(Photo above) Abdul the wild, but tame, large male Bornean Orangutan that hangs around the Borneo Rainforest Lodge grounds at Danum Valley.
No feeding of wildlife is allowed at Danum, so Abdul probably hangs around because he enjoys the company of tourists. Another possibility is that Abdul must be fully aware that Clouded Leopards regularly visit BRL and he feels safer in the presence of humans.
There is a large Ficus punctata liana growing on a tall dipterocarp tree next to the path that leads to the staff quarters at Danum BRL. This liana fruits prolifically from time to time as shown in this photo. However Abdul does not wait to eat the Ficus punctata fig fruit when they ripen and turn purple black. If Abdul waited for the figs to ripen they would be snatched from under his nose by the local gibbons which are far more agile than Abdul. Abdul eats these figs when they are red but still unripe with the white sticky latex from the fig pouring in streams down his beard. Bornean orangutans eat a lot of fruit unripe, not because they prefer unripe fruit but because they travel much more slowly than gibbons and cannot risk losing the fruit to the competition.The Canopy Walkway at Danum Valley, Borneo Rainforest Lodge.The main restaurant and offices of the Danum Valley rainforest lodge. The surrounding 38,000 ha of virgin lowland dipterocarp forest is some of the richest forest in the world for fig species.
T. Kanamori and her colleagues studied the feeding habits of 26 individual orangutans in the forests surrounding the Borneo Rainforest Lodge (2005 to 2007). They found that the orangutans preferred ripe fruit to all other foods but also ate bark and leaves. However ripe fruit was only freely available during two short masting periods. During the intervening lean periods when few forest trees were fruiting the orangutans survived on the leaves and fruit of figs and leguminous Spatholobus vines.
Overall figs comprised 21.2 % of orangutan food at Danum BRL. The fig fruit eaten most often was Ficus virens and the fig leaves eaten most often were Ficus benjamina.
