| Wildlife
of the Philippines |
You'd be hard pressed to find a cuter or more loveable creature than
this one, a Philippines tarsier. Tarsiers like this are among
the smallest primates on the planet, and although they used to be relatively
widespread, they're now only found in small pockets of forest on several
of the Philippines islands, and in Indonesia on the islands of Borneo and
Sulawesi.
This one was at the Tarsier Visitors Center on the island of Bohol, which
runs the foremost preservation effort for them in the country.
Not only are tarsiers one of the smallest primates, they're also one of
the most ancient, having been around for 45 million years, fossils showing
that they once also lived in North America, Europe and mainland Asia.
Tarsiers get their name from the extremely long tarsus bones in their feet.
Imagine this little fluffball without all of its fur and you'll realize
just how long those feet and legs are, enabling this pint-sized critter
to jump an extraordinary four meters from tree to tree, all the better
to catch the insects which are their main prey. Their toes
are almost sucker-like, with peculiar looking grooming claws which stick
straight out from some of the toes.
If the legs are out of scale, then so too are the eyes, which occupy a
very large proportion of the skull. They have the largest eyes
compared to their size of any mammal, and if tarsiers were the same size
as a human then those eyes would be 150 times the volume of our own.
The large eyes are an adaptation which allows them to move and hunt at
night. Those eyes are practically immobile, but tarsiers make
up for that by their ability to turn their head 360 degrees around, and
they can also rotate their ears in a large arc to catch the noise of jungle
insects, as well as birds and snakes, which they're also said to occasionally
feed on. They're the only primate which is exclusively carnivorous. |
| This
trip was very unusual for me because I ended up with much less time than
usual to wander around the jungle and other areas looking for wildlife.
Mostly this was because of my decision to learn to scuba dive, which ended
up consuming most of my daylight and quite a few of my night-time hours.
However I had one of the rangers at the Tarsier Visitors Center show me
around some of the trails after I'd seen the tarsiers themselves, and that's
when I came across this little sweetie, which is some sort of tree snake.
It's true that it's not quite as cute as the tarsier, but I was almost
equally pleased to stumble across it, and that two-tone red and black tongue
really sticks out, if you'll pardon the expression! |
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Due to my restricted time in the forest, this is almost the only foreign
trip I've ever made without getting any photos of birds or butterflies.
About the closest I got was this caterpillar, which I think might be a
species of skipper butterfly. If that's true then the photo
only half counts, since the skipper family is stuck somewhere between regular
butterflies and moths. |
| Talking
about moths, here's the only one I photographed during my trip.
I didn't get a very clear shot, but it's obviously a very weird looking
insect. I thought at the time that it was mimicking an ant,
with the back part of its wings shaped to resemble the bulb of an ant's
body, and the white-tipped antennae twitching around like an ant's antennae.
However I can't even guess why it has the fluffy protuberances on its rear
legs, which it's holding up like a mosquito. And the curved
things attached to the bottom of its head are just weird, they look like
they're in the place where its tubular mouthparts should be. |
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I might not have photographed any butterflies, but I did at least get a
few shots of an almost equally photogenic group of insects, the dragonflies.
This one goes by the rather fancy scientific name Neurothemis ramburii
ramburii - so good they named it twice! It's sometimes
called a variable skimmer, and is therefore a member of the largest family
of dragonflies, called skimmers or perchers, which contains over 1000 species. |
| This
one is Agrionoptera insignis to its scientific friends, and the
red swampdragon to everyone else! This is one of the
dragonflies of Fiji that I photographed a few years ago, a few of which
ended up on a set of Fijian postage stamps, for which I also wrote the
accompanying brochure. |
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| Beetles
are the most common types of insect on the planet, but I was only able
to photograph two during my trip, an attractive green weevil and this gold-colored
beauty. |
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For some months I though that this was a beetle, but someone pointed out
to me that it has a sucking mouthpiece rather than jaws and therefore belongs
to the group called "the true bugs".
The true bugs can have very interesting shapes and can be every bit as
colorful as beetles, you can see a whole collection of them including this
one on my
true bug wallpaper page. |
| This
funny looking thing is another true bug - you can see its rostrum or piercing
mouthpiece folded backwards underneath its body. |
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Yet another type of true bug, belonging to a family called "planthoppers",
most of which have bodies and wings shaped like the ones you see here.
Planthoppers aren't common in the United States, but they make me quite
nostalgic for my early childhood days in New Zealand, because my grandparents
had a passionfruit vine which was infested with them.
Passionfruit are fairly common in New Zealand, but in the United States
they're only occasionally seen in the supermarket and even then I don't
buy them because they cost the ridiculous amount of $2.50 each.
Nostalagia has its limits! |
OK, that's clearly a planthopper, but what on earth is that strange looking
thing protruding from it?
It's actually a fungus, which has infected this individual and eventually
killed it, before sending out this strange looking fruiting body, in the
hope of spreading its spores and infecting other passersby.
Such fungal attacks on insects are relatively common in the tropics, and
apparently many of the fungi infect just a single species of insect.
It's a considerable risk, especially for insects which congregate together,
so some ants have evolved behavior to carry infected individuals far from
the nest and leave them to die, in the hope that the rest of the colony
won't be infected. |
| A
cricket with a fairly attractive color scheme, in an understated sort of
a way. Did you know that the Bible says that grasshoppers and
crickets are kosher and therefore OK to eat? You didn't?
