Bug Safari
The river bus had delivered us to Kuala Tahan a few hours before dark, so I booked a place on the night walk, or rather the Bug Safari. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!
We set off by boat across the river at 9pm. Just past the last of the wooden luxury chalets of the park resort, the jungle began. Ducking under the wooden lianas which mark the start of the trail, we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by forest. The air was completely still—not a breeze stirred in the leaves—and stifling like wet cotton wool. The silence was broken by the chirping of countless insects and the hooting of far-away monkeys. Occasionally, a feint rustling ruffled the branches ahead.
Ghost-like, our torches fingered the green walls around us.
Our first sighting was dismissed by the guide as a ‘small spider’:
It was about the size of my thumb, sitting motionless between the leaves, awaiting its prey.
“Just a tiny male,” the guide shrugged. We encountered the much bigger female a bit further on, but she dropped away into the undergrowth, allowing us barely a glimpse.
I felt smugly at ease in the presence of spiders, but this changed abruptly as a moth the size of my hands dived at the torch my neighbours were waving carelessly about.
“If something lands on your body or your face,” the guide had explained: “leave it alone. Don’t slap at it—it may be a wasp and you may get stung. Leave it and when the light goes out, it will run away.”
Easier said than done. I breathed a sigh of relief when the moth fluttered away just when I was about to dissolve in hysterics.
The un-erring eye of our guide picked out stick-insects, numerous among the branches yet almost invisible to the untrained observer:
We saw three of the park’s eighteen recorded species of stick insect that night, including a tiny 2cm long motionless thing we all maintained was just a twig. He pointed it out again on the way back so we could see for ourselves the legs which it had extended by then.
Then he shone the torch into the canopy, leaving it to rest on a giant green leaf hanging in the foreground.
“Leaf mantis insect,” he said.
We looked again. It was indeed an insect, and it must have been at least 30cm long. Take up a ruler and see just how big that is—it is the biggest bug I have ever seen.
“Flightless,” he said.
Phew.
This is one of the many species of insects and spiders where the much smaller male seeks out the female, mates and is then eaten. That seemed to be the rule of the jungle.
“How come the male never gets to eat the female?” one of the Australians complained.
“Wouldn’t be much sense to it, would there? The male’s done his job and now provides for the growing eggs,” I said with some satisfaction.
The males look quite different, feeding in another area of the forest, equally as well camouflaged as the female. Can you spot the bug (this one was about the length of my hand; say 15 cm)?
There were not just insects and spiders. The distant hooting of monkeys rang through the canopy, a tree frog sat motionless on a leaf (it was rather drab-coloured. Only one of the 93 recorded species in the park is poisonous), a rustling above our heads may have been a flying squirrel; gone before the torch beams caught it. And there was phosphorescense: tiny mushrooms lined the path like the dim lights that indicate seat numbers in cinemas. Among the roots, the glow of a caterpillar that feeds on them. Fireflies flashing among the leaves. But the night forest kept most of its creatures hidden, which only added to our sense of wonder and expectation.
The walk left me with a sense of having truly been in the jungle, despite the proximity of an international resort. Pleasantly tired, we returned to the village; most of us destined for an early night.
So, has this eased my fear of bugs? I discovered the answer when a huge green beetle collided with the overhead light tube with an audible clatter. I grabbed my stuff and hastily retreated. Meeting bugs on their own terms, in their own environment, is one thing, but a sudden vision on the walls of my room, a shadow fluttering around a light bulb, a giant beetle sitting menacingly on the handle of the toilet cistern—these are different matters. I’ll never get used to them.
There were not just
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