Centipedes / Millipedes

Centipedes and millipedes get sometimes mixed up with each other. They are of about the same size and shape and live in similar habitates. Nevertheless, there is a big difference between the two species. Centipedes are carnivorous and feed from other animals, mostly insects. They have a strong pair of venomous claws and can cause severe pain when biting humans. Besides, they are pretty aggressive. Millipedes, on the contrary, are completely harmless vegetarians.

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Sumatran Rhinoceros

The Sumatran Rhinoceros weights around 700kg, gets 3m long and about 1.30m tall. It’s the smallest in the family of the rhinos, who count nowadays only five different kinds anymore. In the past they were living in the huge corridor from Buthan at the slopes of the western Himalayas down to Sumatra and Borneo; nowadays there are only four or five pockets left where the last remaining, not more than 300 individuals in total, have their last, dwindling refuges.

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Sketch of a Sumatran Rhinoceros.

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Orangutans – Orphans of the Forest

Here you find an impressing documentary about the orangutans in the ‘rehabilitation center’ in Bukit Lawang / Sumatra. It shows the destruction of the tropical rainforest by timber companies, the rescue of some orangs by a Swiss team and the new life of the charming animals in the forest around Bukit Lawang.

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Water Buffalos in Southeast Asia

Water buffalos coin the Southeast Asian landscapes. At the moment one leaves a city or town, they adorn the countryside.

Water buffalos are very lovely and sweet animals and, despite of their size, mostly harmless. Even kids shepherd them. It’s just if one comes very close to a water buffalo and the big animal makes an unexpected, abrupt move it, without intention, could harm a human. Their huge horns are pretty impressing, though, and if a stranger comes close, they take in a position of defense.

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In terms of microeconomics, water buffalos are often the most valuable possession of Southeast Asian peasants. The loss of a water buffalo can mean a big desaster for a rural family. Dowries for example are traditionally payed in buffalos instead of money in many Southeast Asian societies.

Remarkable is the decline of the water buffalo population in Thailand. After the official statistics the 2009 population was above 1.3 million, while it declined to below a million in 2012. It’s not only because the water buffalos face ‘unemployment’ by being replaced by tractors, but they bring a higher selling price outside of Thailand, which led to a mass deportation in the last years.

In some areas are buffalo fights part of the local folklore. I have seen such a disgusting event once in Sumatra around Bukittingi. The whole infamous thing is of course again about betting money. It’s one of the notorious variations of gambling.

In other regions annual buffalo races take place. It’s of course also about money and gambling.

The differences between the common domestic water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) and the wild species (Bubalus arnee) are slight. The wild one is clearly the ancestor of the domestic one, but it’s widely disappeared as such. In fact it’s classified as a ‘critically endangered’ species. Since the difference is so small, it’s difficult to distinguish wild water buffalos from escaped domestic ones. An escaped domestic one would, if finding a herd of wild buffalos, join them and interbreed with them. In Cambodias eastern province Mondulkiri might be some wild ones left, in Thailand are an estimated 50 individuals left in Huai Kha Kaeng reservat, what covers parts of Kanchanabury province and the region north of it, at the border to Burma / Myanmar. For Burma there are no numbers known. In Laos and Vietnam they are extinct. Nevertheless, the wild water buffalos ‘Bubalus arnee’ are native in Southeast Asia.

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Dugongs

These lovely and shy mammals once appeared all along the Southeast Asian shores. They came in herds of hundred or more individuals. Nowadays, in the time of trawl-net fishing, relentless pollution, overhunting and mass-tourism there are few of them left. Dugongs are among the endangered animals of Southeast Asia. Since some years they get some protection in Trang Province in south Thailand, and they are displayed frequently as a local symbol there.

Although they normally flee people and boats, there are cases in which they come curiously close to divers to have a look for them. There are reports that dugongs played with divers for hours. Natural enemies of them are, except homo sapiens, some shark and whale species. Dugongs communicate by making a number of different, funny noises. It has been observed that dugongs in groups pushed sharks away with their snouts in shallow waters. Sometimes dugongs appear near ships or divers, trying to come in contact and starting playing with divers. That all gives evidence that they are high-developed, intelligent animals with a sophisticated social behaviour.

Dugongs need to take breath every few minutes. Therefore they have to come up to the water’s surface and to take air while sticking their nose out of the water, producing a certain, peculiar noise. They become around 60 years old. Pregnant femals carry their babies for thirteen months until giving birth to normally a single baby. In the average they get pregnant every seven years.

