea stolli logani), Grey Tree Nymph (Idea lynceus lynceus) and a day-flying Zygaenid moth, Cyclosia pieridoides.

However, the explanation for mimicry between defended (or "unpalatable") species proved slightly more elusive until 1878, when Fritz Muller published an explanation for this form of mimicry. Muller elaborated that this form of mimicry originates from a strategy that has evolved among butterflies (and moths) is for all members of a group to resemble each other and also be unpalatable. This approach spreads the chances of any one butterfly (or moth) being eaten over a larger number of species, and over a larger number individuals within a species. When a bird catches any one of these individuals, it quickly learns to keep away from all the species within the group. This type of mimicry is now referred to as Mullerian mimicry.

To even the odds of survival, butterflies have, by natural selection and evolution, adapted to mimic other butterflies that are distasteful to predators, with the hope of protecting themselves from attack.

A Common Mime (Chilasa clytia clytia) [right] mimics the unpalatable Dark Glassy Tiger (Parantica agleoides agleoides)

In Part 2 of the Survival Strategies of Butterflies, we will see how butterflies employ crypsis - masquerate and camouflage to avoid being seen by predators as part of their way of keeping alive when going about their daily activities.

Text by Khew SK ; Photos by James Chia, Sunny Chir, Leslie Day, Khew SK and Tan BJ