There are four types of Rhinos in the world, Java, African, Sumatra and Indian. The Java Rhino are the most rare. Rhino's have been around for about 50 million years. There horn is actually made of closely knit hairs. There horn is used in Chinese medicine. It is said to have many healling properties. The list is huge. The Sumatran Rhino is the smallest and bathes itself in mud to keep the bugs of it and to keep cool. There are only three rehabilitation centers int he world for the rhino. No Sumatran Rhino has been born in captivity depite efforts.
The hornbill comes in many species. Some are rarer than others. They need old trees to make their nests, which is what makes it hard for them to reproduce. The mothers hide in the tree knobs and the father bird cements her in except for a tiny hole where he will feed her through. If the male does not return the femail will die. Talk about a trusting relationship.
The Orangutans live up to around 40 years. They are solitary, except for when they mate, and the female will only keep her young for about years. The males reach sexual maturity around 14 and the girl at 5 or 6. Oh, and they are vegetarians, though they will eat insects from time to time.
The rehabilitation process takes a long time and some Orangutans will choose to never leave. Most of them are orphans. There parents could have been killed by poaching or plantation rades. Some get lost in the plantations.
The rehabilitation center nurses and cares for all orangutans, but mostly orphans. They feed them every five hours, cloth them and wash them too. Just like real babies. They like to cuddle with toys and they cling to other orangutans for support. When they are trying to prepare them for the wild, they will get strong more confident orangutans to help them in a buddy system. To show them the ways.
The rehabilitation center provided a lot of information on all kind of animals. Kevin and I were thinking of even adopting an orangutan :)
During he Kinabatagan river tour we saw:
Reticulated Python (which is rare). Some grow up to 10 meters, we only say its head. Second biggest snake to the Anaconda.
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| Sorry for the blurriness |
On our night jungle trek, we saw a Kingfisher sleeping on a tree. Birds cannot see at night, so they just stay where they are. THey have a very big beak, you can't see it here and are super colorful.
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| Little King Fisher asleep |
We also saw the Probiscus Monkey, they have HUGE noses, well the males do, like that french actor whos name I cna't rmember. The girls have dainty upturned noses. The males make this huge nasal sound, they dominate that way and also atract the femals. Appartly the male with the biggest nose is the most attractive. They also have huge bellies, no not from stealing beer from the villagers, but because they can digest poisonus leaves. In fact all the eat is leaves. Fruit is poisonus to them. We saw a huge groupe of males and the harem, which is a bunch of females to one lucky male. Talk about a busy guy.
We also saw, but mostly heard the Gibbon. They almost sound like owls, and hoot over and over again. Their sound lends an eerie majesty to the forest.
Then there were the Gangsters, also known as the long tail macaques. They raided the kitchen while everyone was taking a nap. The big crash, bang, loud monkey noises and a barking dog soon sent the staff running to the kitchen.
The Mafia, are the pig tailed macaques. They are called that because they are the meanest and can be very aggressive. Teo and another tourist had to run away from a gang of them who tried to attack them when they were gathering herbs from the forest. Be ware of these guys.
There were so may other birds that we saw, we were all making fun of the fact that we could name them. Well, let me say (in a British accent) this is the Oriental Datong, and over there is the Crested Serpent Eagle... Here is myself and Susanna, two of the the four bird geeks:
Oh and here is a giant spider at Panakagan Di
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