Field trip, November 2008
The Peninsula Malaysia has become almost entirely a gigantic field of palm-oil and also rubber tree plantation – very little primary rain forest remains, not even much anymore at Cameron Hills…
Only searching deep into the bushes one can still find some isolated nearly untouched aquatic environments, which in this case was full of aquatic vegetation, with some of it in flower – and plenty of labyrinth fishes like Trichopsis vittata (lower left) and a very nice Betta species, as well as a beautiful juvenile Notopterus species
Unfortunately most of the rivers and creeks have been altered (destroyed) and logging is still in full swing the only “survivor” I found in the latter was a catfish, probably Ompok bimaculatus
Two years ago I saw here still thick primary rainforest, now every tree has to go as well, to make the space for the never ending palm-oil plantations
One very small creek, Sungai Kenong, was one of the very few spots still full of Cryptocoryne species, standing dense in the fast flowing water with beautiful flowers. I even found a fantastic small turtle, as well as semi-adult Puntius lateristriga
…and also a juvenile Hampala macrolepidota (left) and adult Labiobarbus lineatus
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