Flora and Fauna

Flora and Fauna I Marine Park I Pulau Manukan I Pulau Mamutik I Pulau Sulug I Pulau Gaya I Pulau Sapi I Some do's and don't

Plant Life
All the islands festure typical shoreline vegetation such as Pandanus Dubius and Podocarpus Polystachyus, fronting groves of living fossils a cross between a ferntree and a palm. Pulau Gaya itself is covered by the only undisturbed coastal dipterocarp forest left in Sabah. The Keruings are tallest, with narrow crowns of large dark green leaves, and their ridged, 2-wing fruits litter the trails.

Also found are Seraya, Kapur and Selangan Batu, and the Hopea Phillipineansis and Quassia Borneensis which are endemic to Pulau Gaya in Sabah. Fishtail and Nibong palms grow in shaded gulleys. Human activity has replaced the original vegetation on the other island with casuarine and coconut palms, mango, jackfruit and tarap fruit trees, and teh brilliant scarlet flowers of the Coral tree and the sweet scented white Gardenia tree.

Mammals include rats, squirrels, monkeys, and the rarely seen bearded pigs, and scaly pangolins. Birds is large numbers dwell on the islands. The larger ones include white-bellied sea eagles, pied hornbills and green herons, and the smaller ones are sandpipers, pink-necked green pigeons, bulbuls, bablers, flycatchers, swiftlets and sunbirds and the megapode or burung tambun, a chicken-like bird which lays its eggs in mounds of sand at the edge of the beach. Reptiles include monitor lizards and snakes which are harmless unless disturbed. Noisy cicadas are everywhere.