by Borneo is home to many exotic natural things, including the world’s largest flower, and the world’s smallest bear.
Borneo is the world’s third largest island: 750 000 square kilometres of largely untouched wilderness, sitting like an askew trapezoid in the Malay Peninsula.
The island is divided into sections. The north is split between Brunei and the Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah; Kalimantan, in the south, belongs to Indonesia.
All have similar terrain: thick jungle and rainforest broken by limestone mountains, surrounded by crystalline beaches. Towns are modestly sized, and infrequent.
It is a dramatic, primal landscape.
The forests of Borneo are some of the world’s oldest, with a history stretching back 140 million years. The biodiversity in this ecosystem is remarkable, containing many rare plants and animals.
The World’s Largest Flower
One of Borneo’s most unusual species is ‘Rafflesia arnoldii’, a plant found deep in the rainforest. Best known for its flowers, these are the largest of any plant species in the world.
Rafflesia arnoldii is a parasite: lacking leaves, roots, and stems, it is incapable of photosynthesis. Instead, it grows as a mass of thread-like strands within a host plant, similar to a fungus, from which it absorbs water and nutrients.
Living inside its host, Rafflesia remains invisible to the outside world for most of its life. It only makes its presence known when it blooms.
A bud develops over an extended period, which first appears as a maroon or dark brown knob. This slowly evolves into a cabbage like protrusion, from which the flower emerges.
Some researchers have described a ‘hissing sound’ as it unfolds.
Fully developed, the flower is striking: the primary colour is deep red, the dog ear shaped leaves are speckled with irregular pink splotches. In the middle is a bulbous, circular ‘diaphragm’, with a centre covered in spikes.
The flower also has a distinctive odour, like rotting meat. This attracts insects, which the plant relies on for pollination.
The smell has also supplied Rafflesia with its common name: the corpse lily.
The first westerner to observe Rafflesia arnoldii was Frenchman Louis Auguste Deschamps.
Dechamps was a naturalist who joined an expedition to southeast Asia in the late 18th century. This was a time of high tension in Europe, as the French revolution led to war across the continent.
In 1797, Deschamps and his party were detained by Dutch colonial authorities, and imprisoned on Java. They were suspected of being French revolutionary spies.
Deschamps was still able to record a number of new plant and animal species, and collect specimens, including a Rafflesia. When he was freed in 1798, he took this and his other samples with him on his return to France.
But his bad luck continued. A British ship intercepted the one Deschamps was on, and his papers and specimens were confiscated.
Some British scientists later tried to claim some of Deschamps discoveries as their own. His materials were officially noted as ‘lost’; they were not returned to France until 1954.
Seeing the bloom of the Rafflesia arnoldii remains a difficult objective. The flowers are short lived, usually only lasting for a few days, and it is only found in remote locations, deep in the jungles of Malaysia and Indonesia.
Significant effort is required to seek one out.
This isolation has not protected the plant completely. Its habitat is under threat from deforestation, agricultural expansion, and human encroachment.
Rafflesia arnoldii’s conservation status has not been formally assessed, but is thought to be ‘of concern’. As one of the national flowers of Indonesia, conservation efforts are increasing.
The World’s Smallest Bear
At the other end of the categorical spectrum, Borneo is also home to the world’s smallest bear.
The Bornean Sun Bear typically stands around 70 centimetres tall, and weighs up to 65 kilograms; significantly smaller than other bear species. They have compact bodies, with sleek black coats, tan muzzles, and small eyes.
Their name comes from a splash of golden colour across their chests, reminiscent of the sun cresting the horizon. Each of these colour patches is slightly different, and can be used to identify individual bears.
Some think the name was coined by Stamford Raffles, the first westerner to describe a Sun Bear. Raffles was an agent of the East India Company, and founder of modern Singapore, who saw a Sun Bear on a trip to Sumatra in 1821.
He mentioned the bear in one of his dispatches home, and later kept one as a pet.
Sun Bears live in the forest and are proficient climbers.
They have sharp claws and powerful limbs that allow them to climb trees, where they sleep and hunt for fruit. They will eat any kind of fruit, and so play a key role in seed dispersal.
Their claws also allow them to tear bark off tree trunks, in search of insects.
Their diet is rounded out by wild honey. Sun Bears have a long tongue, up to 25 centimetres, that has evolved to allow them easy access to bee hives.
Some locals refer to them as ‘honey bears’.
Sun Bears are solitary animals, living alone as adults, only coming together to mate. Cubs will stay with their mothers for a short time, before becoming independent.
They are primarily nocturnal animals, sleeping during the day, and foraging for food at night. They largely avoid areas of human habitation.
Instead, humans will seek them out: their small size, gentle nature and cute appearance, has made the bears popular as pets.
Cubs are caught and sold in an illegal trade market, often smuggled overseas to wealthy buyers. Adult bears are also taken, and sometimes kept as pets in villages near the rainforest.
The Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) in Sepilok, investigates reports of captive bears, and provides a sanctuary for the animals when freed.
The greatest threat to Bornean Sun Bears is habitat loss.
While much of Borneo is protected, large tracts of rainforest are still open to logging and development. Over the past few decades considerable land clearing has occurred, primarily for soybean and palm oil plantations.
As the forests diminish, Sun Bears are forced into smaller, and less suitable patches.
Once found widely throughout southeast Asia, there are now significant numbers left only in Borneo and Sumatra. Some estimates indicate there are as little as 1 000 left in the wild.
Organisations like the BSBCC raise awareness, as well as sheltering bears. They have around 40 animals on site, most considered unsuitable for return to the wild.
The park has become a popular tourist draw, with revenue helping fund conservation efforts.
I visited this past October, there were four bears visible. One sat fishing banana pieces out of a small pond, the others playfully explored their forest enclosure.
The bears were about the size of a sheep, their coats remarkably glossy.
They were cute, with faces full of personality. A board nearby listed them all by name, with a profile and the circumstances that had brought them to the sanctuary.
There were a lot of people present, although it was not high season. Many of the other tourists had kids with them, very excited to see the bears.
As I was watching, one raised itself on its hind legs, and stood looking directly at the group I was with. The bear’s expression was curious, and inscrutable.
