Maliau Basin - Part II

Maliau Basin trip report, Part II. You can find Part I here.

Violin Beetle

Jewel beetle, Catoxantha opulenta


Dead leaf mantis, Deroplatys truncata


Fishfly -  Neochauliodes borneensis (van der Weele, 1909), belonging to the subfamily Chauliodinae of family Corydalidae. Male adults.


Mating pair of green lantern bugs, Pyrops shiinaorum shiinaorum


Green lantern bug, Pyrops shiinaorum shiinaorum


Lantern bug, Pyrops sultana




Handsome longhorn beetle, Cyriopalus pascoei, Thomson, 1878, male.





Handsome rhinoceros beetle, Chalcosoma mollenkampi.


Rhino beetle, Chalcosoma atlas



Gonocephalus borneensis or G. liogaster?


Frog, Staurois natator, Black spotted rock frog


Owlfly




Stag beetle


A lovely white beetle


Euchomenella sp- Malaysian Long Neck Mantis, Giraffe Mantis

Maliau Basin

Maliau Basin or also Maliau Basin Conservation Area, is a region in Sabah, Malaysia, which represents a geological catchment surrounding the Maliau River. Located around the center of Sabah in the Sandakan Division, it was designated as a conservation area by the Sabah Foundation (Yayasan Sabah) in 1981. Later in 1997 the Sabah State Assembly gazetted the Basin as a Protection Forest Reserve (Class I) with a total area of 588 square kilometres. The region also features Mount Lotung (1667 metres), Maliau Falls, and Lake Linumunsut. Efforts are underway to nominate the area as a World Heritage Site.^[1]  (From Wikipedia)

Both Maliau Basin and Danum Valley are managed by Yayasan Sabah (Sabah Foundation). You can find more information and contact numbers here. Previous blogs on my Danum Valley trip is here and here.

Again, we flew AirAsia from Kuala Lumpur to Tawau. Our 9D/8N stay with full board in Maliau Basin, twin sharing, cost around RM1200 (USD 400) for Malaysian, and RM2730 (USD 900 for non Malaysian).

A little bit on the cost breakdown: 4WD transportation from Tawau to Maliau Basin Conservation Area (MBCA) is RM650 for two ways for 4 passengers. Full meals is RM65 for Malaysian and RM150 for non Malaysian. Twin sharing rest house is RM80/night for Malaysian and RM220 for non Malaysian. Entrance fee RM30 for Malaysian and RM50 for non Malaysian.


4WD from Tawau airport to Maliau Basin (return), RM650/round trip. The journey from airport to Maliau Basin takes around 5 hours.


Left: tea/coffee/milo - self service
Right: Typical lunch/dinner, rice with 3 or 4 dishes. For breakfast, it's normally fried noodle or nasi lemak, and bread with butter and jam, and cereal with milk.


Left: Rest area next to the dining hall (on the right) and deck on the left with forest view.
Right: Rest house with boardwalk


Left: misty forest in the morning.             Right: sunset


More misty forest in the morning. I got up at 5:40am almost every single day to shoot these:D


The hanging bridge spanning across Sungai Maliau



Once you cross the river, the Maliau Skybridge (canopy walk) awaits you!


A moon moth, Actias maenas, that visited us one night.


Many wild boars there too, day and night.


A staff holding an injured Moustached Hawk-Cuckoo he found


Malayan civet, Viverra tangalunga that visited us at night.


Residential Brown wood owl, Strix leptogrammica. It's there every night!


Jerdon's Baza (?)

Stay tuned for part II with mainly macro images: violin beetle, dead leaf mantis (Deroplatys truncata), jewel beetle, owlfly and more!

Edit: Part II posted. It's here.

Wonderful fauna of Langkawi

Sharing more wonderful fauna of Langkawi. There is more to Langkawi than cheap booze. There are nice, clean beaches, rainforest, mangrove and geopark to boost. There are about  246 species of birds and 340 species of butterflies  in Langkawi. It is also the only place in Malaysia where you can find the brown winged kingfisher.

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, you can find these amazing colugos right within the compound of the resort.



Another shot of a mother colugo with a baby. These wonderful creatures are nocturnal.


But that is not all. You can also find these wonderful giant squirrels (Ratufa bicolor) on trees around the hotel. This squirrel was not shy so I was able to photography it with a 90mm, slightly cropped. It bit the bark off this tree, ate the tender part and discarded the hard skin:D You can see healed bite marks on the same tree too.


Giant squirrel eating young shoots from this vine. The body length of this giant squirrel was about 40cm / 16 inches.


I also found many of these super adorable dusky langurs / dusky leaf monkeys, (Trachypithecus obscurus) foraging up on the canopy. Sometimes they came down low enough for me to photography, again, with a 90mm.


If you would like to view an animation of this cute dusky langur, click here.

A video grab of a brown winged kingfisher from Mr. Tee Lian Huat, Malaysia's very first digital videoscoper!


A bunch of cute fruit bats, Cynopterus sp., possibly, C. brachyotis.


The next time you are in Langkawi, don't forget to check out the nature side of it!

Danum Valley - Part II

More wonderful arthropods from Danum Valley. If you missed the first part and the introduction to Danum Valley, plus all the big and lovely wildlife like sambar deer, Orang Utan, you can check it out here.

Except for the lantern bugs and mantis images, all were shot with a 40D, MPE65 and MT24EX with DIY concave diffuser.

The amazing lantern bug Pyrops whiteheadi from Danum Valley. Surely one of the best catches of the whole trip! You can also check out the other type of lantern bug - Laternaria ruhli i photographed in Endau Rompin.



And of course, the prettiest Theopropus elegans I have ever seen, so far. She made the trip even more complete! LOL.


A long necked longhorn beetle: Gnoma subfasciata.  Never seen anything like this before!



Many of these red assassin bugs in Danum Valley. They were found either preying on other arthropods or mating :D. This one was preying on a beetle. Merged from two images because the subjects were too big for the MPE65.


Another longhorn beetle: Borneochroma shutaea (Bentanachs & Foo 2008). Check out the amazing blue on it!


As predacious as those red assassin bugs are, sometimes they become prey themselves. This big and beautiful lynx spider caught one for lunch!


Also found many of these nice looking shield bug, Pygoplatys sp. Also merged in CS3 from two images.


And those we didn't quite manage to capture :(. Oh well, I will get these shy lantern bugs that always stay so high up on trees someday! Heavily cropped because like I said, they were too high up on trees!


That is it for the Danum Valley trip. I hope to make it to Maliau Basin next year!