Monkey Business

I was definitely glad to go with SD into the forest even though I was already pretty fatigued from guiding at St. John’s Island in the morning.

While strolling along the main road, we heard some rustle and saw a small group of young Long-tailed Macaques (Macaca fascicularis). They were eating the fruits of the Giant Macaranga (Macaranga grandifolia).

Good to see them surviving off food from the wild rather than the snacks from people. The latter will cause them to raid and beg from humans, causing significant nuisances at times.

However, this is not the main highlight of this trip. While chatting away, we heard another loud rustle and saw the second native monkey of Singapore, the Banded Leaf Monkey (Presbytis femoralis) leaping away from us! These beautiful animals are very endangered here, with a suspected 20 or even less individuals left.

Here is a video of one of them feeding on the leaves. Pity I can only take a silhouette of it though. We sat there for about 30 minutes observing them till they were gone. You can check out more video footages from HF's website. She is doing her research on these primates now. If you have any sightings of them, please kindly inform her to help in her research and conservation of these animals. 

During that time, SD noticed a cute Spiny Terrapin (Heosemys spinosa) crawling in front of us.

Last but not least, we saw a Forest Snakehead (Channa lucius) guarding it’s young that were sleeping near the surface. These fishes are often captured to be kept in aquariums and it is good to see them still surviving in the wild.

We also got to see a big snake that lashed away right in front of us and gave us a huge fright. Unfortunately, it slithered too fast and we were unable to ID it. An extremely good day rambling in the forest.