Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research

I've been dying to go to the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research. Maybe that's a nerdy thing to say, but it's true. It's a whole museum devoted to one of my most keen interests- nature and wildlife in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, the opening hours are incredibly inconvenient: from 9-5 Monday-Friday, in the middle of when I have to work. But since I'll be switching jobs soon (back to NTU to work with the monkeys!) and have some vacation days to use up, I went ahead and took a Monday off for my museum trip.

The museum is located at NUS, which is right near Bryan's work, so I met him for lunch at Fusionopolis then took the bus to the campus. It turned out to be super easy to get there from the bus stop (there are signs to lead the way), and I was there in no time. The museum is up on the third floor of the Biology building, and admission is free. Hooray!

The museum was cool and quiet. I was the only person there in the middle of the day. At first it was really cool, but after a while, I'll admit that the dim lighting and animal carcasses gave me a little case of the willies. I felt like I was in Night at the Museum.

Cool! But also kind of freaky... a sun bear, a dhole, some kind of goat thing, a leathery turtle,
a tiger, a leopard, a pangolin, a water monitor, and a wild pig

I took it slow around the small one-room museum. There were lots of preserved specimens, many of them from Singapore's earlier days. Some of the specimens were labeled as from the 1890's or early 1900's. Many of the animals had been collected in Singapore, while others were animals that were native to S'pore but the specimens had been collected elsewhere. A lot of the animals that were listed as native were ones that I've never seen here, but would love to get lucky enough to spot.

Oriental small-clawed otter, currently endangered in S'pore

Dugong skull, collected off the coast of S'pore

A HUGE Asian softshell turtle

A rather rabid-looking specimen of the greater mousedeer

The animal I'm most keen to see in Singapore is the banded leaf monkey. They're the only type of monkey other than the macaque that still exists here. My super monkey researcher buddy Andie Ang studied them and found that there are more still living here than the 30 that were estimated to still be surviving. Way to go, Andie!

The rare banded leaf monkey

I would also very much enjoy seeing the pangolin. They're still around the island here and there, but apparently they're pretty elusive. They kind of kick butt. A lot of people mistakenly think that they're reptiles because they appear to be covered in scales, but the scales are actually made up of fused together fur. Pretty cool, huh?

One of the country's stranger residents

The pigs were interesting. Bryan and I have seen them in the wild at Pulau Ubin, but I didn't know much about them. Information posted at the museum said that the pigs were thought to be locally extinct, but they repopulated Singapore when some individuals found their way across the Johor Straits. They're now common not only on Pulau Ubin, but on the main island too, including in the Central Nature Reserves.

Wild piglets

I had known that tigers once ran wild in Singapore, and several times have heard AR Wallace's quote that Singaporean tigers were responsible for killing approximately "a Chinaman a day." However, I never knew that leopards were also local in the early 1900's, although, due to their secretive nature, they were not seen nearly as frequently as the more conspicuous tigers. While a lot of the specimens looked a little freaky or weird, the leopard had maintained its beauty even post-mortem.

Beautiful and intimidating

The Raffles Museum has chosen the common palm civet as their mascot. The plaque next to the mascot said "This animal was chosen because it is one of the few large native species in Singapore that is capable of thriving in man-made environments." That may be true, but what about the long-tailed macaque?! They're the masters of thriving in man-made environments!! If I was choosing a personal mascot, I would choose the macaque. They're resilient, adaptable, fun-loving, cute, and super smart. Civets are cool too, but I'm a macaque girl all the way.

RMBR mascot

Are you ready for something seriously creepy? Prepare yourself, because when you close your eyes to go to sleep tonight, this image may haunt you. I admit, I was all alone in that museum and when I saw this guy I started having all sorts of frantic thoughts about zombified monkeys, thirsty for human blood. It freaked me out, and I'm pretty sure this specimen could have starred in the movie Blood Monkey.

AHHH! Seriously. What. The. Heck.

Creepy specimen, compared with what a real live macaque actually looks like. Very little resemblance.

In the middle of the museum was a display of Southeast Asian animals that live outside of Singapore. There was a sweet little family of proboscis monkeys from Borneo. They were cool, but, much like the detached rhino head in the corner, it made me sad to think about how all these dead animals had met their demise (even though many of them had been dead for about a century).

Less creepy monkey specimens

A Sumatran rhino, missing a rather significant proportion of himself

I love these weird guys!! A juvenile tapir.

After spending an inordinate amount of time ogling Southeast Asia's interesting mammals, I moved on to inspect some of the local specimens of birds, fish, and reptiles.

King cobra...another one I've never seen! Maybe that's lucky!

Keeled rat snake

Black & red broadbill in front, green broadbills in back

That's a LOT of dead birds!

Massive orange-spotted grouper

It was pretty neat to see the crabs. I've had trouble identifying some of the ones that we've seen in mangrove areas and along the beach, and there they all were, laid out neatly with orderly labels under each one. Perfect!

Coolest name = Dana's Eyes-Wide-Apart Crab

Coolest crab is definitely the hairy crab!!!

You know what else was pretty fascinating? The collection of insects! We'd seen some of them before, most memorably the giant forest scorpion (Pulau Ubin), the giant millipede (Bukit Timah), and the atlas moth (Sungei Buloh). Have you heard that the atlas moths wing tips supposedly look like snake heads in order to ward off predators? Look closely and you'll see the similarity.

BUGS!!!!!!!!

Despite scaring myself silly by thinking about all the animals coming to life and attacking, I really enjoyed my time at the museum. I highly recommend checking it out for yourself. If you're a nature buff I'm sure you'll love it and even if you're not, you don't have much to lose - admission is free!

