What in the world is a tarsier? Have you ever seen a southern giant clam? Do you ever wonder what fascinating creatures inhabit the 7,107 beautiful islands of the Philippines? Why not join ARKive on a virtual tour of this tropical paradise and discover some of the incredible species found there.

Colossal crustacean

A coconut crab on a palm trunk

Described by Charles Darwin as “monstrous”, the coconut crab is one of the largest arthropods in the world, and can span a meter from leg tip to leg tip. The coconut crab gets its name from its amazing ability to crack open coconuts and eat the flesh, and it is so strong that it can carry objects weighing up to 28 kilograms in its claws!

Beautiful bivalve

Southern giant clam

The impressive southern giant clam is one of the largest of the giant clams, growing up to 60cm in length. It is characterized by its relatively smooth shell and radiant mantle, which can have various colors and patterns. Sadly the southern giant clam is classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, as it has been hunted extensively, both for food and the aquarium trade.

Hard-to-find hawksbill

Hawksbill turtle swimming over reef

If you are lucky enough to go diving in the Philippines, you might be fortunate enough to spot a hawksbill turtle. Named for its strongly hooked beak, this ocean beauty takes decades to mature, first breeding at 20 to 40 years of age. Sadly, having been exploited for thousands of years for its shell, it is now considered Critically Endangered.

Teeny tiny tarsier

Close up of a Philippine tarsier

Heading into the forest, you might be surprised to see what is hanging out in the trees. Known for its enormous eyes, the Philippine tarsier belongs to a genus that have the biggest eyes relative to body weight of any mammal. Standing at only 5cm tall, this diminutive primate is a spring-loaded athlete, leaping from branch to branch with ease. It can rotate its head nearly 360°, providing an excellent field of vision, and often grabs bugs in mid-air to feast on!

Eagle eye

Close-up of a captive Philippine eagle

The Philippine eagle is the world’s largest eagle, with an impressive wingspan of two meters. It’s no wonder it is commonly known as the “monkey-eating” eagle, feeding mainly on flying lemurs, palm civets and monkeys. Found on the islands of Luzon, Samar, Leyte and Mindanao, the Philippine eagle was once widespread throughout its range, but now the population could number fewer than 250 mature individuals.

Hopefully you have enjoyed our virtual photo safari to the Philippines. Interested in seeing more? Make sure you check out our explore by geography feature, allowing you to search for species in every country, including the Philippines. See you soon for the next ARKive Geographic journey!

Maggie Graham, Program Assistant, Wildscreen USA

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Today marks the 26^th anniversary of National Science Day in India. With lectures, debates and activities held across the country on all things science, it’s the perfect time to take a virtual trip to this species-rich country on the ARKive blog. Let’s see if you knew all these species were found in India!

Probing proboscis

Check out the nose on this guy! Very few fish are as easily spotted as the green sawfish. With its 23-27 pairs of teeth, the sawfish ambushes its prey by sitting upon the ocean floor and swiping at slow-moving fish as they swim by.

Turtle titan

Close up of a batagur

Keeping with the theme of critters with unusual noses, the batagur is one of Asia’s largest freshwater turtles. Sadly, nearly 90% of the population has been lost in the last century to egg harvesting and the demand for turtle meat. If you ever see turtle on the menu, give this species a helping hand and order something else.

Fast feline

Caracal cub

Don’t let it fool you, the caracal may not be the biggest of cats, but it’s capable of taking down prey three times its size. Another interesting fact? The caracal is so efficient with water that it hardly ever needs to drink and obtains most of its fluids from its food.

Fancy fowl

Male Indian peafowl displaying impressive tail feathers

Did you know that the Indian peafowl, otherwise known as the peacock, is the national bird of India. Interestingly, peacocks are among the few bird species that do not migrate and tend to stay in the same location for life. Talk about a homebody!

Hefty heifer

Female Asian buffalo wallowing in muddy pool

You might recognize this face from photographs of India. The Asian buffalo is widely domesticated for use in farming but what you might not know is that it can weigh over a ton. Additionally, Asian buffalos have the longest gestation period of any other bovine species - lasting nearly a whole year!