Well then, get out there and start nibbling! |
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| Look,
ma, no hands! A juvenile cricket struts its stuff, though what
the point is of lifting its front feet I can't guess. Maybe
it has a hands-free mobile phone? |
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There are about 1,800 species of praying mantis in the world, most of which
are in Asia. This is only a small one, but a 45 centimeter
monster was recorded in China in the 1920s.
They're highly visual predators, catching their prey in their viciously
spiked front legs and then biting their heads off before proceeding with
the rest of the body. Female praying mantises will even bite
the head off a male who is mating with them, but the male's simple nervous
system doesn't let that stop him from continuing to mate!
Along with tarantula spiders and scorpions, praying mantises have become
quite popular as pets, since they can be easily housed and kept alive with
crickets or other prey. |
| If
this ant had a name then it would probably be "Spike". I guess
the spikes behind its head and at the back of its body make it harder for
an enemy to eat. |
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| Another
spiky ant, and a golden one at that! That nasty looking sack-shaped
thing it's eating is a dead caterpillar. |
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| It's
hard not to like jumping spiders. Not only are they often attractively
colored and patterned, they're also very visual hunters, which means that
they'll often stop and take a look at you! There are plenty
of jumping spiders around, too - with 5,000 species this is the largest
family of spiders, making up about 13% of the total. A member
of this family found on Mt Everest holds the elevation record for all spiders. |
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| Here's
one that's caught a young true bug. True to their name, jumping
spiders are very good at leaping, even though they don't have muscular
legs. Instead they jump up to 80 times their own body length
by quickly pumping fluid into their legs, usually after attaching a silk
line as a backup in case they miss their target and fall. |
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| Like
jumping spiders, lynx spiders don't use a web to catch their prey, instead
pouncing on their prey and quickly immobilizing it with venom.
However lynx spiders don't have such good eyesight and they rely on ambush
techniques instead of actively tracking down their next meal. |
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| This
argiope spider belongs to a family with members around the world, many
of which build webs with the type of white "stabilimentum" which you see
here, whose purpose might be to help birds and other animals to see the
web, and so avoid damaging it. |
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| I
don't know what this weirdly shaped spider is called, or even what family
it belongs to, but there were certainly plenty of them around. |
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| A
colorful orchard spider hanging in its web in the grasses.
Orchard spiders have a distinctively shaped abdomen, and they often have
quite attractive markings. |
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A somewhat less attractive critter as far as most people are concerned.
The bright orange legs on this very small millipede clearly show the feature
which distinguishes millipedes from centipedes; it's not the number
of legs the animal has, but rather that millipedes have two pairs of legs
for each body segment, and centipedes have only one pair. |
| Another
millipede, the largest I've seen anywhere, measuring about 20 centimeters
from head to tail. |
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| And
here's a rather colorful slug. If something about this photo
doesn't quite seem right, perhaps that's because it was taken underwater.
This is a sea slug called Chromodoris magnifica photographed while
I was diving off the island of Bohol. Sea slugs are a favorite
subject for underwater photographers, so much so that I've put together
an entire page of nudibranchs
of the Philippines. |
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| Sea
slugs are also called nudibranchs because of the "naked gills" which you
can see on the backs of these individuals. This pair isn't
holding hands, they're mating. Like terrestrial slugs, nudibranchs
are true hermaphrodites, and when they mate each animal is transferring
sperm to the other. When they're done, each will go and lay
eggs, but it isn't clear which one has to pay for dinner. |
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| There
are plenty of attractive critters underwater, and a few scary ones too.
This is a titan triggerfish, something of a nemesis for divers because
of their habit of sinking those large teeth right through a wetsuit while
defending their nest. Any hapless person who comes within 50
feet of the nest had better watch their behind! About the only
way you'll even see one relaxed is when they're being
worked on by some cleaner wrasses. |
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More sharp teeth, this time belonging to a fimbriated moray eel.
The word "fimbriated" is a ridiculously fancy word for "fringed", perhaps
referring to the full-length dorsal fin you see here.
This photo was taken at night off the shore of the town of Anilao, south-east
of Manila. The dive site is called "basura", which is Spanish
for "trash dump" and aptly describes the scene, with little or no coral,
just a rocky or dirt bottom with discarded metal drums and tires.
This sort of diving is called "muck diving" and although it sounds very
unappealing, it's actually an excellent way of seeing weird and wonderful
animals which you wouldn't normally encounter in a more conventional dive
location. |
| The
reason I came to the Philippines rather than some other tropical locale
was the opportunity to free-dive with whale sharks. A few years
ago it was discovered that a population of whale sharks lives permanently
off the coast of Luzon, about a kilometer from the town of Donsol.
Despite its isolation, Donsol is now a mecca for tourists, who go out on
the distinctive Filipino boats called bangkas for a couple of hours, with
the near certainty of finding and viewing these huge but harmless creatures,
the largest of all fish, and one of the
underwater highlights of the Philippines. |
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Check
out the Highlights of the Philippines,
the
Underwater Highlights of the Philippines and Sea
Slugs of the Philippines. Or take a look at the wildlife
of Belize, Cambodia,
Malaysia,
Thailand
or the Czech Republic.
|
