Exhibition "In the Forests of Borneo"
Mammals
Research in the forest | Bornean orangutan | Birds | Mammals (you're here) | Plants | Men
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If the Malayan mammals be compared, for example, with those of Africa, the difference is enormous… In Malaysia … arboreal animals far outnumber the others, and hence, when it comes to rapid movement, the most suitable method of attaining it is by flight.
Odoardo Beccari, 1902
Borneo contains, at first glance, the same elements of flora and fauna typical of a vast “Indo-Malayan” region stretching from southern Pakistan to the Philippines and southern China. Yet it is a large island: separated from the mainland only a few tens of thousands of years ago, it is nonetheless a large island whose forests have been stable environments for for a time thousands of times longer,and whose rivers and uplands form a varied landscape that favors the evolution of unique, or “endemic,” plant and animal lineages. Mammals are no exception to this trend. On the mainland more than 220 species are found, mostly arboreal, the majority of which—rodents and bats—are as fundamental to ecosystem functioning as they are still poorly studied.
The champions of originality are certainly the Proboscis Monkey (Nasalis larvatus) and the extremely rare Hose’s Civet (Diplogale hosei), the only representatives of two genera found nowhere else. Numerous other genera are represented on the island by genetically distinct species—including the iconic Bornean Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus)—and even more by species whose island populations are recognized by genetic studies as distinct subspecies. Among the latter are some of the largest mammals, such as the Bornean Pygmy Elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis), the Bornean Woolly Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni), the Bornean Sun Bear (Helarctos malayanus euryspilus), the Bornean Bearded Pig (Sus barbatus barbatus), and the Bornean Clouded Leopard (Neofelis diardi borneensis). Needless to say, all the most characteristic mammals are closely tied to forest ecosystems and are threatened—sometimes severely—by their progressive erosion.
Selection of specimens on display. Malayan Pangolin (Natural History Museum of Florence)
Selection of specimens on display. Proboscis Monkey (Natural History Museum of Florence)
Selection of specimens on display. Large Mouse-deer (Natural History Museum of Florence)