Sarawak: Peculiar Pitchers

On February 22, 2012, Hans Breuer took me for a short hike along the edge of Kubah National Park, near Kuching, to see a local population of Flask-shaped Pitcher Plants (Nepenthes ampullaria).

The attractive little ground pitchers of this plant are, in addition to their usual roles as food generators for the plants, home to a fauna of over 50 species of tiny animals, and nurseries for one of the smallest frogs in the world, Microhyla nepenthicola, a new discovery only described in 2010.  I was not to meet the frog until a later trip to Sarawak, so for now we will concentrate on the plants themselves.

Ampullaria is one of the more widespread of the Nepenthes pitcher plants, with a range that extends from Thailand to New Guinea. While most pitcher plants are carnivores, drawing their prey in the water-filled pitchers, this species has largely switched to living off the leaf litter (the fancy word for this is detritivory).  The pitchers cluster on the forest floor, opening upward to catch the rain of falling debris from above.

Because ampullaria does most of its food-gathering at ground level, it has comparatively few aerial, or upper, pitchers.  We did find some, though.

Among the creatures that, presumably, do not have to worry about falling into an ampullaria pitcher are this female Archduke (Lexias pardalis), above, and an unidentified but colourful beetle or bug, below.

A couple of finds on the way home: a dark-morph Changeable Hawk-Eagle (Nisaetus cirrhatus limnaeetus)…

…and the road-killed corpse of a Blue Malaysian Coral Snake (Calliophis bivirgatus), apparently an uncommon species.  This was the first that Hans, a snake enthusiast who moved to Borneo specifically to live among these reptiles, had seen - not the way he wanted to encounter it, though a living one would be a bit more of a risk.  Though small (up to 140 cm), these snakes are particularly venomous (their venom glands apparently run a third of their body length) and have, in their time, killed people.