I is still in Oz, but the juju drums of Thailand and deepest darkest Borneo are calling. Boarding plane in two days. This is the place to see what weird critters I discover in my travels. Come by now and then.
Day 3 and I seem to be on another planet. Pang Sida National Park is famous for butterlfies, famous enough to be on World Heritage lisitng for them (and the odd elephant and tiger). But in all my travels I was not ready for this…
Well all jokes aside, look below at this little vignette of the drug crazed flutterbies. There is something in the water, literally, on this sand, that drives the boy butterflies bonkers. Some salts they seriously crave. It aids their, and their females fecundity, partly explaining not just the madness at the salt sands, but their astronomical numbers all over the Park.
Its utter mayhem, and then there were the tourists. It being a weekend, and they was all over with phones on sticks, and some with serious big lens cameras, and mini humans with voices, and mamamia, and all hassling the flutterbies. Truly a big day out.
That was the madness, and tomorrow a more considered look at the individual players.
Tomorrow…
And did I tell you there be butterflies here. But fear not, other six leg denizens, though cowed by these mad critters, were taking a peak from the sidelines….
Where possible I like to take pictures from a viewpoint of the little critters. Get down there with their perspective. Below a poor grasshopper, not so drab, is trying to get a drink while mobbed by these black monsters…
Now where there are so many fritterbies there ought to be the odd baby too. And lo and behold there were a few.
Among them was the orchard butterfly baby that I first discovered many decades ago in Borneo and played with mercilessly. It has the fabulous defense of suddenly erecting structures that look like a snake tongue, and ‘opening’ the eye spots on the side of the body. Swaying and flicking the ‘tongue’ is very convincing of a snake, albeit a very little one. Below a before and after…
Day 5. Today I managed a ride deep into the Park. Up on the ridges and away from most tourists, the elephants play. Their generous poo is all over the place, and their giant footprints in the mud. They are smaller than their African cousins, and the poo is about half the generousness – the coin is about 50c size
In deepest darkest Africa the job of burying these monsters is royally treated by the world’s largest dung beetles, over 50mm long, heavy in the hand, rolling it into perfect balls and finding nice real estate to dig it in. The dude on the left, proudly sitting on his handiwork. So imagine the surprise as I dug around in the poo and found that here, a micro dung beetle, about 4mm long, has been assigned the impossible task of doing something about the mess. It may explain why the track was rather festooned with unburied blobs. Still it has very cute little tv aerial antennae…
Oh and I just remembered. This blog was gonna start with a picture of the very first insect the camera captured here. As I arrived in the lodge I found it on a plant outside. Despite the butterfly overload, this little leaf beetle is still my fav critter here. A quiet beautiful achiever.
Day ? Getting a bit groundhog-esque, with every day starting with the same nice chilly omelette and then a ride into the Park to play with the six legs. Most of the butterflies eventually pose for my very patient camera, but one species I have been chasing for seven days and nights, has chosen to hide its beauty under leaves no matter how many times I shoo them out. Still a very nice mauve underside…
And since, oddly, we are on the subject of flutterbies, here are a few more from the hunt
This is all fun and games for the little flitters, but like all games it can end in tears. The flutterby below is an ex butterfly, pining for the fjords, while the little crab spider celebrates its giant meal.
Day ? Oddly again in the Park chasing insects. Today went several km away from the salt lick area and found other proper god-fearing butterflies not going crazy for the salts. Also my friends the jumping spiders, always rather showy in this part of the world, popped up. Here are two species, the one on the left enjoying a nibble on an ant.
Before the salt licks took away the rational brains of the flutterbies, they used to feed on flower sugars, and when very lucky, some obtained the extra chemicals for their happiness from right proper bird poo…
And speaking of bird poo, see the cute caterpillar which mimics the wet stuff as it oozzez down a leaf…
And the last one for today, is mr attitude, a tiny beetle in the leaf roller weevil Family Attelabidae. When not strutting its 5 mm pose, it slowly eats holes in leaves.
