The Langkawi archipelago with so many islands has gone through many geological, botanical and zoological changes. Being next to the Isthmus of Kra, connected and disconnected to the mainland by rising and falling water levels, a great morphology has happened to shape present day Langkawi. A big variety of birds visit and through droppings introduce new species of plants. Reptilian species, high up on the foot chain, rein, with the absence of their wild feline neighbours have become bigger.

Other mammalian species have suffered as noticed with the ever increasing number of albinos in mousedeer and monkey.

The surprise is the great butterfly population directly saying that a related angiosperm population is healthy and thriving.

Hereunder we give you some specific information of certain plants and birds that we often spot during one of our nature trips.

Langkawi Flora

Cycas clivicola

Langkawi Fauna

Great hornbill

Blue-winged pitta

Woodpecker

Cycas clivicola

Although this specie is widespread and abundant in Thailand, it remained unnamed until Hill & Yang named it cycas clivicola in 1998. The name comes from the Latin clivis, a cliff, and the Latin suffix, -cola, a dweller, in reference to the habitat.

A very elegant, slender specie from limestone cliffs in southeast Thailand and to be found on Langkawi. It has a smooth, grey trunk and green leaves. This rare cycad inhabits very steep limestone cliffs on the Malay Peninsula and some offshore islands. It is an elegant and fairly fast growing plant for the tropics but also well suited to cultivation in pots.

Although not totally protected, Dev and other naturalists are striving hard to get this rare cycad immediate total protection status.

Great hornbill

HORNBILLS are medium-sized or large birds that can be easily spotted on Langkawi Island, usually in the jungles. Their most prominent feature is the very large bill, which bears a sizable, brightly colored, horny growth--the casque. Though the bird has the appearance of being out of balance, the casque is generally very light; it is made up of thin-walled hollow cells. The flight of the hornbill is heavy and sluggish.

The hornbill is famous for its very unusual nesting habits. Once courtship and mating are at an end, the female retires to a hollow tree and seals herself into the chamber with a clay-like substance made up of dung and pellets of mud. The male gathers these materials on the forest floor and swallows them. Later he expels them in the form of small saliva-made pellets which he gives to the female who stays inside the nest. She plasters them on the sides of the entrance. At last a slitlike window remains which is just big enough to receive part of the bill. For the next six or eight weeks the male feeds the female through this opening. The imprisoned female lays a few white eggs. While incubating, she begins a complete molt and for a time is flightless, having lost all her wing and tail feathers.

Among many hornbills the female breaks her way out of the nest a week or more before the young are ready to leave the shelter. Dressed in all-new feathers, she helps her mate feed their young. With an amazing display of instinct, the babies immediately rebuild the entrance barrier.

Most hornbills are black and white, sometimes varied with chestnut or gray. Their legs and feet are short and rather weak. Most hornbills are fruit eaters. There are some 46 species that make up the family.

Blue-winged pitta

The specie is most likely to be confused with Mangrove Pitta, since it sometimes breeds in adjacent habitats and also occurs in mangroves during migration. Usually, however, it is a bird of a wide variety of other wooded habitats.

Blue-winged Pitta has a very wide distribution in South-East Asia, being known to breed in southern Yunnan, China; Annam and Cochinchina, Vietnam; Cambodia; Laos; the southern Shan States, Pegu Hills, Karen Hills and south Arakan to Tenasserim, Burma (Myanmar); Thailand; and Perlis and Langkawi Island, northern Peninsular Malaysia. Evidence also suggests that some individuals breed in Borneo. The occurrence of migrants in the Red River delta of Vietnam suggests that Blue-winged Pitta may also breed in Tonkin or in adjacent China, perhaps in Guangxi Province.

Woodpecker

Common Flameback

As their names suggests, woodpeckers are birds which specialise in pecking into wood. This they do to extract food (most species are insectivorous) and also to excavate nesting chambers.

There are 221 recognised species in 28 genera and they occur throughout the world except in Australasia. Although all members of the family confirm to a rather standard body shape, there is considerable variation in size with the tiny piculets measuring less that 10cm and the huge Imperial Woodpecker (sadly thought to be extinct) up to 60cm.

Southeast Asia’s Great Slaty Woodpecker measures 50cm from the tip of its pointed bill to its hooked toes.