Things that go bump in the night

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For the last few days of last week, I had been seeing strange footprints on our kitchen counters in the mornings. I knew that mice were coming in and checking for leftovers, but whatever was leaving footprints was bigger—larger than a house cat, but smaller than a big dog. Hmmm…I didn’t give it much thought because I was usually in a rush to get ready for work in the morning, but early this week, we discovered the culprit.

Rachel and I all decided to sleep over in an observation tower on Monday night in order to see the early morning view of the forest. When we returned home on Tuesday morning the kitchen was in complete disarray—garbage all over the floor, bottles of sauces knocked over, dishes all over the place. Sam had stayed behind the night before, so I wasn’t sure whether he had a crazy party with himself, or had just gotten suddenly very messy. When he returned home, we asked if he knew what had happened in the kitchen, and he showed us a short video he had taken (I tried uploading it but our connection here is too slow!). In short, a civet had wandered into our house, found his way into the kitchen, and in clawing at our garbage which hung on the back of the kitchen door, managed to shut himself in! Sam heard a bunch of banging in the middle of the night, tried to ignore it, but then realized it wasn’t stopping and that it was coming from inside the house. He got up and upon opening the kitchen door, saw the civet perched on the countertop staring at him. He quickly shut the door, grabbed his camera, and filmed the not-so-little one looking like a naughty puppy under the counter. Afterwards, he helped usher him out of the house. Ah, life in the forest!

Our big herpetological discovery of the week was an Ichthyophis, also known as a caecilian (like “Sicilian” but with less attitude). This is only the 2nd caecilian I’ve seen in the wild in my life, and I was quite pleased to encounter one here. Caecilians are limbless amphibians—they look a bit like a cross between a worm and a snake. They are burrowers, and very little is known of their ecology or behavior because they are so rarely encountered. It was mildly unusual to find one when we did because other herpetologists I know say they only see them after heavy rains, and it hadn’t rained heavily for a few days prior to our finding it. It was great to be able to show Rachel and Tambi their first caecilian—they are wonderfully bizarre and again, because they’re so rarely encountered, always a fun treat!

Next week will be my last entry from Danum. This week we are going to cram in 3 plot days and 4 stream transects before we leave here on Friday morning. I still can’t believe it! We’ll spend next weekend at Kinabalu Park headquarters depositing our specimens and gathering a bit more data on calls and diversity at a mid-elevation site (Kemburongoh at about 2000 m), then head home to Singapore on 20 December to prepare for Christmas!

I hope this finds you all well, and I look forward to hearing from you.

xoxo

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Photos

Ichthyophis
The legless amphibian in close up

Caecilian
Looks like a cross between a worm and a snake, but is actually more like a salamander without limbs!