The Serangoon stork

Mouth of Sungei Serangoon, which has since been dammed up to create the Serangoon Reservoir;
(Photo by Food Trails)

Hello from SG (@HellofrmSG), Singapore's very own rotation curation project on Twitter, has just been launched, and our very first curator is journalist and history buff Eisen Teo (@eisen).

As part of his self-introduction, Eisen shared the etymology of the name of his neighbourhood, Serangoon:





(Note: an alternative explanation is provided in the 27th March 1950 edition of The Straits Times)

The King and I: King Cobras in Singapore

(Photo by gerry morgan)

Singapore is home to many species of snake, from tiny burrowing blind snakes less than 20 centimetres long, feeding on soft-bodied invertebrates in the soil, to gigantic pythons more than 5 metres in length, lurking in our drains and sewers in pursuit of rats and even stray cats. While most of our snakes are quite harmless, our forests have their fair share of kraits, coral snakes and pit vipers, with venomous bites that are a genuine cause for concern. The equatorial spitting cobra (Naja sumatrana) is perhaps the most dangerous of our venomous snakes, since it is commonly encountered living near people. Yet these serpents, for all their deadly beauty, pale in comparison to a snake so feared and so iconic that it has become a symbol of the Asian rainforests, a true superstar among the snakes - the king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah).

Civet cats on Tanglin Halt tree? Look again