Day, second last in Thailand. Butterflies (yes more on them), unlike their equally beautiful cousins the moths, tend to land with their wings closed above the body. This is very frustrating for observers and photo dudes. The open winged shots here were the result of much patience as they sometimes flick their wings open for a second. The worst offenders are the blues – the Famiy Lycaenidae, many of which have fab blue colours on the hidden upper side. So below, my one and only finally glimpsed fab secret colours, of one of the species here that normally only show their white underside colours. Similar species at normal pose on the right.
and as I pass by, here be more babies, but these are moth babies, with one screaming for attention and the other trying hard to hide from my gaze…
and speaking of moths, one very handsome hawk moth sometimes joins the flutterbies at the salt licks. It belongs to a group that are daytime pollinators, flitting about between flowers very fast and never landing, behaving like hummingbirds. See this furry legged dude is hovering as it laps at the salts in the clay.
And a few more non flutteries. It is so humid here (yuck) that termites are active during the day, and many snail species have started to devolve the full shell, and cannot retract into what is left. Even weirder is that this species has decided to be see through. And on the right, a very showy, evil smelling shield bug nymph.
oh and speaking of sweat, you know the little ‘sweat bees’, ‘stingless bees’ in Oz, well, the local species have a bonanza and tickle me all day.
Hold press, today started, whatever day it is, with a sighting of a hopper I have seen in books, but only now here for the first time in the flesh. It is a little odd, and since I cannot remember the latin name, I will call it by its common name that may reveal the mystery, mr bumface…
Got it ?
Day Thai last. Weather has been getting cooler and insect diversty is increasing, but its time to move to the next adventure in deepest darkest Borneo. On last day found a fav weirdo, one of the ‘nose-jobs’, Family Fulgoridae, which in SE Asia have their epicentre.
And below the last weirdo from here. It is a nymph of a plant hopper, you can just see its head in the centre top of the ‘thing’. The rest is a wonderful wax sculpture, shaped and added to, by its bum, of course.
And a final ferewell from the drug crazed flutterbies. Whenever I see serious crowds I always think back to a fav old Larson cartoon. See you in deepst darkest Borneo in 2 days.
BORNEO
Well after two days of 4 planes, several airports, hotels, cars, taxis and yum fried noodles, I am finally at Danum Valley. It has been forbidded to humans other than affiliated researchers until this year. I have wanted to come here for about 20 years. Finally, I arrived in this research station in primary rainforest only to be told that I cannot walk the trails, oh and there is another new research station in this part of the State that caters to entomologists ! I nearly had a little cry. There is one tiny trail I am allowed to use, and like most here, it starts after a WIBELDYWOBLEDI BRIDGE.
Me and the beloved both have a ‘thing’ about narrow hanging bridges. Many experiences with hilarious levels of sweaty palm terror. So I did it once, looking only at the boards in front of me. Then on the way back, got attacked by march flies, and here it gets cute. Imagine if an astronaut swatted a fly on the space station, he might do a freefall summersault. The astral mechanics of wibledywobledi bridges are similar. It is amazing how much force was transferred to the sway motion of the bridge by the act of swatting at the flies. Santa madonna lucia !!
So day 2, and I have bravely argued that I should be OK on little short paths near the buildings. My expedition of one, set off just to see a short cut from the office to the dorms, and lo and behold there were forks in the road – two hours and near panic later I emerged somewhere else alltogether. My mastery of lostness has not abandoned me.
So onto some of the critters here. It is a very poor portend that my first two photos are of the enemy. The local not so scary mozzi, and the local evil demon from the ID, mr Leech. Borneo has always been leech-land, it is the price of entry into its amazing sights, and alas nothing scares me more than the little #$@%$^&^$#@!!
The leech above was sleeping – sooo cute. It was the designated decoy for today, and it had a laugh as the real attack squad gained entry to my person and helped my blood-thinner tablets cause interesting blood loss.
