Borneo 1: The Ant Course

Tonight I'm catching the very red eye flight out of Vancouver to Hong Kong at 2:45 am to begin my connections for The Ant Course in Borneo.

The Ant Course is run by Brian Fisher with the California Academy of Sciences. Each year Brian brings together those involved in ant research across the globe. The main goal is to make sure everyone is completely up-to-date in ant identification skills and also to make connections within the research community. For anyone working on ants, The Ant Course is the World Cup of all things ant.

This year the course is in Borneo at the Danum Conservation Area (west of Lahad Datu) combining this fantastic meeting with the most biodiverse area on the planet. Over 60 people applied this year, from 25 countries. I was one of the lucky 30 to be accepted.

The Danum Conservation Area holds the largest continuous lowland rainforest (jungle) left in Southeast Asia. While it is technically possible to an individual traveler to obtain permits to enter the area, this is generally considered impossible, and is open only to researchers. It is one of the last areas on Earth to still have wild orang utans (Mias), as well as 9 other primates and an incredible number of other plants (World's largest flower, 270+ species of tree in a single hectare (100 metres by 100 metres)) and animals (Pygmy Elephant, Sumatran Rhino, Clouded Leopard, Sun Bear etc.). A great many species have not been described, and just recently, a new species of bird was discovered. I expect a large number of the ant species we encounter will be new to science.

Tonight I'll be bouncing through Hong Kong and on to a one and a half day layover in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). As I travel into Borneo (the northern Malaysian portion) I will try to blog as much as possible, although once in the Danum Conservation Area, internet access is limited.