Poring Hot Springs and Sabah Tea Plantation, Sabah, 6-7 May 2019.

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Markets on the way between Mt Kinabalu Lodge and Poring Hot Springs.  Mt Kinabalu in the background.

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Heliconia Rostrata (native to Central and South America), Poring Springs.

We are now at Poring Hot Springs though we didn’t try the hot springs.  I don’t think they would have been as compelling as an onsen in Japan in winter.  What we did ckeck out was the butterfly farm there.

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Rajah Brooke’s Birdwing Butterfly.

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Common Tree Nymphs.

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Unidentified butterfly.

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Roadside shop outside the hot springs.

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Rafflesia in flower.

This is Rafflesia Arnoldii in flower, the largest rafflesia and also the world’s largest flower.  From memory I think this one was 78cm in diameter (31 inches).  They can reach over 100cm and weigh 10 kilograms (22lb).  This flowering happens very infrequently.  It takes nine months for a bud to get to florescence, and then the flower lasts only two or three days.  The flower has five petals, so there is actually two of them here.  Rafflesiae are also know as corpse flowers on account of their smell.  Swedish entomologist Eric Georg Mjöberg described the smell in 1928 as “a penetrating odour more repulsive than any buffalo carcass in an advanced stage of decomposition”.  I cannot personally attest to that as I have very little sense of smell.

 

Sunset at Sabah tea Plantation (and following four images).

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These images are taken from just outside the cottages we were staying in for the night at Sabah Tea Plantation..

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I took a full range of lenses with me, expecting to be taking landscape shots as well as wildlife.  This proved to not be the case.  I didn’t find much cause for wide angel lenses in the rainforest, so apart from some street photography in Kote Kinabalu with me Fuji X100s, pretty well all my images were macro telephoto or long telephoto.  Even these images, which are landscapes, were long telephoto.

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Malaysian Forest Scorpion.

On the road near the restaurant after dinner, we encountered this large scorpion which demonstrated its ability to fluoresce under ultraviolet light.

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Siti photographing Teetash, Mt Kinabalu in the background.

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Rhinocerous beetle (Chalcosoma moellenkampi) on clothing.

This is a male because only the males have horns.  They use them for fighting during the mating season and digging.  They are also known for being incredibly strong for their size.

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