langkawi magazine

Nature SECTION

Scientific and Heritage Expedition Langkawi News, 15 April 2003

First take a break, then break the (STUPENDOUS) news!

Starting the 6th day, we (VJ, Kanita, Yeap- of MNS HQ and I) were very excited. We were on leave! We would actually have the whole day to ourselves. The night before, we debated on the options of things to do on our day off.

The choices: sleep, bird-watch, shop, swim, trek and the many other things that people ?on vacation? would do on this island. So what did we decide to do in the end? Why not do all? So we did! So this morning, we rented a car, crammed the volunteer artist Teh Yew Kiang and his photographer friend into the metallic apple green Iswara Aeroback and said au revoir to the base-camp (well, until the evening anyway).

So, for the first time in days we did not have any contact with the Expedition, except for the UKM insects and primate team we bumped into while bird-watching in Gunung Raya (see pix). We headed there after a delightful morning swim near Datai Bay.

It was really funny actually. We were looking into the tree crowns high up, for hornbills while they were locating primates on the same patch of trees. But we were equally rewarded: they managed to observe a small group of dusky-leaf monkeys while we saw hornbills-a lot of them! Oriental Pied Hornbills, Great Hornbills and even Wreathed Hornbills. And raptors too!

We then cruised down to Kuah to get our tickets and do a bit of window-shopping. We returned quickly to the hotel around 5p.m to freshen up and continue bird-watching near Datai and catch the sunset there. Glorious, simply glorious ( see pix). Obviously our lucky day, we were on top of that served Gulai Lemak Ketam (Crab in spicy coconut sauce) for dinner! We were obviously having one of those great, great days! And it got better!

At 9.00 p.m, we had an interesting presentation from Dr. Idris, the UKM Insect team-leader who announced that they managed to capture, purely by chance, the newly recorded endemic species of cicada, Puranoides Jaafari Azman & Zaidi (see pix, a different specimen though). Then his colleague, Prof. Osman Ross and his team shared their findings on the biodiversity of Langkawi?s marine environment. And just when we thought that things couldn't get better, I received a message from our Golden Boy, Amiruddin Ahmad, announcing the following: ?Elusive freshwater crab collected from Gunung Raya by Prof. Latif is confirmed to be Geosesarma foxi by world renowned crab expert Assoc. Prof. Dr. Peter K. L. Ng form NUS. This is probably the second collection made since 1914 by Mr. B. H. Buxton from 2000 ft up in Gunung Raya. (see pix, credit to Sam Cheong, The Malay Mail). Stupendous, that was how I?d describe Day 6 in one word.

Langkawi 15/04/2003