Borneo - Animals (no spiders)

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Recently we visited Borneo, third largest island on the planet and home to some amazing wildlife and geography. There is too much to describe in a short blog post so I am taking the easy way out by just publishing some of the better pictures I took as we squelched our way through various rain forests. I was particularly taken with the spiders of Borneo but I am saving those for a later post.

These are in no particular order.

Everyone comes to Borneo for the orangutans but not everyone is lucky enough to get such a great view of them in the wild. This picture was taken through a monoscope, which is why it is a bit fuzzy. The rain forests are filled with amazing sights but actually taking photos in the misty conditions is challenging. There are some animals that just seems to be crying out for a photo. This guy was actually in a bush just outside the park office. We didn't have to go far to see cool stuff. We had been warned about the leeches and thought we were well prepared. We were wrong. These little bastards were everywhere. They have the most amazing means of locomotion - climbing end-over-end up clothing (even slippery rain coats) until then find an opening. Despite appearing squishy, they are remarkably resilient to squashing. Lantern Bugs, chilling on a tree outside one of the caves we visited. I believe this is a Dark-Eared Tree Frog. The frogs were very photogenic and very plentiful considering the number of large, well-fed-looking snakes we saw hanging around (literally hanging in the case of the tree snakes). I didn't get any good pictures of them though. One of the coolest things we saw was the millions of bats streaming out of Deer Cave in Mulu National Park. Most evening millions of small bats stream out of the cave into the darkening skies. Each bat is nearly silent but there are so many that the roar of their wings is audible as they travel hundreds of feet above the audience. This cricket was just chillin' around the park entrance. I don't have anything to say about this lizard except that it had really nice eyes. I could post many more pictures of caterpillars and worms. These flatworms had the most beautifully smooth gliding motion. A lot of these photos were taken on the walkways where insects are easy to see on the wooden railings. This one was pretty big - we actually saw an even bigger example on another day but the photo turned out pretty boring. I don't know why this horned frog looks so grumpy - perhaps I had just woken it up. Borneo has the best stick insects. See what I mean? It is hard to imagine a stickier insect. More frogs. I really should have written down what all these lizards are at the time.