Arboreal Beasts and Where I Found Them

The Andamans, Langkawi

‘And that, my friends, is ... the Sunda Colugo…’ whispered our nocturnal forest guide.

I tried to rerun the words that I had just heard in my mind, none of which rang any bell of familiarity. I looked around and realised gleefully, that I was not the only ignoramus. The guide had a smile on his face as well - it seemed like a regular drill for him - and he went on to enlighten us.

‘The Sunda Colugo is more popularly called the flying lemur...’

Now, he was starting to talk English.

‘...though it neither flies nor is a lemur. It is one of only two gliding colugos, its other cousin found faraway in the Philippines.’

‘Is it a primate?’ asked one of the visitors in the group, while we all tried to peer outside the balcony (yes, I will come to it) onto the palm trees to understand this cute little grey critter with bulbous eyes and a strange membrane connecting fore-limb to hind-limb (called patagium), justifying the ‘flight’ part of its moniker.‘

‘The Colugos are unique creatures,’ our guide continued, ‘They are the only two species in their genus, family or even order, making the primates their closest relative. The colugos in Borneo and Java might be species in their own rights, but that is yet to be formally classified.’ 

The colugo in front of us seemed to get out of its stupor, and in the bat of an eyelid jumped off the trunk and glided as a silhouette, merging with the shadows. I was fascinated, just like the others - it’s not everyday you see a new species, that you had never heard of, notwithstanding the fact that a single sighting would cover off 50% of an entire order! 

Yet, the facts were not all covered, and I asked the guide, ‘What about Sunda?’

That part-of-the-drill-smile again. He was glad I asked, ‘Sunda, or Sundaland is a large bio-geographical region of south-east Asia, including Thailand, Malaysia, and the Indonesian islands of Borneo, Sumatra and Java. Once upon a time, at the peak of the last Ice age, when the sea levels were low, these lands were joined together to create Sundaland. Beyond Sundaland lies a group of islands such as Sulawesi and Lombok called Wallacea (after Alfred Wallace, the great biologist who had independently propounded the theory of evolution while Darwin walked away with the prizes). Even beyond lies another region called Sahul, formed of Papua New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania, fused as well in the last ice age. Sunda and Sahul were always separated by the seas, which is why kangaroos hopped onto New Guinea but not beyond. And which is why colugos are found in the Philippines and Langkawi, but not Australia.’

For a 15 minute walk, the amount of knowledge dispensed that evening was overwhelming. Our guide, an extremely erudite scholar, who knew his Wallace lines and Lydekker lines like the back of his hand, went on to show us cicadas, fruit bats, plantain squirrels and even coral reefs raised in the local nursery. The colugo was still, the star of the show.

I was in Sundaland, in the island of Langkawi, off the western coast of Malaysia, and was enjoying an unforgettable stay in the protected rainforests to the west of the island. Mostly national park, there were still two luxury resorts that allowed visitors like myself to be enthralled by the wonders of the rainforest. The tourist brochure will promise you an amazing stay - it is only when you read the fine print that you will realise that you may get to see oriental pied hornbills above the swimming pool, or even find a colugo sweeping over your head, as you dine in the outdoors at night. Within walking distance are the turquoise waters of the Andaman Sea, and if you continue westward, you will hit the eponymous Andaman and Nicobar Islands. I can go on ranting about my stay in this tropical paradise, but not today. I will rather focus on my arboreal friends, who overwhelmed me that evening - along with their far removed relatives. 

I was awake till late that evening, sitting near the noctilucent swimming pool, or walking over to the beach side, and savouring my rainforest stay. The cute colugo’s sightings so up, close and personal,  brought a smile on my lips, but it also sparked more memories of other such furry beasts I had seen long back.

And my mind ran back to other such memories, first heading off years back to my eternal refuge, the Himalayas…

Sunset over, dusk in the high altitudes of Chindi even in peak summer was quite chilly. I had just reached the state government run HPTDC Mamleshwar, a wonderful stay with cheery people of the hills. But there was no time to lose, or laze indoors. The hills are a fount of infinite inspiration, and time of day doesn’t matter, as long as you can smell the pines and hear the mountain winds rustling the deodars.  

