ChunXingWong

Hi Lauryn, can you tell us more about this please?

Wow! Beautiful spotting!

Awesome spotting!
Looks like a male Nephila sp.

Awesome spot Christine! But can you upload a cropped version as well? I want to take a closer look at this amazing insect.

9mm? That's big for a spiderling! Most probably not Telamonia dimidiata

Awesome shots!

Hi Maria. Villagers do actually care that their crops are damaged by elephants but since all the villagers there are employed by the plantation which impose strict rules to not harm elephants, they would not dare to do anything to the elephant. Since the villagers are plantation employees, they are paid monthly wages for their work so farming is just an extra source of income, not their main one that they depend on. Although Daniele mentioned that these elephants are relatively tame, they can actually get aggressive and have a history of killing workers in this plantation. This is another reason why many farmers will not try to anger these elephants in fear of being attacked. Elephants are still labeled as a pest for their destruction in this plantation that is why our organization - 1StopBorneo Wildlife is trying to promote "conservation tourism" there so that the plantation will see the value of these elephants and know that they can get profit from tourism to cover damage costs from elephants. We are also doing reforestation projects to create a wildlife corridor in the plantation so that these elephants will find sufficient foods in the wildlife corridor and reduce their need to enter plantations and farms for food source.

These are kleptoparasites of large spiders, like freeloader living in the webs of larger spiders to eat their prey

No problem. I am now doing doing a herpetofauna survey in Tawau Hills Park, equipped with references on reptiles and amphibians. See you on Monday.

Cyrtodactylus yoshii is only found in Sabah. This spotting is a Cyrtodactylus pubisulcus which has very variable patterns.