Anything that exists has a reason. Though most girls would not agree with me, bugs are cute animals, especially the flying cockroach. Whenever I walk in the jungle, I will try to look for bugs. Some bugs are colourful, some got many legs, some are soft, even some are poisonous.
Below is a photo of a Whip Scorpion (also known as Malay Scorpion). Look at its tail and you will know why it gets this name. To people who lives in Malaysia village, this is a common bug. If you walk near the wood of country side at night, you would see them. I don’t know what is the function of its whip (tail). Probably it uses it to whip its preys brutally until they die, so “SM”…
Moth is another bug that always amazes me. Don’t know if you still remember my photo of the moth that has Teddy Bear face on its wing? This one looks like a dry leaf. I guess it will evolve into a “real” leaf after million of years, since it likes to be a leaf so much.
When I was a little boy, I used to look for those small little grey Pill Millipedes (as small as a pea) under the rock. Once alert, they will roll their bodies into ball shape. They don’t have long legs, don’t have spikes, don’t have poison, don’t have foul smell, don’t have camouflage, etc. to escape from predators, but they are “live fossil” that successfully survive for billions of years. When they turn into a ball, they will look like a medicine pill, which doesn’t look delicious, so the predators are not interested in consuming them.
The Pill Millipede I saw in Tawau Hills Park is very big. This is the only “leggy” bug that I dare to touch so far. Touching centipede, tractor millipede, caterpillar…? No way..
Kinabalu Park is a heaven to nature and wildlife photographers. Every hour you would have new discovery or unexpected finding. Like a treasure hunt, it brings you excitement and satisfaction. I took hundreds of photos in 3 days, but they are not even enough to represent 0.0000001% of what we could find in Kinabalu Park. I categorise these 8 pages of photo album into 5 groups as below, and hope that you will enjoy watching them as I do. The pictures below are in low quality. You can check out the photo album for bigger and better photos.
The creepy, the weird, the slimy, the unknown… bug are all in these 2 pages. Most of them is active at night. Click Here to see more photos >>
The leech from Bukit Ular trail is only 0.5 inch (1 CM) long. After I removed it from my shoe, it just “stood” upright still on the ground, pointing to sky for minutes, like it was praying to God. Poor leech, in this cold day, I really hoped I could give him a few drops of blood and a warm jacket to put on. BTW, Kinabalu Park is also the best place to find big beetles.
Those plants live well in low-light condition under canopy. Some of them may carry secret ingredient that can cure the deadly diseases. They are such a potential precious asset that our government is very strict in controlling the export. I can’t identify most of the plant. Probably those who know can tell me what they are.
Day-shift rangers will tell you that it is rare to see snake, while night-shift rangers will tell you they see snakes every day. Most snakes show up at night. I consider I am quite lucky coz I see 4 snakes in Kinabalu Park. The green viper is only 1 foot long, but it is highly venomous. I saw them twice. The first time was in the grass next to the main road, near the hostel in the evening. When I took photos, those busybodies gathered around me and scared away the snake… The 3-feet brown snake below was found in Liwagu trail. It was hidding under the grass. I tried to use my walking stick to move it gently to open space for photography, but it escaped. Click Here to see more photos >>
One day later, seeing me busy searching around for snake at night, a ranger took out a mineral water bottle, which contains a small green viper inside, and asked me if I was interested in taking its photo (heck, wonder why he was carrying such a deadly snake around in his bag). The snake refused to go out. We used our torch light to light up the bottle, to make it moved to the opening (darker). It has a heat sensor near its nose and will not hesitate to strike if it senses any threat. Luckily, I managed to take a few photos.
The last snake I saw was near Balsam Cafe. This yellow snake saw me and crawled inside a burrow. Damn my stupid and slow camera that needs more than 3 seconds to focus in the dark, so I couldn’t get a good shot. It has a very small head and a few yellow stripes on its body.
Moths are everywhere, especially at night, and it has become an interesting “feature” of Kinabalu Park. They come with different size, shape, pattern and colours. For those scientists who look for many moth specimens and species, all they need to do is to sit under the street lamp at night and see hundreds of moth come to them. Click Here to see more photos >>
Pop Quiz: How do you differentiate a moth and a butterfly?
They both look alike. While roosted, the moth will open its wing, but butterfly will close its wing. I can easily get photos of hundred types of moth, but I picked only 24 good-looking or odd-looking moths for sharing here. Click Here to see more photos >>
“Killing you is as easy as killing an ant!” Many of you may have heard this familiar phrase in TV, movies and stories. One ant is weak, but a colony of ants is invincible and can kick our ass. Most predators don’t think messing with ants is such a wise idea. I was once stung by ant that has a stinger, and the awful pain with burning sensation still lives vividly in my memory.
Therefore, ant becomes an idol of bug’s world, and many bugs wish they are part of the ant gang. Even though they are not the ants, they can act like one and even look like one. This is known as Myrmecomorphy. Remember my blog about Ant-Mimicking Spider? I thought this spider had the most impressive ant disguise until I met the fellow below wandering in the forest ground of Tun Fuad Park.
You would say, “isn’t it an ant?” This was what I thought too. It walks like ant and looks like ant. It caught my attention coz it stayed still and motionless when I came near it. This ant appeared to be too smart coz it tried to cheat me, and it also seemed to observe my movement.
Until I left, I still didn’t know this was not a real ant. I took its pictures because I found the body structure of this ant was very strange. Return home, I opened the photos for closer look and found that it got something like a pair of small wings at its back (you can see it clearly if you click for the bigger photo below).
After comparing photos of 4 other ant species below, I am quite sure that I have seen another ant-mimic bug of Sabah. The antenna of real ants have a bend in the middle, but this bug doesn’t has any.
Real ant also has small waist that all girls wish to have. The waist of this bug is too fat. Other suspicious characteristics include the funny abdomen shape and absence of big jaws.
Later I did a search on the net. The closer match I could get is – this bug is a Beetle or Hemiptera. The amazing thing is – Ant-Mimic Bug only lives near the ants that they resemble to. For example, this bug is only found near the active area of grey ants that look like it. It will not try to mix with the red ants, black ants… somewhere else. How do they do that? They don’t even have a mirror… BTW, to find ant-mimic bug / spider, you need to look around the ant nest that has established for many years.
I believe this bug is the baby of the insect below:
Photos taken in Tun Fuad Park, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo
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
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
Malaysians do not like jungle trekking, so I bet 99% of you didn’t try the jungle trail on Gaya Island. Gaya Island is the biggest island of Tunku Abdul Rahman Park and it got the biggest island forest too. The jungle trail of Gaya Island is 4 KM long and need at least 2 hours to finish. You may start at Gayana Island and complete the trail at Hornbill Beach, or vice versa. I started from Hornbill Beach and ended at Gayana Resort, so I didn’t need to wait for a boat to pick me up at the Hornbill Beach.
FYI, there is no leech in the trail, their staff says only the area more inside the island got. They also say if you are lucky, you can see wild boar, snakes, monkeys… Well, I saw some bugs only. It was so dark in the forest, making photo-shooting very difficult. I used a head lamp but still not bright enough to light up the subjects, sigh… I think there are thousands of cicada on the island and they are so loud that we can hear them from the resort. Just click this link to hear them sing. Turn your speaker to maximum volume and that was what I heard in the jungle. No kidding…
To go to Hornbill Beach, you need to take a boat from Gayana jetty and you can arrange it with their staff at the arrival hall. If you are the resort guest, it is free. I paid RM5 and the boat ride took less than 30 seconds. Please note that you need to pay Sabah Parks a conservation fee to enter (RM3 for Malaysian adult, RM10 for non-Malaysian). But there was nobody there that day, so I didn’t pay. Hahaha… The Hornbill Beach is also a nice place to swim, dive, camp and BBQ.
In the jungle trail of Gaya Island, you won’t feel that you are walking on an island. The jungle looks like a typical dense tropical rainforest. Plenty of hundred-feet tall trees, ratan, mushroom, fungus, bugs, lizards. I think I also heard the voice of hornbills. I know coz I have seen a lot of them in Sepilok forest before. The trail is not a flat path all the way. Half of the time I needed to climb up and down, very tired… I tried to find something interesting for photography, then I realised that I walked less than 1 KM after an hour (since 1 PM). So I walked quite fast later, probably missed out something cool too. I will come back again next time and start earlier (and carry a big lamp)… By the time I got out of the jungle, it was already 4 PM, but quite worth the time and effort.
FYI, Gayana Resort was used to have a Mangrove Forest trail. Due to poor maintenance, the broadway is out of order for a long time, though they still advertise this trail in their leaflet. Too bad…
