Taman Negara National Park

Taman Negara

Oryctes gnu(?), male on street side in Jerantut

I had the opportunity to stay a few nights In Taman Negara National Park. To get to the place you can either take a boat or a bus. The boat trip, that lasts about 4 hours has a huge advantage: Seeing the edges of jungle and animals that live there. You can easily see hundreds of birds and butterflies, sometimes monitor lizards and if you are extraordinary lucky maybe a Malaysian Rhinoceros or a tiger.... We stayed in a nice guest house that was called father's guest house and had some lights that were on all night. Sadly, it was raining most of the time and thus I only managed to meet some smaller insects, such as grasshoppers, ants, and some small Aegus chelifer nitidus. The next day we made a short jungle walk in order to do a Canopy walk, which was very very nice, as I found some interesting things on the path.

Heterometrus spinifer (?) found along the jungle walk side.

Under a log I saw a Heterometrus spinifer, the biggest scorpion species in Malaysia, it had a very unusual colour as it was some kind of green blue and not as usual black blue. On the way, there were many interesting flies, one species had a weird kind of dance, legs up, legs down, turn around, it was very funny, but I had no video camera with me to film that. On the sides of the path were many millipedes, which are about 20cm long and very easy to breed, as I found out on earlier stays in Malaysia. I was really happy when I saw a Oryctes gnu, in a giant size on the way and as well a beautiful small Buprestid beetle. There was also a small museum about the fauna of Taman Negara and they even had a very small collection of beetles, the most striking of which was a Alotopus moellenkampi moseri and some Cerambycidae. I was surprised to find out that due to deforestation many species are already extinct, especially bigger mammals and Felidae, insects were as usual not mentioned even though I am sure that most of the extinct animals in Malaysia are endemic insect species. A very nice feature of Taman Negara are the floating restaurants on the river, very good and cheap food and a unique scenery. Unfortunately I could only spend three days in Taman Negara, but I am sure, that I will be back one day. Taman Negara offers many things, such as jungle hikes and boat trips, as well as visits to Orang Asli villages, where they teach you how to use the blow pipe. If you need any information about that rainforest, do not hesitate to write an email to me and ask me about details.