Mudskipping fish, Fiddling crabs and Mangroves

27th April 2021

As we head up the Sungai Pelek river, a wave of calmness and inexplicable happiness washes over me. Here we are on a boat, journeying up a muddy river surrounded by green in Malaysia, just as we have done so many times before in Miri, Sarawak when the kids were young.

This time we are on the west coast of Peninsula Malaysia, overlooking the Malacca Straits, accompanied by a couple of friends, who are both geologists, and our skipper and guide Zaini. I have no idea what to expect but am brimming over with eager anticipation for whatever might be in store. One of our friends, Carina, is an expert in mangroves, having studied them in the Amazon basin as a palynologist (pollen expert) on the other side of the tropical world.

Our first stop is a muddy, tidally exposed riverbank which proves home to a variety of bizarrely active mudskippers – the true fish out of water – who are keen to show off their skills in walking, jumping and sliding about. They are everywhere, slip-sliding away, exhibiting aggressive displays with their funny, fan-like fins, having stand-offs on the shoreline and then casually slipping into the waves to resume their underwater breathing and more fish-like life.

Mangroves make up only 2% of the land area of Malaysia, and most of what’s left are found in Sarawak and Sabah. Only 17% of Malaysia’s mangroves are to be found in Peninsula Malaysia and lie mainly on the west coast. They consist of an abundance of genera and species of small, hardy trees that are able to withstand the brackish waters of the intertidal regions of coasts and estuarine rivers. These valuable forests not only protect our shorelines against coastal erosion and sea level rise, as well as tsunamis (as witnessed in Aceh, in 2004) but are host to a wide variety of fish, crabs, reptiles, birds and some lively primates too!

As we are about to leave mudskipper stop number one, Carina mentions to Zaini: “I'd like to collect some mud to observe, but I didn’t bring any sample bags, can you help me?”

“Sure, no problem!” says Zaini, and before we know it, as if born to be a field assistant, he’s fashioned a sample bottle out of half an empty water bottle on the end of a long stick and deftly scoops up a generous sample of oozing, rich organic mud for Carina to observe.

Next stop number two is the fiddler crabs’ muddy hangout. These bright blue Malaysian mud crabs are often rather shy, but after a few minutes they emerge sporadically to show off their spectacular bright shells and wave their claws around a bit before descending down their holes again.

A Brahminy kite takes off in front of us, then skims down to the water to pick up a fishy lunch before soaring off to the heavens.

As we potter up the river, we are becoming local experts in the different genera and species of mangroves we see. There are the ones with the very long, pointy, dart-like fruit (Bukau kurap), the ones with slightly shorter fruit with a bulb on the end (Bukau minyap), the Avicennia (api api) with their yellow flowers and the Sonneratia (Berembang) with the fruit like apples.

We pass a fisherman’s houseboat with a few macaques monkeying around. We pull into the shore and are greeted by not one or two, but a whole tribe of them, comprising several families of all ages. It seems this not the first time a boat has brought them their ‘elevenses’. Long-tailed macaques are found throughout Malaysia, and in fact I have often seen them on my jungle walks in Bukit Kiara, Kuala Lumpur, as well as from our balcony overlooking the university. On the coast they are known as crab-eating macaques, although they eat not just seafood, but are opportunistic omnivores and eat a variety of fruit, leaves and even roots and bark.

We head back down the river towards the coast and stop to chat with the prawn fishermen who are now busy harvesting their catch which has been brought in on the rising tide. Now I know what we are going to have for our dinner tonight!

The hunt is now on to find some monitor lizards and we head down a smaller, dark green creek, but the reptiles are proving elusive. We spot the head of one, but it soon disappears into the shade beneath the mangrove roots.

As we head back to the boat yard, we are treated to the rare Kluee-wip-wip

sound and sighting of a crested serpent eagle soaring overhead. A skilled hunter, these eagles feed on crawling animals, rodents, reptiles and other small birds. We are mesmerised by the sound of this raptor calling to his mate while gliding above. A true treat at the end of an awe-inspiring trip.