“[They’re] prowling in the shadows …” 😨
When night settles over Singapore, photographer Tan Yong Lin heads out with his camera, searching for one of his city’s most secretive residents. While he’s documented many animals across the urban landscape, few excite him as much as the ones that only come alive after dark.
He scans the trees and rooftops, waiting for the telltale glimmer of two enormous eyes peering back at him. Then, there it is — a common palm civet, darting through the shadows between houses.
Unlike other wildlife encounters, Lin avoids flash or artificial lighting when photographing civets. Instead, he relies on the faint glow of street lamps and windows to capture their movements.
“The civets are largely nocturnal, and I do not use any artificial lights to photograph them,” Lin told The Dodo. “I rely on the ambient light of the housing estates.”
The result is intimate portraits of a wild creature most people in Singapore never get to see. In fact, many lifelong residents are stunned by his photos. “I’ve lived in Singapore for 50 years and never seen one,” one commenter wrote.
For Lin, though, each sighting is still magical. Watching a civet slip through the night feels like seeing the city’s hidden heartbeat.
“Prowling in the shadows, our urban common palm civets use the cover of nightfall to hunt and search for food,” Lin explained in a Facebook post. “With fences, railings and tall trees, they navigate our neighborhoods with ease, and can retreat to safety whenever they need.”
Shy by nature, civets prefer to keep their distance. Lin respects this, keeping his own movements slow and minimal so the animals feel unbothered.
And though they vanish as quickly as they appear, the civets’ quiet presence is a reminder that even in a bustling city, the wild finds ways to endure.