Trail cameras capture endangered mammal lurking in Singapore forest. Take a look
On an island in Singapore, an endangered mammal spent night after night rummaging for food and meandering through the forest. Unbeknownst to the visitor, trail cameras captured its movements — a first-of-its-kind record for the country.
A pair of scientists set up dozens of trail cameras across Pulau Ubin island in 2023 for a seven-month-long wildlife survey, according to a study published Nov. 29 in the peer-reviewed journal Nature in Singapore.
Researchers hoped to observe some mouse-deer but ended up filming another noteworthy creature: a Malayan tapir, study co-author Marcus Chua wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Malayan tapirs are an endangered mammal species with a distinctive black and white coloring and stubby trunk-like nose. They live in forests throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand but have been occasionally seen in Singapore, the study said.
Photos show the female Malayan tapir seen on Pulau Ubin island over a dozen times between May and August 2023. Trail cameras recorded the animal wandering through the night and eating “fallen fruit and branches.”
“We know that it was the same adult female throughout from the scar on her left hindquarters,” Chua wrote.
“Tapirs have visited Singapore in 1986, 2016 and 2023. For the first time, we have observations of one that stayed and ate,” Chua said in the post.
The tapir likely swam to the island from nearby Malaysia, the study said. Pulau Ubin sits along the Malaysia-Singapore border and, at its nearest point, is less than a mile from mainland Malaysia.
Malayan tapirs are “sensitive to habitat loss,” so researchers view the animal’s presence on Pulau Ubin as a positive sign for “the recovery of formerly extensively human-modified sites.” The island was previously used for rubber plantations and fruit orchards.
Singapore is a city-state in southeast Asia and near Malaysia and Indonesia.
The research team included Marcus Chua, Noel Thomas, Robert Teo and Haw Chuan Lim.
This story was originally published December 5, 2024 at 7:39 AM with the headline "Trail cameras capture endangered mammal lurking in Singapore forest. Take a look."
