Category Archives: Wildlife

See cool and weird animals of Sabah Borneo

Borneo Woodpecker

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If I say I find a woodpecker near KK, most of you would think that I am joking. I did find one! You won’t understand how excited I was. Every wildlife photography trip is a treasure hunt. Sometimes you get nothing, sometimes you can get a lot. And the harder you work, the more luck you get.

After walking 4 hours under the hot sun, I was so tired that I rested under a death tree. Thirst and hunger were trying to knock me out. Then I heard “Tatatat, Tatatat…” on top of my head. I looked up and saw only dry branches and blue sky. Later, again, I heard the pecking sound. I thought there was a big gecko caught a beetle, so it knocked its mouth against the tree branch to smash the big bug.

I stood up and walked away. After a few steps, I heard the pecking clearly again. My instinct made me turned my head to look back. This time I saw something like a house sparrow busy pecking a tree hole. From its pecking movement, sharp beak and the way it anchors its body to the tree by using the tail, it was a woodpecker. I can’t be wrong. I quickly took out my camera. The thrill was so intense that my hands were shaking.

This was one of my luckiest day. Not only I saw a Brown-Capped Woodpecker (Picoides moluccensis), it was just 20 feet away from me. Other wild birds would have fleed if they saw me 100 feet away. I’m sure it saw me under the tree.

Not only I got the photos, I also captured it in the video. You can Click Here to see the video clip, the first Sabah woodpecker video available on the Internet. Turn up the volume and you will hear the pecking sound clearly. It is like a music to me.

Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu Wetland Centre, Sabah, Malaysia

Mudskipper

Mudskipper, a fish that walks & jumps

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Mudskipper (Family Gobiidae) is one of the weirdest fishes in the world. Many would have mistaken that they are amphibian or having a lung, coz they spend most of their time out of water. To me, they look like a kawai (cute) Japanese cartoon character. If you only see its eyes above the water, you would think that it is a frog. Their superb eyesight is excellent in detecting danger and prey movement.

When they are out of water, their mouth and gill chamber will hold air. Once the oxygen is used up, they will replace it with fresh water. They also keep their skin moist regularly, so they can breathe through the skin. They feed on crabs, insects, and whatever small animals that can fit in their mouth.

They get a pair of pectoral fins that give them the ability to crawl and move on the mud. It is also a common sight that mudskippers climb on the mangrove tree root and rest on it. When in conflict with each other, you can see their dorsal fins erect (see below) before they engage in a fight.

There are a number of mudskippers species. The photos of mudskipper show here are Periophthalmus novemradiatus. According to book, this species can grow up to 6cm (2.5 inches). But I personally saw one that reached 10cm (4 inches). If frightened, they will “hop” on the water to escape, and that’s how they got their name. To see how they jump on water, you can Click Here to view the video clip.

Despite their odd appearance, mudskippers are considered as a highly-priced delicacy in Taiwan and Japan. Before they are consumed, they are kept in fresh water for days to remove the smell of mud. Last month a Hong Kong TV food programme also introduced the mudskipper dish in Malaysia.

Mudskippers are shy. They try to stay away from people. However, our noise and footstep (which reveal organic substance under the mud surface) make them curious. If you remain still for a while, many of them will come around you, and even climb on your shoes. Mudskippers are doing so well on the land. They seem to like land better too. I have no doubt that these fishes will evolve into a 4-leg creature after millions of years.

Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu Wetland Centre, Sabah, Malaysia

Hermit Crab

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It is so easy to find hermit crab. If you see a fast “walking” snail shell, that’s it. Hermit Crab uses discarded shells for protection. The one I show here is a mangrove hermit crab (genus Clibanarius), which is easily identified by its blue-striped legs.

Hermit Crabs are scavengers, with a good sense of smell. When threaten, they will retreat into their shells. They are very impatient though. After 1 or 2 minutes, they will try to crawl away.

Since a dead shell cannot grow with the body of hermit crab, as they become larger, they look for and move into larger shells. I wonder how they pick or upgrade a “house”. It even uses wood as its home (below is the evidence)!

Hermit crab may not be the only one attracted by an abandoned shell…

Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu Wetland Centre, Sabah, Malaysia

Raksasa?

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Guess what is the name of the animal below:

The photo was not taken from the Ultraman TV program.

The answer is Mud Whelks (Nassarius jacksonianus). Have you gotten it right? You may have eaten this disgusting snail before. It is a gastrpoda that can reach 10cm (about 4 inches) in length, and comes in many shapes and sizes. Commonly seen in shallow muddy pool of mangrove forest, it moves slowly on the mud, grazing on algae on the mud surface. Mud Whelks is a scavengers that feeds on dead animals and leaves. It can detect prey using ospharadium, a chemosensory organ near the base of the siphon.

See the picture below. Its head looks like lamb or cow, right? To see its body FULLY extended, I nailed its shell upright in the mud. As you can see, its muscle is strong (look juicy too). I waited more than 5 minutes to get this photo.

Now I show the colour version of the first picture. I guess the black and white picture is very misleading. That’s the purpose. Haha! It is less fun if I tell you what it is in the beginning.

