Borneo Blog

Sorry about the title, I couldn’t resist it. But if the Italian motor racing star Loris Capirossi ever slows down in his career, he might very well acquire the tag “slow loris.”

Back to the issue of slow loris, when was the last time you saw the animal, or known as kongkang in Malay or tondoyutung in Momogun? Like I’ve not see this cute little animal for decades and almost forgotten that it existed if not for a recent news saying scientists was tagging a Bornean slow loris for the first time.

The move was part of efforts by the Sabah wildlife department to study the primate’s behaviour. What did they say? Primate? I never thought for once that slow lorises are categorised as primate.

Benoit Goossens, director of the Danau Girang Field Centre that is spearheading the study, said in a statement that through the study they hoped to raise the awareness in Sabah on the importance of protecting nocturnal primates as much as protecting orangutans, proboscis monkeys, sun bears and elephants.

{ 0 comments }

A toad species scientists feared had extinct, reappeared in the jungle of Sarawak, the Malaysian state on Borneo Island recently. Listed as the Top 10 most wanted lost toad, the Sambas Stream Toad was last seen in Europe 1924, according to Conservation International (CI).

The toad, Ansonia latidisca, was previously known from only three individuals, and was last seen in 1924, CI said.

Rainbow toad... Photo released by Conservation International which recently discovered the elusive amphibian. Photo credit: Prof Indraneil Das

“Prior to the rediscovery, only illustrations of the mysterious and long-legged toad existed, after collection by European explorers in the 1920s,” CI said in a press release, announcing the discovery.

A picture of the Sambas Stream Toad, released by Conservation International which recently discovered the elusive amphibian. Photo credit: Prof Indraneil Das

Excerpt from CI press release:

Dr. Indraneil Das of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) was one of those inspired researchers. After announcing his new discovery of a tiny pea-sized frog in Borneo last summer, the Old World’s smallest, Das and his team targeted the missing Sambas Stream Toad species for rediscovery last August.

Initial searches by Dr. Das and team took place during evenings after dark along the 1,329 m. high rugged ridges of the Gunung Penrissen range of Western Sarawak, a natural boundary between Malaysia’s Sarawak State and Indonesia’s Kalimantan Barat Province. The team’s first expeditions proved fruitless in their first several months, but the team did not give up. The area had barely been explored in the past century, with no concerted efforts to determine whether the species was still alive. So Das changed his team’s strategy to include higher elevations and they resumed the search.

And then one night, Mr. Pui Yong Min, one of Dr Das’s graduate students found a small toad 2m up a tree. When he realized it was the long-lost toad, Dr. Das expressed relief and near disbelief at the discovery before his eyes.

“Thrilling discoveries like this beautiful toad, and the critical importance of amphibians to healthy ecosystems, are what fuel us to keep searching for lost species,” said Dr. Das. “They remind us that nature still holds precious secrets that we are still uncovering, which is why targeted protection and conservation is so important. Amphibians are indicators of environmental health, with direct implications for human health. Their benefits to people should not be underestimated.”

{ 0 comments }

A jewel beetle collected from a local residing in Crocker Range, Sabah, is among four new species of jewel beetles found in Southeast Asia, according to a recent report.

NEW JEWEL BEETLE SPECIES ... P. chalcogenioides, found in Crocker Range, Sabah

The jewel beetle was found by a local collector in the vicinity of Mt Trus Madi, according to the report, published in ZooKeys.

The other three species of jewel beetles — so called because of their glossy iridescent colours — were found in Thailand and Indonesia’s Sumatra and Lombok.

If you are game for scientific description of the species, here is the report, in PDF. The pictures of the four species are also shown in the report. Here is a question worth pondering: how many more species of Borneo flora and fauna which are yet to be discovered?

{ 0 comments }

A newly-discovered species of mushroom, known as Spongiforma squarepantsii, has been found in the forests of Borneo, a report said.

Shaped like a sea sponge, S. squarepantsii was found in 2010 in the Lambir Hills in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in Borneo.

Spongebob Squarepants (left), Spongiforma squarepantsii (right). Credit: Tom Bruns, U.C. Berkeley (for the S. squarepantsii picture)

It is bright orange—although it can turn purple when sprinkled with a strong chemical base—and smells “vaguely fruity or strongly musty,” according to San Francisco State University researcher Dennis Desjardin and colleagues’ description published in the journal Mycologia.

“Under a scanning electron microscope, the spore-producing area of the fungus looks like a seafloor carpeted in tube sponges, which further convinced the researchers to name their find after the famous Bob,” according to a statement.

{ 0 comments }