Fauna of Malaysia

The animals in the wild in Malaysia include elephants, sun bears, tigers, weasels, leopards, gibbons, tarsiers, bearded pigs, orangutans, and many birds such as the rhinoceros hornbill bird and mountain serpent-eagle. Of course, there are many monkeys, reptiles (snakes, geckos,, and lizards) and amphibians (frogs), and insects as well.

So far I’ve seen evidence of elephants and the sun bear when traveling to the National Park Taman Negara, but unfortunately did not see them. We did see the sun bear and the Malaysian tiger and a leopard in the Singapore zoo.

Photo of elephant tracks and dung and mud rubbed on trees by elephants I saw…

Photo of sun bear scratches on a tree I saw and photo of sun bear in the zoo:

Photo of tiger and leopard in the zoo:

For snakes, I’ve seen a pit viper in the wild on Penang Hill. There is also a snake temple where snakes are kept in captivity in Penang (see photo below).

Photo of viper I saw in the wild and photo of snake temple in Penang:

I’ve also seen big monitor lizards! And we see geckos around our apartment!

We often see monkeys and squirrels on Penang Hill. There are several types of monkeys including the macaques which are a nuisance and the friendly dusky leaf langur monkeys.

We’ve witnessed the flying squirrel and the giant squirrel on Penang Hill as well.

For insects and arachnids, I’ve seen the stingless bee (that makes honey!), stick insects, centipedes and millipedes, and a stingless scorpion (it kills its prey with its claws and has no venom in its tail). There are many beautiful butterflies here too including the national Malaysian green one.

Photos of a stingless bee hive, a beetle, a stick insect, an ant, a termite mound, a millipede, and butterflies:

For birds, I was lucky enough to see the Rhinoceros Hornbill, which is the national bird, in the city of Taiping near the lake. I also saw and heard other hornbills near the National Park.

While I have seen orangutans in the zoo here, we have plans to go to the island of Borneo and see the orangutans in the wild next summer.

Photo of an orangutan at the zoo: