23 May 2012

A Sneak Peek

A Sneak Peek :
Caterpillars of Singapore's Butterflies


The first inaugural Festival of Biodiversity jointly organised by the National Parks Board and the Biodiversity Roundtable will be held this Saturday 26 May 2012 at the Botany Centre of the Singapore Botanic Gardens. This Festival is organised as a platform to showcase the nature community's efforts and raise awareness of Singapore's biodiversity.


At the Festival, ButterflyCircle will be launching our 2nd book, the Caterpillars of Singapore's Butterflies.  This guide book features mainly the work of Horace Tan, who meticulously documented the early stages of butterflies over a period of 5 years.  A total of 80 species of butterflies' life histories are featured in this 208-page book. This is the first book to exclusively feature the caterpillars of Singapore's butterflies. Caterpillars of Singapore's Butterflies is published and sponsored by NParks.


A concise introduction describes some important biological and ecological aspects of the early stages of a butterfly's life, first as an egg, then caterpillar and finally pupa, before the adult butterfly ecloses.  Each of the 80 species is featured on two pages, showing the adult butterfly, all the instars of the caterpillars, pupa and information about the host plants and so on.


A section of the book deals with butterfly friendly landscaping and design strategies to lay out a butterfly garden.  Some suggested butterfly nectaring and host plants are listed for gardening enthusiasts, parks managers and landscape designers who are keen to set up a butterfly garden. 


ButterflyCircle is pleased to present our 2nd guide book about butterflies, that is targeted towards creating awareness and as an educational resource for nature enthusiasts and the public alike.  Our first book, the Field Guide to the Butterflies of Singapore, launched in 2010, features the adult butterflies that can be found in Singapore.  This time, the Caterpillars of Singapore's Butterflies take a peek into the secret lives of caterpillars before they transform into the beautiful butterflies that we admire.


Come visit ButterflyCircle's booth at the Botany Centre and get your copy of the Caterpillars of Singapore's Butterflies at the cost of only S$26!  See you at the Festival of Biodiversity this weekend!

Text by Khew SK : Sample pages of the Caterpillars of Singapore's Butterflies courtesy of the authors and NParks.