Since moving to the new house I’ve spent at least part of every evening walking around the garden or the neighborhood looking for wildlife and so far I haven’t been disappointed.

The heavy rain has brought lots of wildlife to our garden and one of the most exciting visitors we’ve had so far was an South-East Asian Box Turtle (Cuora amboinensis) which Bones discovered one morning.

I also saw this little amazing insect (below) one night, I’m not even sure what it was but what a cool looking bug.

Yesterday we finally had a dry day and on the way home I saw a 1.5m Javanese Rat snake sunning itself on the road. (sadly no pictures, it disappeared too quickly). I decided it was a good sign and that I’d head out that evening if it stayed dry and see what I could spot.

In the evening I set off down the road  on the motorbike scanning the road and the sides of the road with my torch as I drove. At first I didn’t see much, the usual frogs taking advantage of the many puddles dotted around, a hermit crab wandering up the road from the beach and a few different molluscs.

I headed up another road to see if I’d have better luck and almost immediately I spotted a scorpion on the road. I snapped a few pics and then continued along the road; then no more than a few meters away I spotted a large Tokay gecko on the road too and of course snapped a few pics of it too before heading off.

Later that evening driving back down the road I stumbled across a very tense stand off between the scorpion and the gecko. Was the gecko really going to try and tackle such a formidable meal, or was the scorpion trying to eat the gecko or just fending off a curious Tokay .

After a tense few minutes of circling each other both of them decided to call it a draw and headed off in different directions.

I was pretty pumped after seeing such a cool interaction but my excitement was soon dampened as  I spotted  one of my least favorite Thai arthropods; the giant centipede. They really creep me out,they move in a rapid serpentine fashion which seems to either be random; or aimed at your feet. They’re  also venomous and can inflict a very painful bite and they just seem evil. I know it seems weird to say that an animal is evil and I usually love all animals but these guys really give me the creeps. Nevertheless I decided to snap a few very very quick pics and then get out of there.

Can’t forget all the frogs that were out and about that evening too.

I’m looking forward to my next sub-urban safari already =).