Who knew that India was home to such diverse species? Do you have a favorite species from India that we haven’t featured? Better yet, have you been to India and seen one of these with your own eyes? We’d love to hear about it!

Liana Vitali, ARKive Science, Education and Outreach Officer, Wildscreen USA

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Three new wildlife sanctuaries have been declared by the Government of Bangladesh, in the hope that they will help to prevent the extinction of the threatened Irrawaddy and Ganges river dolphins. 

Irrawaddy dolphin breaching

Threatened dolphins

Freshwater dolphins are among the most threatened species of dolphin in the world, with the enigmatic Yangtze river dolphin, or baiji, now believed to be extinct. It is hoped that the three new sanctuaries, which are located in the world’s largest mangrove ecosystem, will help to prevent the last two remaining species of freshwater dolphin in Asia from suffering a similar fate.

The sanctuaries will cover a total area of almost 11 square kilometres, which includes 31 kilometres of channels. The size and location of the sanctuaries was determined using scientific findings from a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Bangladesh Forest Department.

Ganges river dolphin

Declining numbers

While there are currently no estimates of the global population of the Irrawaddy and Ganges river dolphins, they are believed to be in decline and to have disappeared from major parts of their historic range. Entanglement in fishing gear and the depletion of their natural prey are thought to be contributing factors.

Director of WCS’s Asian Freshwater and Coastal Cetacean Program, Brian D. Smith, said, “Declaration of these Wildlife Sanctuaries is an essential first step in protecting Ganges River and Irrawaddy dolphins in Bangladesh. As biological indicators of ecosystem-level impacts, freshwater dolphins can inform adaptive human-wildlife management to cope with climate change, suggesting a broader potential for conservation and sustainable development.”

The baiji is thought to be extinct

Dolphin hotspot

Bangladesh is believed to be a hotspot for marine mammals, and houses the world’s largest population of the Irrawaddy dolphin, with nearly 6,000 individuals being discovered in 2009. As well as protecting these fascinating creatures, it is hoped that the sanctuaries will also provide refuge for many other species, including the Asian short-clawed otter and the masked finfoot.

For the full story, read the WCS article: Bangladesh Helps Threatened Dolphins Stay Afloat.

View images and videos of dolphin species on ARKive.

Rebecca Moran, ARKive Species Text Author

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Immediate action on habitat loss is needed to secure the future of the Sumatran elephant, according to WWF.

Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus) bathing

A subspecies of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), the Sumatran elephant has been uplisted by the IUCN Red List from Endangered to Critically Endangered after losing nearly 70% of its habitat and half its population in the last 25 years.

This dramatic decline is largely due to widespread deforestation on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, with much of the elephant’s natural habitat being converted for agriculture, oil palm production and timber plantations.

Rapid deforestation rate

Three subspecies of Asian elephant are generally recognised: the Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus) on Sumatra, the Sri Lankan elephant (E. m. maximus) in Sri Lanka, and the Indian elephant (E. m. indicus) on the Asian mainland.

Asian elephants in forest habitat

Although Sumatra holds some of the most significant populations of Asian elephants outside of India and Sri Lanka, it has experienced some of the most rapid deforestation rates within the species’ range. As a result of increasing human encroachment, many elephant populations have come into conflict with humans, and Asian elephants are also illegally targeted for their ivory.

Only an estimated 2,400 to 2,800 Sumatran elephants now remain in the wild, and the species has been lost from many parts of the island. Confined to the remaining forest patches, many herds are now too small and isolated to remain viable in the long term.

If current trends continue, it is feared that the Sumatran elephant could become extinct within the next 30 years.

Herd of Sri Lankan elephants (Elephas maximus maximus), another Asian elephant subspecies

Urgent action needed

“The Sumatran elephant joins a growing list of Indonesian species that are Critically Endangered, including the Sumatran orangutan, the Javan and Sumatran rhinos and the Sumatran tiger,” said Dr Carlos Drews, Director of WWF’s Global Species Programme.

“Unless urgent and effective conservation action is taken these magnificent animals are likely to go extinct within our lifetime.”