So how many legs does a millipede have ? From several tens of, to literally a thousand ( on a species discovered only last year). So what is going on in this mess…
Double storey legs as, presumably the boy, gets a free ride around the forest.
Next were several flies, a hunter with large prey seeking eyes, and a leaf dancer with very lovely blue wings.
But the prize for day 2 goes to this innocuous brown-bum ant, prancing about on a leaf. Notice anything suspicious ?
Day 4
If you guessed that the ant was an imposter, a clever spider looking just like an ant, and even holding its give-away 4th pair of legs aloft to look like antennae, you get the prize.
So the heat is hot and the 200% humidity is fully yukky, and it gets betterer. After sharing this planet with the bloody annoying mr covid for nearly 3 years, he appears to have caught up with your intrepid correspondent. Hard to not just lie down, but why not see how fever adds to the fun of this climate in the forest. I dragged myself to the river bank and there in the sand were a fav creature, tiger beetles, uber fast hunters that can even run down flies with the fearsome jaws.
And being the river, there were shimmering damsels. A night sky of stars in their wings, which only look blue from one angle, so as they fly, they wink on and off, confusing predators
My psssion for insect-land is made deeper when a dash of camouflage and mimicry is stirred in. The best ones are the insects which not only look like something else, but behave like that something. The following stick insect really behaved like a stick that fell onto a leaf from the canopy. Full marks.
So to make my fevered day more interesting I set myslef the task of photographing the never-keep-still brown bum ant, to show you how good the spider was at mimicking it. Finally I can do a side by side…
And speaking of side by side, see mr pillbug. I loves these primitive and ponderous critters. This one was 6cm long and made a perfect football when annoyed. They are not slaters, which are Crustaceans, but a group within the millipedes. Similar critters roamed around the forests of the Carboniferous, 300 million years ago. Then oxygen levels were much higher, and invertebrates, which breathe by diffusion rather than by a pump, like lungs, were able to get much bigger. Imagine something similar, but 2 metres long – for real.
After the avalanche of butterflies in Thailand, I have only seen about 6 species here so far. One of them is very classy, but with very poor aesthetic sense, only landing on very shonky nasty backdrops. Next to it is a nice sweat bee, showing how its done – land on nice backdrops for my camera.
Day 5. Another day in lowland forest paradise. Leave the fan in the room and be slapped in the face by a rancid wet haddock. Gotta love it. Last night went on a night drive and saw some of the other larger critters here. Took a few pics with the baby camera of far away grainy subjects, just to show you what its like. Apart from the frogmouth and Wallace’s flying frog, there were deer and civets and flying squirrels, but only to look at. Then the heavens opened up on us back-of-landcruiser-ute humans, and we headed home bedraggled.
Oh, and speaking of baby camera, it captured two snakes lately, an uber dangerous pit viper in a tree outside, and a cute and cuddly flying snake baby.
But lets get back to six legs. Just one more shot for today – a day active moth in a Family whose name I forgotted, but all have these very cute huge boogly crosseyed eyeballs, and always strong fun colours.
Day 6. Today started with a moment that melted my little heart. A pair of hornbills came to say hello. There are some amazing species among the 59 found from New Guinea to Africa. They mate for life and are very fuzzily in luv as they sail through the forest in full together together mode. Very luvely indeed.
As there is nothing that can follow such a moment of pathos, I will return tomorrow with the other grooblies of the day.
Day 7. Spiders are part of a large Class, the Arachnida, with many branches, like scorpions, ticks and other eight-legs. Here and in the Thai forests, a branch known as the Opilionida, the ‘harvestmen’ (no idea where that name came from) dominate. They are everywhere and active day and night. Some are omnivores, others hunters, and the main types here are very very long legged. When you see them close up, you realise that they are actually machines, no doubt micro robots from the planet Tralfamador. And they have been here for about 400 million years. See the dudes below.