Bintan Day Two: Rain and Shine

We were both surprised to learn that Bintan is an hour behind Singapore. So, on our first day there I rose at 8 AM local time, feeling refreshed. Apparently the time difference hadn't affected Bryan the same way, and he slumbered on. I went out on the balcony to get my bearings a bit- we hadn't been able to see much the night before. Unfortunately, it was still raining, BUT that was OK because we had a fantastic view.

Rainy view

The tide had gone out during the night, so now we had beach under our balcony instead of water. I put my feet up and relished the sea breeze while I read The Time Machine and waited for Bryan to wake up. By the time he finally crawled out of bed, I was dying for some breakfast, and so we hustled down to the dining room. There was a spread of food, but the food wasn't great. We ate enough to hold us over until lunch, then grabbed a pair of umbrellas and went to explore.

Pretty breakfast spot

The resort grounds were pretty small, which I like- those mega resorts can be a little overwhelming to me. The beach was pretty much deserted due to the light rain, but it looked like a great place to hang out in better weather. Out in the water was an old building on stilts. During low tide, you could walk to it over the sand, but when the tide was in, you'd have to wade through the water out to it. Can you imagine living in a house you had to wade to?!

Quite a house!

The grounds also had a small pond that was surrounded by lovely flowers. One type appeared to be blooming in a rainbow- purple and pink on the outer edges, orange and yellow on the inside.

Rainbow flowers. The one on left looks like the center is full of butterflies!

Across the street from our place was another resort with an imposing entrance. We never saw another person at that resort while we were there- perhaps it was closed?

None shall pass!

We continued our walk down the street outside the resort. It had stopped raining, so the weather was quite pleasant. The view of the South China sea was nice too, and aside from the occasional speeding motorbike, we had it all to ourselves.

South China Sea

Serious Bryan

We saw some rotting old things that looked like they used to be used for launching boats. I liked them because they looked abandoned!

A little rickety

We also found a cute little abandoned building. Hooray!

Bite-size abandoned building

We walked to a small village that was built mostly on stilts out on the water. It was really neat, but it didn't look like they were used to seeing tourists. We tried to buy some Cokes off of a small store, and there was much giggling at our question, then someone had to go find a little boy who spoke English. We've found this is often the case in Southeast Asia- only the youngest one in the family speaks English. I guess it's a sign of the changing times. Anyway, the kid couldn't find us any Cokes but he talked us into Pocari Sweat. I think he has a future as a salesman. We admired the village a bit but didn't venture in as it felt a little intrusive for us to be poking around.

Bintan village

In the village, a boat taking "abandoned" to a new level

We also made good friends with a stray cat. I know, I know, I really ought to stop touching random animals.

Love the tongue sticking out

After our walk we went back to our room to get ready for the day. Bryan was excited about our bathtub (we don't have one in our apartment) and now that the rain had cleared up, I was ready for the beach.

Our cozy room

Great view from our balcony

I had a great time reading on the beach and drinking Bintang. I later realized that I was a super-nerd for getting a tan line of the outline my book. Dorktastic.

Awesome way to spend an afternoon!

After a lengthy bath, Bryan finally joined me. He took pictures while I snorkeled around the rocks. There wasn't a ton to see in the shallow water, but I did find a couple crabs, some brave little fish that were totally unafraid of me, and some cool shells. Up on the rocks, Bryan found a pretty freaky spider!

Funky crab

Creepy crawlie

Underwater explorer

I took the camera out into the water a ways. The rocks were really neat out there, and I could get a good view of our hotel.

Crystal clear water

Cabana Beach Resort from the water

Waterlogged, I decided it was probably time for lunch, so we grabbed some noodles at the hotel (we didn't find any other restaurants when we went exploring) before going on another walk. We'd seen a little path off the road earlier, but about 10 feet down it we discovered that it was completely mosquito-ridden. We went back equipped with long pants and insect repellant. I don't know what the path was intended for, but we had fun exploring. We saw some pretty birds, insects, and plants.

Huge pitcher plant!

Check out those transparent dragonfly wings!

Pretty bird...anyone know what it is?!

Fuzzy leaf

Millipede

The path eventually deteriorated into weeds, so we turned around and went back. We kept hearing rustling in the weeds, but the only thing we found was a shy little skink. It was a nice walk down the path, but it was pretty buggy, so it was nice to get back out onto the road where there was more of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away. As a bonus, we spotted monkeys back in the trees next to the road! They were surprisingly timid and kept their distance. We enjoyed watching them effortlessly navigate up and down the branch-less palm tree trunks. One of them was perched atop a palm tree trunk, and he just looked so peaceful up there.

Chillin' thirty feet in the air

We returned from our walk mosquito-bitten and hungry. We decided to take a free shuttle from the Cabana Beach Resort to its bigger sister resort, the Bintan Agro Beach Resort. The bigger resort has a couple restaurants, and we chose the Sun Moon, which is situated out on the water. It was a lovely view, and I was super excited that they had one of my favorite Indonesian dishes on the menu: gado gado! Gado gado is a salad dish with tofu, potatoes, noodles, sprouts, lettuce, and more delicious stuff. Bryan was also happy with his black pepper chicken. Plus I had a banana milkshake- Indonesia always has amazing banana milkshakes!! The atmosphere was great too - we sat outside and watched the sun set.

Bryan at the entrance to the walkway to the Sun Moon Restaurant

Partially sunken boat along the walkway to the restaurant

Lovely sunset from the restaurant

After dinner we headed back to our place for a quiet night of playing some more Citadels and hanging out on our scenic balcony.