Cup of hot, elaichi tea in hand, I wrapped my quintessential green shawl tighter around me, as I sat on a wooden bench in the gardens outside that overlooked the valleys and hills in front. In the last light of day, the dusky memories in the hills were unforgettable. Darkness overwhelmed the lands, and the stars rose up in the night sky, yet I was loathe to leave my nook under the deodars. I had spotted a little deer the evening before at my earlier pit-stop, and was wondering if I could see pheasants the next day, when a rustling sound just above my head scared me. I almost stood up, looking all around, petrified, when I spotted a pair of glowing eyes, on a tree at the end of the garden. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I discerned the outline of a small furry beast when it jumped and swooped right in front and glided to another tree. Whoa! a flying squirrel, I was excited. I thought it was reddish in colour, but I couldn't be sure. Nor could I check later what species it was, with my limited information.

It might be a commonplace view in the wilderness, but stranded in the bustling buildings of Mumbai, where sighting a common squirrel is a big deal, you may appreciate the excitement that raced inside me as I saw the gliding squirrel move from tree to tree. My friend came some time later, informing me that I was missing a thriller of an IPL match inside, while I smiled silently, not disheartening him that he had just missed a small David Attenborough episode outside in these hills.

I smiled, as I came back to the present and realised how much of the wilderness have we alienated ourselves from, in the wake of civilization. I headed back to my homeland, this time to the deep forests of Tamil Nadu.

‘Toc….toc...toc….toc….’

I was up at 5:30 in the morning in the jungles of Masinagudi. The earlier evening was a bundle of excitement, with a wild elephant ‘intruding’ in our camp - which was of course, located deep in an elephant corridor - talk of planning and conservation. There was a bout of Malana to close the day until I went to sleep, listening to the call of the barking deer, and warily reminding my heady mind (literally, for a change) that the barking deer only calls when there is a predating big cat nearby…

I may have missed the potential to spot a big cat the earlier night, but that morning, as I woke up and got out of our tent, the sight in front mesmerised me. As if in a garden of Eden, there were scores of spotted deer in the meadow, all instantaneously dropping their grazing and looking up towards me as I walked out of my tent. One step forward, and the herd pranced off into the surrounding woods. Ah, the joys of jungle life! I was disappointed that the deer had all run off, when a strange knocking sound caught my attention. It was running in the background all along, but I had failed to register it with a groggy mind and a spotted herd…

‘Toc….toc...toc….toc….’

It had to be the wildlife, but what was it? A woodpecker or a barbet? I was looking all around when a campsite staff, the gardener, pointed to the trees behind the tents. No language was required, the wilderness had connected us as I thanked him and rushed to the trees. 

‘Toc….toc...toc….toc….’ the intensity increased, as my eyes scanned thoroughly but failed.

 As I walked under the trees, my intrusion silenced the creature until I heard rustling in the leaves high above, and then again after some time, the knocking sound ‘Toc….toc...toc….toc….’

But I had spotted the foliage and after carefully moving further close to the tree trunk, I found the source, another amazing eureka moment - the reddish hued Giant Malabar squirrel. One of the largest squirrels in the world, it is also among the cutest critters I have seen. I am sure a Disney or a Miyazaki would have sketched an amazing character on first-sight! It got used to me as much as I got used to it, and I must have spent over a quarter of an hour looking at this reddish beauty, feeling lucky to capture it on my Canon as well.

The giant malabar squirrel is a beautiful animal - with four subspecies, the reddish one prevalent in the forests of the western ghats, also happens to be the state animal of Maharashtra. Its foraging posture is perhaps the most adorable - it lies on its belly on a branch, with its long bushy tail on one side, balancing the hanging body devouring fruits on the other. 

The day passed by in the lap of nature, the deer returned - sadly, the elephant and the big cat didn’t, but through the morning  and then towards evening, the toc-tocking continued, creating a sharp pitched noise but also creating that sense of peacefulness within, as if a well known friend or acquaintance was nearby and that the woods were not empty.

I return to the present, the waves of the Andaman Sea crash almost mellifluously on a fine beach under a moonlit night. I look all around and marvel at the silhouetted hills of the erstwhile Sundaland, when a distant cry of an unknown animal punctures the nocturnal silence.

It evokes mixed feelings - melancholy that we miss so much in our urban lives of emptiness; yet, Sahyadri or Sahul, there is a sense of excitement that so much remains to know of our beautiful world…

5th December, 2020

(Colugo photos taken by writer, Masinagudi photos taken by friends travelling in the same group)