Identifying insects

Coming across insects that I could not identify is rather frustrating while identifying an insect wrongly is worse than not being able to identify it at all. Friends have often console me that there are thousands of insect species yet to be identified even by keen entomologist, so what more being just a week end amateur taking photos now and than?

Unidentified Beetles


But that doesn’t make me feel any better! Sometimes it gets to be an obssession to just find out which species it comes from or family it belongs to. Time and again I sometime hit walls with a picture of an insect that will not yield its identity. What does it matters if I cannot identify a particular insect, you might well ask. I for sure will not die if I cannot find out nor will I starve or feel pain but my burning curiosity will not be quenched, it is like a journey with no ending or a task half complete, itching and prodding incessantly to find an end to it.
Or perhap it’s the sign of ageing but surely I maybe getting old but not that old yet? Senility runs on my side of the family as often reminded by my wife, could it be? No...I choose not to believe any of that!

For all its worth, if any readers here can identify any of the insects in this posting, please write and make my day!

Unidentified butterflies



And for those who wish to inform me the species of the insect in the picture is a butterfly or a beetle, you have been a great help, thank you very much and I would like to meet you in person to see how you look like. Nothing much can surprise me anymore I actually do know a person who tells me such things with a straight face, while looking at me in a funny way wondering why I do not know my insects. It is scary.........

Green Crested Lizard (Bronchocela cristatella)

An interesting bright green lizard capable of changing color, becoming a shade of darker brown when threatened.
Can be found in forests as well as parks and rural areas and only easily spotted once off its camouflage environment.

The Geoduck Meal

Geoduck pronouced “Goo-ee-duck”, scientific name of Panopea generosa, is a big saltwater clam with a long siphon which can easily grow to a few feet, the siphon would be its mouth where large amount of water is suck in to be filtered for plankton as food. Chinese call the geoduck the "elephant trunk clam" for obvious reason.

Looking at it through an aquarium, one cannot imagine how such a weird looking creature can be eaten. I suppose being at the top of the food chain helps us to be adventurous.


Not available locally, Geoducks are imported from the US or Canada and in this case from Mexico. It is known to have a long life span of more than a century, speculated to be because of its sedentary lifestyle of not experiencing much wear and tear in addition to having few natural predators as in the wild it lives by burrowing itself into the sea bed sheltered and protected, people would be its biggest predator I would think.

The local chef recommends that it be eaten almost raw with a short dipped in a hot boiling broth. It taste exactly as you would imaging it would taste like, slimy if too raw, leathery if overcooked with a strong flavor of clams. Some of my friends compare it to abalones, for me it is far from the unique taste and texture only abalones can have.

A mystery it remains.

Sometime in 1976 I was visiting a friend after school and we came upon a family moving house close to where he stays. There was rubbish strewn all over right in front of the house and people were busy moving furniture and what not out of the house. Things in the house which the shifting tenant did not want anymore were put aside, ready to be scrapped.

From where I was standing, I notice an object that looks like a toy made from metal amongst old tattered newspaper and it attracted my attention. I went nearer and saw it was not broken or anything, maybe only a little bit dirty with grime and dust.

Without hesitations I ask the lady standing nearby which I assume is the owner, whether I can have it and she acknowledge just by nodding her head and it was mine since then. That took place 30 years ago.

I still remember what she looks like, she was a fat woman of Thai ancestry with high cheek bones and bad teeth.

So, what is it really?

On close examination, the technology used to make it appears not to be recent, there are too many imperfections that current day technology, meaning the last 50 years or so, would have taken care of. The main figurine and rolling wheels, looks like it has been sand casted from brass. The iron rod put in place to hold the rolling wheels appears to be hammered in at both ends most probably when it was red hot. The inconsistent surface of the iron rod mushroomed ends is an obvious indication of the technique adopted. There are also indications that some repair work was done since being made as I can see small silvery patches of a different material on some parts of the figurine's body.

Is it an ancient toy that has seen happier times?

Was it used as a symbol for some religious ceremony in times gone by?

Without a doubt, I am sure it has many interesting stories to tell if only it can speak.

The cure all plant.

In my garden, there is a cure all plant locally known as Pegaga or Centella Asiatica if you want to get academic.
This plant is indegenous to the warmer climates, grows rampantly in the right environment and has a strong root system, getting rid of it from your 5 star lawn is a challenge.



If it is grown for the asthetic appeal, it is best done in pots to contain it from spreading like wild fire.


Traditionally, it is consumed fresh or crush into a juice. It can also be consumed in its crush and dried form, it seems efficacy in both forms are the same.
In my humble opinion, both forms will not make it into the top 1000 culinary delights known to mankind.
It taste exactly how you would imagine it would taste like, imagine crush spinach juice or better still, the green algae saturated water from my 1 month old unclean aquarium. The commercial juice version popularly available in most coffee shops in Ipoh sweeten with sugar and most probably supplemented with green color dye and diluted is not the real thing.




The cure all properties, reputedly is good for loss of memory to herpes zoster, what ever that is. Of course, no cure all plant is considered good if it doesn't claim it can cure cancer too.
Speaking as a full fledge meat eater, anyone who can stomach the ordeal of drinking this stuff, deserves to be cure of all illnesses and absolved from all past sins.