From Gradual Loris to Gibbon: Meet 8 of Borneo’s Coolest Primates

I stepped outdoors my little cabin into the humid rainforest air, leaves nonetheless dripping from the earlier night time’s rain. Even at daybreak, I may see little however I instantly heard a peculiar whoop echoing by way of the bushes.

Gibbons.

For the previous couple of mornings, the gibbon refrain greeted us as we traveled round East Kalimantan in Borneo. The gibbon’s morning name—a tremulous hoot—is one you nearly really feel as a lot as you see. Quickly a area people member would lead us to seek for these apes.

Borneo, the world’s third-largest island, is thought for its distinctive biodiversity. Among the many most charismatic and visual are a variety of great and weird primates. One of the best recognized, after all, is the orangutan—the topic of a lot conservation effort and a key objective for visiting wildlife watchers. However different primates additionally depend on intact forest and depend on community-led conservation efforts.

On this journey, I’m visiting Wehea Safety Forest with employees from the furnishings model Arhaus. Wehea consists of 29,000 acres of protected by the Dayak Wehea Neighborhood with help by Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara (YKAN)—a basis that took over TNC’s operations and conservation applications in Indonesia in 2020.

These forest conservation efforts profit a wide range of wildlife species together with primates. You may learn extra about orangutans in our earlier function. Listed below are a number of the different primates that profit from this conservation partnership at Wehea and related community-based conservation applications in Borneo.

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  Throughout our morning at Wehea, a neighborhood member led us up a hill, following the calls of the gibbon. Quickly, we may catch glimpses of their acrobatics as they leapt by way of the bushes, branches shaking as they landed every bounce. To my thoughts, few animals are as entertaining to look at as gibbons.

  Gibbons are apes, not monkeys (characterised by a scarcity of tail). They usually stay in monogamous pairs, and the morning routine entails a sequence of calls to one another. The males start calling early within the morning – the sound that greeted us as we awoke. After feeding, the female and male interact in a 15-minute duet.

  Gibbons are supremely tailored to life within the bushes. They hardly ever contact floor. This makes them much more vulnerable to habitat degradation than orangutans.

  “Gibbons will name much less in areas close to logging concessions,” says Arif Rifqi, endangered species habitat conservation specialist for YKAN. “They may keep away from areas with larger ranges of human exercise.”

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  Orangutans and gibbons are spectacular animals, however arguably no primate within the Wehea forest causes extra pleasure than the Miller’s grizzled langur. That’s as a result of this species was believed to be extinct.

  That modified in 2012, when scientists documented the Miller’s grizzled langur at Wehea. It was a shock since Wehea was outdoors the monkey’s recognized vary. By staking out mineral licks and setting digicam traps, a crew of researchers verified a inhabitants stays in a single part of Wehea.

  “The Miller’s langur has a really slender vary of habitat and could be very delicate to human disturbance,” says Rifqi. “They was hunted so they’re very shy. We had a photographer wait over a mineral lick and it took 6 days earlier than he noticed one.”

  However they proceed to stay within the protected forest of Wehea, an important testomony to community-led conservation.

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  As we noticed the gibbons, we began seeing monkeys, distinguishable by their longer tails. This was a very engaging species, the crimson leaf monkey (also referred to as the maroon langur or crimson langur). They might leap dramatically from tree to tree and chatter to one another.

  Analysis has discovered that the habitat of gibbons and crimson leaf monkeys overlaps, however the gibbons are inclined to concentrate on ripe fruits whereas the leaf monkeys choose leaves and seeds. Nonetheless, they will usually be seen on the identical time and sometimes show to be one of the simply seen primates at Wehea.

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  Seeing most of the primates listed right here requires a hike in main rainforest. Not so the pig-tailed macaque. We noticed them sitting alongside busy roads, patiently ready for handouts. In protected forest, pig-tailed macaques keep on the transfer as they forage for fruits. However they’ll adapt to grease palm plantations and different altered habitats, the place they usually develop into extra sedentary.

  Our native information instructed us that, throughout instances of the 12 months when bushes aren’t fruiting, troupes of pig-tailed macaques might be seen alongside the freeway. A male macaque is muscular with giant canines: a formidable beast. They will additionally develop into fairly aggressive with people. So simply as you need to by no means feed the bears, you also needs to by no means feed the monkeys. Benefit from the view from the window as you drive by way of the countryside.

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  As we waited for lunch at unbelievable Kutai Nationwide Park, the bushes all of the sudden erupted in squawking and preventing. We have been quickly having fun with the antics of long-tailed macaques. They frolicked proper across the customer middle, and have been apparently hoping to attain some leftovers.

  The long-tailed macaque is such an adaptable species that it’s develop into a pest in some areas. We seen them all through our drive, on the perimeters of cities, round palm plantations and sitting on utility poles. In response to the Phillips’ Information to the Mammals of Borneo, that is the commonest monkey in disturbed forests. They raid orchards and even roam widespread seashores, stealing meals from guests.

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  The sluggish loris is sort of impossibly cute, with a spherical head, little ears and massive, googly eyes. It’s cute however not cuddly: the sluggish loris has toxic glands below its armpits. As Mammals of Borneo notes, when the loris is careworn, it licks the glands and rubs it over its physique and its younger. This poison will repel ticks and leeches in addition to some predators.

  Mixed with the saliva, the poison offers the loris a nasty chunk, able to sending a human into anaphylactic shock and even dying.

  The sluggish loris is omnivorous however wants tree sap; it would gouge bushes with its comb-like tooth to obtain this sap. Resulting from this food regimen, loris populations require wholesome, biodiverse forests.

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  The Western tarsier is especially troublesome to see at Wehea, though in some elements of its vary in Southeast Asia, there are tarsier-spotting excursions for wildlife lovers. Tiny and nocturnal, the tarsier hunts giant bugs at night time. They use sound and listening to to leap onto their prey on the bottom.

  They transfer by way of the forest, utilizing outsized legs to spring from tree to tree, and have suction pads on their palms to understand easy saplings.

  Rifqi had a uncommon sighting of 1 two years in the past, however it bounded away earlier than he may get a photograph.

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  The proboscis monkey shouldn’t be discovered within the Wehea Safety Forest, however is discovered on lands bordering the Wehea neighborhood in addition to in protected mangrove forests supported by YKAN. I’ve included it right here as a result of it’s simply such an attention-grabbing mammal, notably the male’s giant schnoz that provides it its identify.

  That bulbous nostril helps amplify the male’s dominance calls. The monkeys stay in troops presided over by an alpha male, and its dominance is incessantly challenged by rivals. They stay alongside estuaries and mangroves alongside the Borneo coast.

  Whereas I didn’t have the prospect to go to their habitat on my go to, proboscis monkey-viewing excursions are a well-liked possibility in elements of Borneo. One in every of many causes to return.