Borneo 14: Hong Kong

Hong Kong makes Vancouver seem rural. Central Hong Kong, on Hong Kong Island is an incredibly busy place. The video above was taken early in the morning before things really started to get busy.

Still, Hong Kong is a mix of the new and the old.

What surprised me, in a city renowned for selling the latest in electronics, was the widespread use of bamboo, even as scaffolding material. Alfred Wallace noted the myriad of applications for bamboo when travelling through the Malay Archipelago back in the 1850s. He wrote of it frequently. I doubt he would be surprised to find it still in use over 150 years later in a much more technologically advanced world.

The scaffolding running twenty or so stories up, shown above, is entirely bamboo.

Bamboo stacked for additional scaffolding.

Photo Credits: Me

Borneo 13: The islands of KK

Just offshore from Kota Kinabalu (KK), Borneo, are a number of small islands you can reach by about a 10-20 minute boat ride. I headed out to Palau Mamutik after returning to KK from Danum this week.

Depending on the conditions on the South China Sea when you leave KK the ride itself can be an adventure. The only speed is full throttle (twin 100 HP engines), regardless of the wave conditions. When I left KK, the sea was running with a pretty heavy cross-sea. I thought the boat was going to shatter into pieces from the incredible and endless pounding. It was the wildest ride I`ve ever taken.

Once you are on the islands the pace changes. The islands are great for snorkeling for just lounging around. I wouldn`t call the snorkeling fantastic, but it is worth the day. Moorish Idols, Pufferfish, Sargent Majors, Parrotfish are common. The coral, however, isn`t in great shape. On some islands just to the northeast, dynamite fishing has completely destroyed the reefs and ended any hope of drawing tourists to the area.

When taking the boat back to KK we came across a mid-sized ship that I thought was sinking. The stern was completely underwater and the bow was at sea level with every wave washing over the deck. Seaman stood on crates to stay out of the sea, and the only thing out of the water was the pilot house. I was thinking we would be rescuing the crew, but I came to understand, from the limited English of our boat captain that all was okay. This ship was taking fresh water out to the islands. It does this once a week and they fill it completely with fresh water, hence the the complete lack of freeboard. Insane.

Borneo 10: Fruit in the Forest

When Alfred Russell Wallace wrote about the jungles of Borneo in The Malay Archipelago, a journal of his travels in the area in the 1850s, he specifically mused on the absence of flowers. He noted that one of the most common misconceptions, by those who have not visited the jungle, was the belief that jungles are a tangle of flowers. This belief probably arises from seeing cultivated tropical plants in greenhouses.

Flowering usually occurs in mass events once every several years (and it is possible Wallace never witnessed this), probably as an adaptation to overwhelm seed predators. The last in Borneo (lowland dipterocarp rainforest) was in 1996, that is, until this year. It is still a mystery as to what triggers the event. One hypothesis is that it is related to the formation of huge bees nests on the trunks of the dipterocarp trees.

As a consequence of this years mass flowering, the jungle is filled with an abundance of fruit. One negative consequence is that many animals do not need to travel much to find food. Negative, I suppose, in the context of someone hoping to see Orang-utans. I didn't.

The fruit stands of Borneo are filled. One of the best is Rambutan (as seen above (tree) and below, the actual fruit).

You can split open the outer case of Rambutan with your thumbs. Inside is a white soft pulp that is incredibly sweet. The seed in the center (brighter white mass in the center above) you spit out. Rambutan is a fantastic treat and is selling right now for 2 Ringets (0.65 $CAN) a kilo.

Another and more enigmatic fruit is Durian. This fruit was noted by the earliest Europeans exploring the area hundreds of years ago.

Durian is most noted for the awful stench given off by the fruit (hotels and taxis will absolutely bar you from bringing this fruit inside). It is truly nauseating, especially in the heat. Inside the case, you also find a white pulp that many consider delicious, despite the odour. Having said that, not everyone is a fan. We tried fresh Durian at the field station and about half of the myrmecologists (ant biologists) loved it, and the other half hated it. I fell into the latter category. To me, it tastes like it smells.

It was clearly a favorite in the forest with the various primates. Below you can see opened Durian in the forest floor. Probably opened by Red Leaf Monkeys or Orang-utans.

Photo Credits: Me

Borneo 9: A work day at Danum

The work day always begins at 8 am, whether it is a lab day or a field day. When working in the field we usually headed out to the same area and then all scatter off the trails and into the jungle proper. Typically we could collect until noon then head back to the Field Centre for lunch. Within 30 minutes of work most of us are completely soaked through with sweat.

It took awhile to get the right search image for ants in a tropical rainforest. While some are huge (e.g., Camponotus gigas (see below)), most are tiny, and are especially common in the leaf litter. Using litter extractors (mini-Winklers) yields an endless variety of ants. Interestingly, many of these ants are trap-jaw ants. For a picture of one common trapjaw ant (genus Strumigenys) in the leaf litter, click here. Still, ants could be found on the vines, leaves, tree trunks, and in woody debris. In the latter case you had to watch for scorpions when pulling apart the wood. No one was an expert on scorpions, but one of the first we encountered was recognized by a student from India as definitely something you did not want to touch.

The largest ant, possibly the largest in the world if you settle on one definition of 'large' was Camponotus gigas.

Shown above is a minor of Camponotus gigas which differs from the majors in two ways. First, the ant above is much smaller than a major, second, the minors are docile and not inclined to bite. The majors are aggressive and live to charge and bite. If your first encounter with this species is a minor, you have a surprise coming when you meet your first major. One student had a major clamped onto the skin between his thumb and forefinger which easily sliced through the skin.

After a morning of collecting it was back to the lab for the afternoon. We would begin to sort, pin and identify what we had collected. A morning in the field was easily 1-2 days of work in the lab.

Five 0'clock marked Happy Hour, which was mandatory for everyone. If you have been told you can't buy booze in Malaysia, you have been misinformed. This was followed by a lecture at 6 pm (always a fantastic presentation by some of the best biologists in the world). Supper was at 7 and then it was back to the lab for the rest of the night. I usually packed it in around 9:30- 10 pm but some students worked till the power was cut off at midnight.

Photo Credits: Me, except for the photo of me, taken by Phil Barden (American Museum of Natural History)

Borneo 6: Travel to Danum

I've been offline for awhile in the Danum Conservation Area. Reports of broadband access at Danum are somewhat overstated. Most days you can get slow access to e-mail (for awhile) but actually blogging is somewhat more difficult and, if even possible, would tie up computer access for others. Here I'll try to provide a bit of a catch-up on the last two weeks.

We left Kota Kinabalu on August 16th, flying across Borneo into Lahad Datu, a flight mercifully short, at a bit less than an hour (I say this in the context of a 13 hr flight to Hong Kong). Lahad Datu is the launching point for anyone going into the Danum Conservation Area. The Lonely Planet Guide has pretty much only one thing to say about Lahad Datu, and that is, don't linger.

I'm not sure if this is fair, but we spent very little time here. There has been some trouble with the Abu Sayyaf Islamic separatist group on some of the islands just offshore from Lahad (foreigners kidnapped with a much less than satisfactory outcome), and last year they robbed the bank in Lahad itself (I'm told the walls are still pock marked with bullet holes but we did not pass by the bank ourselves). I did speak with a young French tourist later who had spent a couple of days in Lahad. His thoughts certainly wouldn't help the Lonely Planet to change there thoughts here. Still, if you knew someone who really knew their way around the town, you'd probably find a lot to appreciate.

Lahad Datu, however, really is the jumping off point for one of the last great areas on our planet. A 2.5 hr bone jarring van ride will take you from Lahad Datu to the Danum Conservation Area. About an hour out of Danum we blew a tire on our van (no surprise), and when we got out of the van, I was able to get my first photo of genuine lowland tropical rainforest (jungle). A spectacular experience.

Photo Credits: Me

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.