For the best first impression think back to the Martian tripods of H G Wells’ War of the Worlds fame. Imagine this dude with 3 legs and you have the same image as the illustrations of the early editions. But wait that may be a tad superficial I agree, but add a close up look and you can see the mechanical ball-socket joins of the legs and the various details of the main robot body attached to them…. and when you see the deliberate way they walk, well….
After that I guess its time to talk about birdshit. And the mimicry thereof. Several groups of spiders superficially mimic bird droppings on leaves, but only Phrynarachne, the master, takes it to the next level. Below, the bird shit it is sitting in is actually a work of art wrought by its many types silks. And it can just sit there, after all the effort to create the effect, because prey come to it. Two glands on its back create a rotting meat smell that silly flies come to investigate ….
Oh and you saw the river beach tiger beetle before, very handsome, and now I can add another, from deep in the forest, which takes its cue from the subtle glows of opals.
Last Day at Danum. Last night did another night drive in the wee hope of seeing a critter that a puddy-tat tragic like myself could go ooooohhh-aaaaahhh over. There a several jungle cat species in Borneo, including the very rare clouded leopard. But my wish was for a leopard cat, the size of a big tabby, but with the fabulous grandness of a leopard. It’s little paws have large shoe bits to fill. And lo and behold found one last night. See my frenzied attempt at a pic with the baby camera, capturing the moment of excitement, and below that, a pic from mr Wiki to show you what it actually looks like.
The other item worth a mention involves those large ponderous dudes, the oranghutans. They are actually quite poor climbers, taking their time and not jumping about like monkeys. When going from tree to tree they gently sway the canopy of one, until they can reach over to the next one, and pull it to them. Every night they go to the top of a tree and twist and braid the soft branches into a nest that looks like a giant eagle nest, and have a safe and comfy sleep. Here is a young one I watched climbing up to prepare its bed in the evening.
So tomorrow back to Kota Kinabalu and the hills nearby called the Crocker Range. Then 4 days in fabled Mt Kinabalu, at 4095m, the highest peak in SE Asia. I climbed it as young dude in my early travels. It has excellent montane jungle, heaps of cute pitcher plants and orchids, but what it is most famous for are its giant slavering evil demon leeches. I have a kilo of deet, a cross and a bottle of holy water from the Vatican, but still do not like my chances of survival. I have memories branded in little scaredicat polski brain. Below is the mountain as I saw it flying over to here, easily pushing through the clouds.
So greetings from Mt Kinabalu. It has been 20 plus years for me but nothing has changed. Refreshing to see the pace of tourism kept in check. Now one more little vignette from Danum first. On the last morning at breakfast, in the open dining room with the forest just there, the macac monkeys came to show off. You know how when your puddy-tat rolls over and shows you its furry guts, it is probably defelecting from some crime it has committed ….. well two of the monkey dudes did just that so all the tourists would go googoo and photo them – me included of course, while from the other side of the dining room the rest of the troupe came through and helped themselves to brekky. Gotta love em, almost human and all that. And thats Ralf on the right, whom I had caught in naugthies before, sooo innocent.
But back to the Mountain. Here at 1500m, it has not rained for over a week. An eternity in cloud forest-land. So the leeches are all crying into their cornflakes, and humans are safe. But the gods giveth and the gods taketh away. No rain, dry forest, no insects neither nor. Walking these old familiar tracks, though with dry looking moss, I remembered that although my search-image nowadays is for gaudy insects showing off, way back in 1980 here, my search image was geared for the invisible. I was camouflage struck, crypsis obssessed, and here found so many amazing examples that I wrote my first GEO article, Stick Insects of Borneo, and followed it with my first book, Animals in Disguise. So while I await the rain, here are some of the fun dudes I met here 43 years ago !
