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Borneo Field Trip Diaries

by Michael Lo
of Sarawak, Malaysia
From his website: http://www.ibanorum.netfirms.com
Aquarticles

Introduction to this series: Borneo is the third largest island in the world. The island is shared by three countries: East Malaysia - the states of Sarawak and Sabah (north & north western part of Borneo), Brunei (northern part of Borneo), and Indonesia - Kalimantan provinces (east, south & western part of Borneo).

The Kapuas River in Kalimantan is the largest river in Borneo. More than 300 species of fish have been discovered and described by scientists in the Kapuas River basin. In East Malaysia, Rejang River is the longest. A very big portion of the virgin jungle of Borneo (especially in the central part of Borneo) is still untouched by human beings. I believe there are a lot of new species of flora and fauna not yet discovered by scientists.

Part I
Kuhli Loaches Cast a Magic Spell on Me!!!

April 18th 2003 - A public holiday in Sarawak. It would have been boring to stay at home, so I invited my cousin to go to the countryside to look for fish.

We drove in the direction of Lundu. On the way we found a Kampong road on the left side of the main road, and decided to explore that area. About 20 minutes later we stopped at a brownish coloured river, and I was surprised to see an aquatic plant that I had never seen before. It looked like a sword plant, but later I found it to be a Blyxa species.

Blyxa species

CLICK ON THUMBNAILS FOR ENLARGEMENTS, THEN GO "BACK."

After collecting the plant we did some fishing, but the only fish we caught were common Rasbora sarawakensis and Puntius kuchingensis.

We proceeded to another collection point. It was a half brownish, half blackwater stream. We saw a lot of aquatic plants growing there, including two or three species that I had never seen before. I caught a colourful loach but it escaped through a hole in my net. Then my cousin caught something inside his net.... Oh my goodness...it's a kuhli loach! (not the Java Island version, Pangio kuhlii, but our local one Pangio malayana). Most of the local people here had never seen a kuhli loach before because nobody cares about wild fish and are not interested to know about them. These fish are not available in local aquarium shops, so we were excited to bring them back.

My mum thought the loach was a water snake!

I also found an unidentified wild betta that had green-coloured cheeks. I did not understand why the wild bettas in that area are different from the wild bettas in Kuching area. At that time, I did not have any reference books or anybody to ask about the wild bettas of Sarawak.

The green cheeked wild betta I found was Betta cf pugnax; an undescribed betta species.

A few weeks later I revisited that stream and found an aquatic plant growing under the tree shade. I was surprised to see aquatic plants growing in a place where there was so little sunlight. I thought it was the first cryptocoryne plant that I had found, but later I found out it was Barclaya motleyi.

Barclaya motleyi does not like strong sunlight.

One month later I went to explore the upper Sarawak River alone, and found a purple-bluish coloured Pangio loach species. (I later found out it was a colour variant of Pangio shelfordii). I was very happy because I never knew there were so many Pangio species in my homeland.

A purple-bluish coloured Pangio shelfordii.

I also found an aquatic plant growing under the tree shade - Cryptocoryne keei.....my very first cryptocoryne!!!

Cryptocoryne keei

A few weeks later, my cousin visited that river. The water was very high due to a heavy downpour. He could not get across the river to the spot where I had found the purple-bluish coloured Pangio shelfordii loach. So he scooped up some leaf litter near the bank using the net and he was shocked to find a shining-gold coloured loach ....Pangio doriae!

Pangio doriae. My cousin described it as a gold chain of Sungai Sarawak.

After that, both of us swore to continue to collect wild fish and explore the jungle streams of Borneo. The kuhli loach had cast a magic spell on me. Indeed, Borneo is a heaven for finding beautiful tropical fish and aquatic plants!