Written By Michael (12)
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| Look at those fingers! |
The tarsier stares straight at me as I back away slowly. Its piercing gaze sends shivers down my spine. Creepy. We are standing next to a hollow tree gazing at a Spectral Tarsier that is staring right back at us. This is one of the two unique mammals we spot living in the trees of Sulawesi’s Tangkoko National Park.
The Spectral Tarsier is one of Sulawesi’s endangered species. It looks like a pint-sized monkey with distinctive clawed fingers and enormous eyeballs. Actually, the tarsier has the biggest eye-to-body ratio of all mammals, and it uses those eyes to spot prey in the dark because it is nocturnal. Insects and fruit are main staples in this wacky animal’s diet, but beware, it will also take a bite out of humans!
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| My precious... |
The other weird animal we saw in Tangkoko is the Bear Cuscus. This mammal looks like an over-sized possum, but has short legs, a long bushy tail, and the face of a cat. There are two kinds of cuscus in the park, one is a small variation that is nocturnal, but the large variation we observed is diurnal (active during the day). It climbs, sloth-like, through the tree branches searching for food. The diet of the cuscus mainly consists of fruit that it picks off of trees and eats.
Both of these mammals are struggling to survive, the Spectral Tarsier and the Bear Cuscus both with a vulnerable status according to the IUCN red list, call Tangkoko National Park home. Unfortunately, they are losing their habitat, along with other endemic species, due to human development, and soon may become extinct. We have to save these unique mammals of Sulawesi from the edge of extinction!
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| Hanging out with our friends from SV Illimite |
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| We are right next to the Wallace Line! |
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| Walking through the forests of Tangkoko |
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