A STOMPer, who was at Jurong Park recently, says that although he was blown away by the natural beauty of it, he was also disappointed at some shortcomings the park had.
In an e-mail, he talks about the roofless shelter which provides no shelter from the rain and the 'botak tree' that has been pruned to its stumps.
He says:
"The quiet environment of Jurong Park attracts the morning joggers and inline skaters as well as hordes of school children who come here for their cross-country races.
"This picture of a dragonfly was taken when it was resting on a tree stump. It has transparent wings and the insect consists of three parts-- the head, thorax and an elongated abdomen coloured yellow and black.
"It lays its eggs on water and these will hatch into nymphs which breathe with gills. When it becomes an adult it breathes in air as it starts to fly about.
"When mating, the male's abdomen is joined to the head of the female and this is called the "tandem position". Only dragonflies have this unique style of mating.
"There was a brown tortoise which decided to leave the water and came to the grass to look for food. It has a brown carapace and a red streak near the eye.
"However, Jurong Park has its shortcomings too. The rain shelter was built by the Jurong Town Corporation but the strange thing about this shelter was that it had no roof.
"No wonder the joggers called this the 'topless rain shelter'. It offers you no protection from the rain.
"I also saw a tree beside the Jurong Lake which looked pitiful as it was pruned until only the stumps were left. The joggers called this the 'botak tree'."
Not to be anal, but I am getting quite sick and tired of people who cannot tell the difference between a turtle and a tortoise. I have mentioned this point time and time again; I can understand if people opt to give the freshwater turtle species the label of 'terrapin', but 'tortoise' is just way off.
Oddly enough, based on the writing style, I have a strange feeling that this was the same person who posted about the differences between tortoises and turtles yesterday.
*facepalms*