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Crippled Tail Cats in Southeast Asia

What’s remarkable about the cats in Southeast Asia is the fact, that many, in fact a wide majority of them have crippled tails. I have heared many contradictory stories about that. Some people say, kids play with them and break the tails. A Thai neighbour once told me, Thai People would break the tails of kittens for gaining good luck, particularly money [!]. That maybe happens sometimes, but it’s not explaining the phenomenon.

I saw that some cats were born with a crippled tail. It is a genetical defect of the spinal, called ‘brachyurie’. The tail is part of the cat’s backbone. The crippled tail can come together with other deformations of the spinal, and in some cases also with neurological deficiencies. A defect tail means a handicap for the cat because it needs the tail for maintaining it’s balance. A short or anyhow crippled tail is also insofar a problem as cats use their tails as a mean of communication. Brachyurie is not curable.

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Bats in Southeast Asia

There are plenty of bats around in Southeast Asia. In every bigger cave, especially in the many limestone mountains in the south of Thailand, parts of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, are usually hundreds or thousands of bats hanging upside down from the cave’s ceilings. That’s at least what the nocturnal animals do at daytime. At dusk they leave their hiding places and swarm out over many kilometers on the search for food.

There is a strong smell around there in the caves, coming from thei bats defecation. In daytime they sleep, and in nighttime they get lively and swarm out to hunt insects and other little animals for food. Bigger bats also feed from small mammals, rodents and other, smaller bats.

An interesting fact about bats is, that they are not birds, but mammals.

Their wings are actually membranes, who connect the bat’s hands and feet. Also the fingers are spanning the membran. These membranes consist of a double skin layer. It enables the bats to perform very artistic flying styles, changing the flight direction abruptly.

Bats produce a typical sound, a very high noise; in fact it’s much more than humans can hear, because bats scream in ultrasound. The human ear catches only the deepest part of the spectrum of the sound. It’s comparable with a whistle for dogs. The bats sound echos allows orientation for the small animals.

The eyes of bats are therefore not as good as human eyes; they see the world in black and white, some kinds even percept ultraviolet light. Ultraviolet radiation is emitted intensely by blooming flowers. They attract besides insects also bats, who nourish also from the nektar.

Bats also have a sense for magnetism and can orientate over long flights on earth’s magnetic field, like migrant birds do.

Among the 900 different kinds of bats on earth are only three who feed from blood of other animals (or humans). That gave the bats the image of vampires. These three kinds of vampires feed from blood only, but appear exclusively in greater parts of the Americas, not in Asia.

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Geckos

Geckos are a large family of mostly smaller lizards. They live in warmer countries around the globe, particularly in the tropes. About 1,500 species of geckos exist, the largest of them grow up to around 40cm, as the tokay gecko. All the geckos have in common the peculiar ability to climb up walls and windows and can even walk along ceilings in a considerable speed. They are mostly nocturnal and feed from insects as mosquitoes, flies, ants and take advantage of electric light in and around buildings where insects are attracted to.

The characteristic sound, where the geckos have their name from, comes clearly from the tokay gecko. In countries like Thailand, Laos and Cambodia one can hear the ‘ge-koh – ge-koh – ge-koh’ often several times a day in rural surroundings. In many places where I personally stayed while travelling Southeast Asia a tokay gecko lived and came out at dusk. The smaller, more common geckos who appear in a larger number utter another noise. It’s rather a quiet, chirping sound.

Another peculiarity is that the geckos do not have eyelids. They clean their eyes sometimes with their tongue, what moistens them as well.

When being under attack the geckos can detach their tail. The tail then is still waggling hectically for a while, still showing the stress the animal was under, and maybe distracting the attacking predator from the main body.

Cats love to catch geckos and to eat them. I know a cat which caught a tokay gecko and ate him – only the tail was left. Other potential enemies for the geckos are birds, snakes and other, bigger lizards and rats.

Lizards in general have many teeth. Geckos for example have some 100 teeth, and they fall out and get replaced every three to four months. That reminds to their ‘big brother’, the crocodile.

Many kinds of geckos are bright and colourful, but the most common geckos in Southeast Asia are not – they are pale and inconspicious.

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Cats in Southeast Asia

It’s said that housecats live together with humans since a long, long time. Almost since 10,000 years already. That’s about since the end of the last ice age. Probably it comes together with the first sedentariness. Nomads couldn’t move with cats.

The cats in Southeast Asia have, except of some well treated pets of the middle-class, normally a much harder life than in Western countries. The ordinary people don’t care much for their animals. They let them do what they want, so long they don’t bother them.

