Found in the Heart of Borneo

During the semester, when I banish the seduction of sleep at the crack of dawn with a cold shower, I seldom take the time to pause at the allurement of my natural surroundings. You see, I study in a university on the island of Borneo, and from my hostel I have a rare view of the 4095 meter Mount Kinabalu, (actually the 10th highest peak in Southeast Asia) or at least admire its silhouette as the sun bathes the horizon.

The rapidly disappearing natural beauty of Borneo has a secret. Within it lies more than half a million square kilometres of pristine rainforests that contain precious species of endemic flora and fauna that have evolved nowhere else in the world. Thus the World Wildlife Fund has a neat little project called the Heart of Borneo. It’s a wildlife conservation program bounded by 3 countries that targets the protection of the highland rainforests that are found in the mountanous “core” of Borneo.

Rare and exquisite species that find their refuge here include the Borneo Pygmy Elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis), the Borneo Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), the recently filmed Borneo Clouded Leopard (Neofelis diardi) and the Sumatran Rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) which made headlines when a pregnant female was spotted.

On Earth Day 2010, the WWF released a report of some of the tantalizing new discoveries in the Heart of Borneo since 2007 – a staggering 3 new species are found here every month!

This neat green and yellow long tailed slug (Ibycus rachelae) was found in mountains of Sabah. It shoots calcium carbonate “love darts” during courtship.

The Mulu Flying Frog (Rhacophorus penanorum) is light green in colour at night but adopts a brownish hue during the day. Even the colour of its eyes changes to follow suit.

For a gallery of the new discoveries released in the WWF report visit Natgeo.