Kinabatangan River, Sabah, 9 May 2019.

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Collared kingfisher.

These daylight images – this one and the next nine, were all taken from a boat on the Kinabatangan River, all with a very long telephoto lens (420mm).

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Long tailed Macaque.

Macaques are amongst the most widespread of monkeys and are endemic to Asia. North Africa and Gibraltar.  Long tailed Macaques are endemic to South East Asia.  They live in a variety of environments and can be closely associated with human settlements.  They can be an invasive species in some places, including Hong Kong and West Papua.  They are onmivores and considered of least concern for their conservation status.

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Long tailed Macaque.

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Southern Pig-tailed Macaques.

Southern Pig-tailed Macaques are endemic to Borneo, Sumatra and mainland Malaysia.  They live in rainforest and are also omniverous.  They are classified as vulnerable.

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Pig-tailed Macaques.

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Pig-tailed Macaques.

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Male Proboscis Monkey.

Proboscis monkeys are large monkeys endemic to Borneo.  The large nose of the males may assist in giving them a more resonant call.  They are aboreal (tree-dwelling), live close to water and are good swimmers.  They mostly eat fruit and leaves and will jump from tree to tree.  They are classified as endangered, due to habitat loss.

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Macaque.

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A Proboscis Monkey family tree.

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Female Proboscis monkey.

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Monitor lizard sleeping on the branch of a tree.

After dinner we went for a walk and I took some more images by torchlight.

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Slow Loris.

This is one was actually moving around quite quickly, despite the name.  It was a challenging photographic situation, dimly lit by torchlight.  requiring an exposure of 25,600 ISO and still three stops under.

This is a Phillipine Slow Loris, one of four species of what was previously the Borneo Slow Loris.  Ironically. it is endemic to Northern Borneo and not the Phillipines.  It is nocturnal and sparsely populated.  It is thought to be more nocturnal than other slow loris sub-species but little is known about it.  Not something you are guaranteed to see in a Borneo rainforest at all.

Unique for primates, slow lorises have a poisonous bite.  They have a poisonous gland near their armpits which they lick and the secretion becomes mixed with saliva.  They are more closely related to lemurs than monkeys.  They are classified as vulnerable or endangered and some subspecies have yet to be classified.  As well as habitat loss, they are threatened by a pet trade.  They look very cute with their large nocturnal eyes but the trade is very cruel.  They usually have their teeth cut or pulled due to the poisonous bit and often die from that.  Then they are nocturnal and have a specialised diet so do not do well in captivity.

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Stick insect.

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Asian Palm Civet.

Civets are part of the feliformia suborder of carnivora that includes cats, hyenas, mongooses and civets.  Civets are found in South East Asia, India and China.  Asian Palm Civets are nocturnal omnivores, mainly eating berries and fruit and leading solitary lifestyles.  There is a strange demand for coffee made from beans that have been eaten and digested by civets.  Traditionally, this was from harvesting the faeces of wild civets but it has led to captive civets in battery cages being fed coffee beans to produce the coffee.  There is also an unfortunately large (and illegal) usage of civets in Indonesia as pets.

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Katydid.

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Unidentified butterfly.

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Lantern bug (Pyrops whiteheadi).

They are called lantern bugs because it was believed erroneously in the eighteenth century that their extended hollow “snout” glowed in the dark.

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