The stick insect on the left gets the ‘behaving like a stick’ prize, though the other one is bravely trying to be the vine. Below a very messy fat stick doing its forest floor miasma act
Nothing to say about the one below except good luck. I have actually zoomed in from the original published image to make it easier, honest…
Another 2 days on the tracks still sadly insect poor. The mountain is also famous for its botany, with many pitcher plants and truckloads of orchid species. Here are two cuties, the first are micros, only about 8mm across.
Another day on the mountain and it has rained. Oddly even a night walk did not produce armies of leeches, this truce is very unnerving. Meantime see the local, even more long-legged alien robot, note how it has disconnected one of its ambulatory apparatuses at the ball socket join, and sent it to the robot workshop for repairs
But the night walk’s best find was the “what the…? ye-but” snail. There be many ye-buts in its weirdness. It is a bit like something mr Escher might have drawn, with a moebius strip for fun. Where does its bits start and end.
and in keeping with my camouflage nostalgia trip, I found a 25cm long stick insect playing in the moss
Last day on the mountain. Two but rather cute insectoids to show. The spiny dude is a fungus beetle, and the fly is an antler fly, with the eyes at the ends, giving it a very interesting view of the universe. Try to imagine the movement vertigo and the interface of two separate worlds with 360 fields of view… imagine the computing power to interpret all that instant data.
Singapore-land. The last few days of the trip are in Singapore, which has rainforest parks in the middle, most humans never see, blinded by the city. And it is cute that the last thing I photographed at Mt Kinabalu was a tiger beetle (love em) and the first thing on a long night walk in a Singporean forest was another one (right). Night time in a ranforest is far more insect active than the day.
Pictures with stories are the pinnacle of the art. So the pic below left takes the cake. This poor ant got attacked by a killer fungus (the real version of the one that the show The Last of Us uses in its plot). The fungus told it to climb up and attach to the tip of a branch, and then murdered it on the spot. After that, its fruiting body sprouted out in an antler shaped mushroom, and its spores got released from a nice high diespersal vantage point. Then a passing lacewing stopped and decided here was the best spot to lay 5 of its weird eggs on a stalk. The larvae have since hatched, and later a spider temporarily used the whole shabang as a scaffold for a bit of web. Phew !
Which would make the poor ant on the right kind of a let down, except that it is the largest ant in the world, Camponotus gigas, well its larger headed super soldier is, but this harmless worker dude, at 2.5cm, is still BIG.
Below a question, what do these two pictures have in common…?
That was easy of course, they are so similar, that the dude on the left is of course the baby of the one on the right. They are Faltid hoppers, and the baby is somewhere inside that mess of wax it continually sprouts out of its bum.
Remember in the Kilmanjaro blog there was a gold tortoise beetle with a see-through body flange ? well here is a more lairy version of it.
So, one more long night rainforest walk on the last night of the trip. So in daytime, I did something very odd, became mr tourist ! Went up the 59 floors of the ridiculously futuristic Sands hotel, you know the one with an with an ocean on the roof supported by three bits of opulent hotel and stuff. The view was actually underwhelming, a waste of lots of Singapore dollars, but it reminded me of what I associate most with this odd little country – the huge number of ships they keep waiting in the sea. I first noticed it in 1975 while arriving here by ship, and I see it every time I fly in and out.
And then it got dark and I went hunting a few more critters with my bug shoot crazy friends… It was a dry night so little activity, but here are the highlights. So-called velvet ants, are colourful wingless wasp females searching for critters to parasitise. Now and then a larger, winged male comes along and picks her up for a ride, in both senses of the term…
And what is this stick thing below ? Add the word spider and you get the answer. These stick spiders sit along a single strand of a nearby web, waiting for a tickle on the web while looking like nothing in particular.
And while we is on spiders, see the ‘mirror’ spider below. The anlgle of the photo does not quite get the weirdness, but imagine that every one of the facets on its body really is a mirror. And below that a rather fancy shmancy jumping spider, with a GT stripe.
And on that note, I will see you back in Oz. Heading for the Singapore airport now….
SIX-LEGS-GOOD 