I wonder if the Ko’olau mountains are sometimes taken for granted in the public’s eye. Thousands of people commute over and through the Ko’olaus every weekday for work or school. They are the prized “Mauka view” in real estate listings in Honolulu. Indeed, the Ko’olaus are the backyard for Honolulu and windward communities. Do people know what awesome wild things are still found in these mountains a stones throw away from most O’ahu residents?
There is a passion that I have which predates native Hawaiian plants. It’s one that I haven’t gotten a chance to talk about on this blog yet. Luckily this is Studia Mirabilium, the Study of Marvelous Things. With Pearlridge Mall having their Planet Ice event, I get a chance to talk about this other marvelous thing. The passion is for Cenozoic fauna, more specifically, extinct megafauna in this case.
A few hours before flying back to Honolulu, we decided to check out Volcanoes National Park. With such little time, we could only afford to rush Kipuka Puaulu.
Whew! New apartment, new computer… sometimes life jolts forward in well-demarcated iterations. Heck, it’s even a new day now that there isn’t a new Harry Potter movie to look forward to anymore. In the midst of all this upheaval, I did manage to sneak away to Big Island for a friend’s weekend wedding. Of course I crammed in as much nature sightseeing as I could…
Hi everybody, just letting you know that I won’t be able to update the blog for a while. I hope to be back up by mid-July.
Tetraplasandra in the clouds
Now I understand, Frodo. No wonder your Fellowship would rather risk the Mines of Moria than the extreme weather over the Misty Mountains. This prolonged stretch of heavy rain and thunderstorms has curtailed many a hiking excursion, but this weekend we decided to chance it anyway and hike to the misty summit of Konahuanui and check out the plant life. Will songs be sung throughout Middle-Earth about our adventures? Let’s find out…
Here’s a picture I took when I was in Bohol of a captive Philippine Flying Lemur (Cynocephalus volans). They are not usually active during the day but I was lucky enough to capture this guy while he was feeding. Look at the mastication pattern on the leaf; it doesn’t just chomp away from one side, it chews its way around the perimeter, spinning the leaf as it goes. I wonder if it spins every leaf it eats in the same direction.
Flying Lemurs are mostly known in the public eye as the mammals with the most developed gliding ability. Flying Lemurs have extensive patagiums and while gliding, they have been described as looking like “furry kites”. They are typically placed in their own order, Dermoptera, which is not very speciose. Aside from C. volans, there is only one other extant Dermopteran, the Sunda Flying Lemur (Galeopterus variegatus).
I didn’t find much technical information on C. volans, but I did come across a paper discussing their foraging behavior. Apparently, compared to other dedicated arboreal folivores like sloths and koalas, flying lemurs are much more active. Hopefully more information will come out on these unique treasures of Southeast Asia.
Links-
Wischusen E.W. & Richmond M.E. (1998) Foraging Ecology of the Philippine Flying Lemur (Cynocephalus volans). Journal of Mammology, 79(4): 1288-1295 (pdf)
Ducrocq S. et al. (1992) First Fossil Flying Lemur: A Dermopteran from the Late Eocene of Thailand. Palaeontology, Vol. 35, Part 2, 373-380 (pdf)
*From Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai’i
Wedge-tailed Shearwaters or ‘Ua’u Kani (Puffinus pacificus) are some of the most common seabirds here in Hawai’i. But seeing them amongst human habitation, well I just had to make a post about it.
There are many nesting sites in the northwest islands and smaller islets. There are few colonies on the main Hawaiian Islands themselves. However at Black Point, on the South Shore of O’ahu, a small colony persists right in the middle of an upscale neighborhood. Birds and people coexisting, always a good story. And, thanks to the donated land by the Freemans, the colony has a bright future.
Links – Hawaii Audubon Society April 2011 (pdf), Star Bulletin Oct. 2007
I can’t even count the number of wildlife documentaries I’ve seen over my lifetime. Heck, I was sadden when John Forsythe passed away; he played a big part in my childhood. Not for Dynasty, but for his role as narrator in the television series The World of Survival. So when I found out that Disney was coming out with an animal documentary, African Cats, I had to check it out.
Studia Mirabilium 