Golden Wasp

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Wasp is a strange insect that looks like a combination of ant and bee. Unlike bee, it usually flies alone and looks harmless. Most of them are very bright in color (usually yellow or orange), which is supposed to mean warning. The end result – I was stung more often by wasps than bees when I was a kid. Even until today, I was attacked occasionally when I walked alone in the wood. The wasp below is in golden color.

Parasitic-wasps are good mother but cruel predator. They paralyze their prey such as the larvae of moth and butterfly, by injecting it with venom via their stingers. The venom is only enough to paralyze the prey permenantly but will not kill it. They will then lay eggs inside the paralyzed prey. When the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the prey alive as food. Parasitic wasps are also used in agricultural pest control. Below are the pictures of a parasitic-wasp storing a paralyzed prey in the nest.

Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu Wetland Centre, Sabah, Malaysia

Mangrove Skink

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Guys, I would like to introduce you a friend who has smooth skin and slim body. Happy or not? Mangrove Skink (Emoia atrocostata) is one of the most common animals spotted in Sabah mangrove forest. Normally it has smooth and brownish to grayish metallic skin. This small, short-legged lizard is usually less than 1 foot (30cm) long. Like other lizards, it can detech its tail easily as an escape mechanism.

Basically they are everywhere anytime in mangrove forest. I always see dozens of them in KK Wetland Centre, on the broadwalk, under the mangrove root, on the sandy ground, open space… It looks very much like a skink that lives in our garden. In Hakka, we call it “Choa-Ma-Sa”. Choa-Ma-Sa is smaller and got beautiful red stripes on its body, while Mangrove Skink doesn’t.

They are timid but not quite afraid of human. They always keep a distance from you. If you come too close, they would jump into the water, so I assume they are good swimmer. During low tide, you can always see plenty of them roaming on the ground to look for small crabs, insect and other food.

I notice that they use only one eye to observe something. What I mean is — they don’t look at you face to face. Instead, they turn their head to side, using only one eye to look at you. I am not sure if they are trying to act cute or what. If you don’t believe me, just look at all the photos shown here.

Other two different skink species that I saw were spotted in Sepilok virgin forest and Klias wetland. The later one is only found in Borneo.

Photos taken in KK Wetland Centre, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Ant-Mimicking Spider

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Girls… be careful if you find an ant on your dress, it could be a SPIDER!!! Hahaha… scare or not? This cool ant, no… I mean sipder, is also found in Sabah Borneo. It looks and moves like a normal ant, even the REAL ant also cannot tell the difference. We should call it “SPY-der” instead. If I am not mistaken, this is a type of jumping spiders (family Salticidae) belonging to the genus Myrmarachne.

I discovered it because I was taking some pictures of ants, otherwise I wouldn’t find it. At first, I noticed a funny ant that has a BIG head. Curiosity made me to examine it more closely. It was alerted, so it jumped quickly and hide behind a leaf. I never saw any ant with such agility. And it got 8 legs! We all know that insects such as ant only have 6 legs. This spider is less than 1 cm, so I had to use an additional close-up len to magnify its funny face.

There are two reasons it masquerades as an ant:
1) Most animals do not dare to upset ant, which will risk calling a whole kampung (village) of angry ants to beat them up. By acting and looking like an ant, the ant-mimicking spiders have better chance of survival, as most predators will avoid them like plague.
2) It uses ant disguise to hunt ants. Its deceptive look allows it to get closer to ants.

The long “nose” of this ant-mimicking spider seems like the one owned by arthropod Pinocchio who told lie. Malayan Naturalist, Vol 51 No. 1, August 1997 has an interesting description about it:
“This ‘nose’ is in fact a pair of chelicerae (jaws bearing sabre-like fangs) which are normally held together. These oversized chelicerae are a second sexual characteristic… These fangs are also used for killing prey. Spiders normally paralyse their prey by injecting them with venom through ducts inside their fangs…

However, due to the exaggerated length of their fangs, Ant-Mimicking Spiders have lost the ability to inject venom to immobilize prey. They resort to the less elegant method of holding down the prey and stabbing it with their fangs. Also because of their unwieldy chelicerae, feeding is a messy business for the male spiders. They have to stab their prey repeatedly in order to suck up nutrients through the holes.”

To me, this nose makes it seems like it is carrying a short gun (but function more like a knife). But don’t worry, to other ants, it looks like it is carrying a baby ant. I believe there are other types of ant-mimicking spiders around. I will update this blog if I find any new species.

Photos taken in KK Wetland Centre, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

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Cricket

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Crickets come with many sizes. Some use it to feed the fish. Some use it to make weird food. Some use it to gamble. For those of us who grew up without Playstation, Internet, Astro TV and computers, crickets were our friends, our pet and even toy.

There is one type of Giant Cricket that live in caves and it preys on defenseless baby birds. I will try to get its picture if I visit Gomantong Cave or Madai Cave of Sabah. The green one in this picture is about 3-inch (7cm) in length. The colour and shape of its wings look like green leaf. For this shoot, I was using fast shutter speed with fill-in flash. That’s why the background looks dark even though it was afternoon.

Cricket is my favourite photo shooting target coz they are the most cooperative, if compared to other insects that always try to flee. You also can see the photos of cricket I took in Klias and Tawau.

When I looked back the photos, I found something odd near its tail (see photo at the left below). Are these eggs or parasite or something else inside the holes? They look quite disgusting.

Photos taken in KK Wetland Centre, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo