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Rhino beetle

Jungle Trekking in Kinabalu Park, Part 2 of 2

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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.

1. Bug and Insect (Page 1, 2)

The creepy, the weird, the slimy, the unknown… bug are all in these 2 pages. Most of them is active at night.

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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.

2. Flower and Plant (Page 3, 4)

Various flower, fruits, and plant in Kinabalu Park. Most were taken in the jungle trails.

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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.

3. Snakes, Mushroom and Fungus (Page 5)

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.

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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.


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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.

4. Moth (Page 6)

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.

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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.

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5. River and Nature Trails (Page 7, 8)

These are the photos of jungle trails, trees, and river. Please refer to my previous blog (Kinabalu Park, Part 1 of 2) for detail description.

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Photos taken in Kinabalu Park, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Dog Faced Water Snake

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I have spotted this dog faced water snake (Cerberus rynchops) a dozen times in mangrove forest. In Greek mythology, Cerberus is the three-headed watchdog of gate to HELL (welcome you to enter but stop you from leaving, muhaha…). Despite its nasty name, this snake has only one head, and its mild poison is not strong enough to kill a man. Their brown skin blends perfectly into their surrounding, so 99% of the tourists, even the frequent visitors, never spot this snake.

Dog Faced Water Snake is a nocturnal snake, which means it is active at night. To see it during daytime, you really need some luck. Based on my experience, you have better chance of seeing it under one of the conditions below:

1) After a heavy rain last night. In the next morning, you would find this snake rests on a mangrove tree root. It does not like exposed open space very much. Look for roots that have a bit of covering above them, such as leaves or branches, but partially accessible by soft sunlight (see picture below). I have near to 100% chance of seeing them under such condition. I suspect they come out for a sunbathe, due to the cold water brought by heavy rain.

2) After 5pm or before 9am, you would find it moving slowly in the shallow water, looking for food such as mudskippers, lizards, frogs, and small fishes. You can Click Here to watch the video clip (Length: 2 minutes, Size: 4.7 MB). Since they move under the water, it is easier to find them during low tide. In the video, you can see that it tried to check out every burrows along the path, and it stays under the water most of the time. The normal snakes would feel more comfortable keeping their heads above the water while swimming.

3) At night. A local nature journal reported that someone saw dozens of water snakes crawling on the mudflat at night, searching for food. The park closed at 6pm, so I didn’t try this.

So now you learn my “secrets”. In the past, without any knowledge about it, I could not find them even after more than 20 times visit to the forest. You have to walked slowly and scan for S shape on the roots. The fun thing is they like to appear at the same spot. The next visit you would see them again around that area. The eyes of this snake are situated on the top of the head. This enables it to see above water and the rest of the body submerged. I found that they have very poor vision. They are not alerted if you remain still about 5 feet away.

Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu Wetland Centre, Sabah, Malaysia

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Sawangan Beach, Kuala Penyu

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Sawangan Beach (Pantai Sawangan) of Kuala Penyu let me see something that is not found in popular beaches. This is because the habitant of those wildlife was not disturbed by the human.


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For example, I remember in the past, sea life such as sea stars and big seashells were easily found everywhere on the beach of Manukan Island, anyone can tell me if it is still possible today? Nowadays I only see sand on the beach. That is. Less wildlife but more garbage. Frankly, the islands of Tunku Abdul Rahman Park are less fun to travel now, compared to many years ago, (well… if you still can recall how their old faces).


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I am glad that Sawangan Beach still remains a clean place. The unique feature about this beach is – there are a few long stretches of “rock + stone carpet”, extending 1 KM from the shore to the sea. During low tide, the area between the shore and the rock traps a large volume of sea water. The mix of sandy, rocky, seaweed, flooded and dry area… allows ANY kind of sea creature to find a suitable spot here as its home. You would see otter, crabs and sea birds busy searching for food there.


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The water is shallow so I could walk on it. Sea cucumber, anemone, seaweed, fishes, coral, shells… are everywhere. If you give me a big basket, I can collect a full basket of sea cucumbers within hour.

Sea Snakes

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I never expected I would see any sea snake at Sawangan Beach in Kuala Penyu. It all started with curiosity (but about something else). I noticed there were two big rocks, namely, Deer Rock (Batu Payau) and Dog Rock (Batu Kuyuk), about 1 KM away from the shore. During low tide in the afternoon, I could even walk to them.

I thought it would be a good idea to come closer to these rocks, so I could take better photos of their unique shapes. My initial plan was to climb the Deer Rock, coz I saw many sea birds resting on it. I believed there was a high probability that they also built their nest there. Who knew if I was lucky, I could find their baby birds for a photo shooting session.

The sea birds started to make noise when they saw me walking to their Deer Rock. That confirmed my guess was right. See me approaching closer, a group of sea birds took off and flying circled around me, dived down toward my head, like fighter jet, it was quite scary. I even got a 37-sec video clip of those angry birds.

With hesitation, I stopped at Dog Rock first. Suddenly I saw a 5-feet sea snake was about 15 feet in front of me. It also saw me and tried to hide under the rock. Luckily I managed to get a few good shot of it. After a while, it came out from a rock just 5 feet away from me and crawling to my direction, probably it was trying to find the way out. Sea snake is one of the most poisonous snakes in the world and one drop of its venom can kill 3 men, and I was alone, so it is not wise to mess with it. I left the site quickly. Later I learn that it is a Yellow-Lipped Sea Snake.

Guess what? The next day I went back to Dog Rock again. This time I was more cautious and walked carefully. It was quite dangerous coz there were so many rocks, which are the good hiding place for the snakes. Very soon, I found a sea snake under a rock. It didn’t escape. When I walked closer, I found that it was sleeping (note the white eyelid). After observing a few minutes, I was sure that it was sleeping deeply, so I pointed my camera, about 3 feet in front of it, to take its picture.

Then I climbed on top of Dog Rock and looked around. After half an hour of careful search, I found something that really frightening (but exciting). A pile of 3 to 5 sea snakes slept together between the rocks! After confirmed that they were taking an afternoon nap, I moved slowly to a rock near to them. When I took their pictures, my camera was only a few feet away from them. Fortunately I didn’t wake them up. You think I am brave? No… Actually I was really scared but I was more strongly attracted by these beauties. The feeling and experience were totally different from watching it on the TV.

The high tide was coming. I spent too much time on the sea snakes, so I didn’t have time to explore Deer Rock. May be next time then. It is no surprise to find sea snakes there coz Pulau Tiga (Survivor Island) and Snake Island are not far away from Kuala Penyu. You can see more photos of the sea snakes here.

Photos taken in Sawangan Beach, Kuala Penyu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo