John Boyd Macdonald
John Boyd Macdonald
The Proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) got its name because…. well it’s obvious really. They are large monkeys, and the males in particular have impressively prominent noses. They are colloquially referred to as ‘Monyet Belanda‘ (Dutch monkeys) as there is a…
Water buffalo generally give the appearance of being placid – slow dull gentle giants. Bovine, even. 500+ kilos of docility. But when they fight, they reveal quite a different dimension. There’s a loud clashing of heads, a locking of horns,…
Toraja men (and boys) with their buffaloes. Torajans greatly value their buffalo, and will pay high (indeed, quite extravagant) sums for a prestigious albino animal with particular auspicious markings.
Monyet biasa (‘Ordinary monkeys’), a.k.a. Long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis), this morning at the Kebun Raya Balikpapan. Common perhaps, but anything but ordinary. Mungkin sering terlihat, tapi masih monyet luar biasa.
‘Hylobates muelleri‘ is known in English as ‘Mueller’s Bornean Gibbon’. But I much prefer the Indonesian name ‘Owa wa‘, which is a near-exact transcription of this gibbon’s distinctive call. This primate is endemic to the island of Borneo. It’s classed…
The Lutung Merah (Presbytis rubicunda) is variously known in English as the maroon langur, maroon leaf monkey, or red leaf monkey. It’s unique to Borneo and the neighbouring little island of Karimata. They eat leaves, fruit and seeds. Their bodies…
Here’s a list of “things I didn’t know about orangutans before I came to Kalimantan”. To be honest, it was pretty easy to put together a fairly long list, because I didn’t know much about them before moving into their…
Let’s jump back a few weeks, and over to the northwest corner of Borneo. Out of Indonesia and into Sarawak, which (along with the neighbouring state of Sabah) forms ‘East Malaysia’. And there in Sarawak we find the Bako National…