They don’t see the animals as pets, rather as livestock. There is normally no birthcontrol done, and many of the young kittens die because they lack food and medical care. The lack of medical care is also a problem for older cats. Many of them get worms, lice and scabies. In bad cases the cats loose parts of their fur and eventually even die. Many of the neglected cats become strayers.

It’s not seldom the case that kittens are taken away from their mothers much too early and given away (or being abandoned, though normally not killed. Thai People don’t like to kill, they probably think they would spoil their ‘kharma’ by doing so). Cat’s who were taken away from their mothers too early have the trait to suck on one’s arms or fingers. They also have the tendency to develop less well (in size and health) than kittens who were fed by their mothers at least for two months.

What’s also remarkable about the cats in Southeast Asia is the fact, that many of them have crippled tails. I have heared many stories about that. Some people say, kids play with them and break the tailes. My Thai neighbour told me, Thai People would break the tailes for gaining good luck, particularly money. Thay maybe happens sometimes, but it’s not explaining the phenomenon. I saw that some cats are born with crippled tails. It must be genetically.

It’s also the case that sometimes cats end up in the cooking pot. It’s much more common for dogs, but cats are sometimes eaten by people as well. Especially in the poor, rural parts of Southeast Asian countries.

Cats are feeding almost exclusively from meat. There is no other mammal which diet is that much specialized on meat than that of cats. Additionally they eat sometimes a bit grass. Southeast Asian people give their cats food remains from their own food, what includes much rice. Being hungry, cats eat rice mixed with sauce and a bit of fish or meat, but if there is nothing else they even feed of pure white rice.

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Crocodiles in Southeast Asia

Crocodiles appear in many tropical and subtropical countries around the globe. They are a very old species, means there happened relatively little change with them within the last two hundred million years. They are related to the extinct dinosaurs; their evolutionary development split up from that of the dinosaurs about 250 million years ago.

Crocodiles are also the origin of the Chinese dragons, a fable animal which appears frequently in Chinese and other Buddhist temples, but also in all-day-live as wallpapers, pictures in restaurants, souvenirs and so on. The ‘invention’ of dragons dates back 2,200 years to a civilization at the Yangze River; the dragon ‘long’ was a first, central example in the Chinese culture.

The dragon ‘long’ is a Chinese ‘import’ to Southeast Asia. Originally the crocodile was, respectively is, revered, if not worshiped, in several Southeast Asian cultures, particularly in nowadays Indonesia and Malaysia. In the Dayak and Kayan tribal cultures on Borneo crocodiles play a role, other examples are established in east and west Timor, Luzon, New Guinea and the Philippines.

Crocodiles generally played an important role in human cultural history; another prominent example is the ancient Egyptian culture, where images appear who show human-crocodile hybrides. Cultural influence of crocodiles imply generally awe of the big and dangerous animals.

Since the crocodiles are under permanent pressure by being hunted by humans, they barely reach the huge sizes as they did in the past. That’s between 1,20m and up to more than 6m length. Fossils of extinct kinds of crocodiles show that they reached up to twelve meters; the largest reported crocodile ever hunted extended more than eight meters. They grow over their whole live, but in an decreasing speed as older they get. Their physical structure is perfectly adapted to a live in the water.

The grand lizards feed from other animals, smaller and bigger, particularly fish and other lizards, but also land animals as mammals and birds. It appears not seldom that adults eat their own kids or juveniles. When they caught a bigger land animal they squeeze it with their teeth and drown it in the water. They spin around themselves with the prey in their snout to tear parts of it out and swallow it. Smaller animals they swallow in one piece. Saltwater crocodiles can even kill water buffaloes; then some crocodiles attack together.

As adults the crocodiles do not have natural enemies exept humans, but as youngsters they can become the prey of bigger birds, wild pigs, other mammals as tigers and more wild cats, phytons or monitor lizards (varans).

Humans hunt crocodiles since very ancient times. Basically crocodile meat makes good food and is an excellent protein resource. In Southeast Asia and China many parts of the crocodile are used for medical (traditional Chinese medicine) or magic purposes. The use of crocodile leather is a relative new phenomenon which dates back to the 19th century.

On the other hand do crocodiles attack humans. It happens particularly at riverbanks or lake- and seashores or when people having a bath and crocodiles are around.

The nowadays living 25 different kinds of crocodiles are separated into three families. It’s the real crocodiles, the aligators and the gharials. The Saltwater Crocodile and the Siamese Crocodile are both real crocodiles. There are no aligators living in Southeast Asia.

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