WWF is calling on the Indonesian government to ban all forest conversion in elephant habitat until a conservation strategy can be put in place to conserve the species. It also recommends that large patches of habitat should be designated as protected areas, and that smaller areas should be linked with habitat corridors.

Indian elephant (Elephas maximus indicus) calf

According to Asian elephant expert Ajay Desai, “It’s very important that the Government of Indonesia, conservation organisations and agro-forestry companies recognise the critical status of elephant and other wildlife in Sumatra and take effective steps to conserve them.”

“Indonesia must act now before it’s too late to protect Sumatra’s last remaining natural forests, especially elephant habitats.”

Read more on this story at WWF – Habitat loss drives Sumatran elephants step closer to extinction.

View photos and videos of Asian elephants on ARKive.

Liz Shaw, ARKive Species Text Author

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A monkey which was thought by many to be extinct has been photographed in Indonesian Borneo.

Miller's grizzled langur was thought to be extinct © Eric Fell

A picture is worth a thousand words

In June 2011, an international team of experts hoping to capture images of some of Borneo’s diverse wildlife, including the secretive Diard’s clouded leopard and the enigmatic orangutan, set up time-lapse camera traps within the Wehea Forest on the island’s eastern tip. What the scientists weren’t expecting was to capture photographic evidence of the existence of Miller’s grizzled langur, a primate thought to be extinct.

Miller’s grizzled langur, a large, grey monkey, is a subspecies of Hose’s langur. First described in Indonesia in 1985, the only images of this subspecies previously available were sketches based on museum specimens.

Fires, human encroachment, and the conversion of land for agriculture and mining all contributed to the destruction of the forest habitat upon which Miller’s grizzled langur depends. This destruction, combined with hunting pressures, led to the subspecies becoming so rare that it was widely assumed to have died out, with extensive surveys conducted in 2005 yielding no evidence of its continued survival.

The rediscovery of Miller's grizzled langur is good news for conservationists © Eric Fell

Rediscovery

Close analysis of the latest camera trap images from Wehea Forest has confirmed that the primates captured on film were, in fact, Miller’s grizzled langurs.

This subspecies was once found in the north-eastern part of Borneo, as well as the islands of Java and Sumatra, and the Thai-Malay peninsula. The news of the rediscovery of the subspecies came as quite a shock to scientists, given that Wehea Forest lies outside the previously recorded range of Miller’s grizzled langur.

Miller's grizzled langur is a subspecies of Hose's langur, pictured here

Caught on camera

Over a two-month period, more than 4,000 images were captured of Miller’s grizzled langur in Wehea Forest, a 38,000-hectare area of mostly undisturbed forest. However, scientists are as yet unsure how many individuals were photographed, as it is possible that one or two families kept returning to the area in which the cameras were hidden.

“East Kalimantan can be a challenging place to conduct research, given the remoteness of many remaining forested areas, so it isn’t surprising that so little is known about this primate,” says Dr Stephanie Spehar, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, USA.

The researchers are hoping that there may still be large enough populations of Miller’s grizzled langur in existence to ensure its future survival, and have returned to conduct more detailed observations of the monkeys.

Scientists will conduct further observations to find out more about Miller's grizzled langur © Eric Fell

In the forest, but not out of the woods

The rediscovery of Miller’s grizzled langur is certainly positive news, and while it represents years of hard work and dedication on behalf of the researchers, it is likely that Miller’s grizzled langur is far from being safe, as PhD student Brent Loken from Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada, explains, “While our finding confirms the monkey still exists in East Kalimantan, there is a good chance that it remains one of the world’s most endangered primates. I believe it is a race against time to protect many species in Borneo.”

The scientists will return to the area in order to conduct further studies on the population of Miller’s grizzled langur, and try to estimate how many individuals of the subspecies there are.

“It is difficult to adopt conservation strategies to protect species when we don’t even know the extent of where they live,” says Mr Loken. “We need more scientists in the field working on understudied species such as Miller’s grizzled langur, clouded leopards and sun bears.”

Read more on this story at The Guardian – ‘Extinct’ monkey rediscovered in Indonesia jungle.

View photos and videos of langur species on ARKive.

Kathryn Pintus, ARKive Species Text Author

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