Prior to February 2020 Kota Kinabalu was a much favored destination for tourists from mainland China.
With the discovery of Covid 19 in Wuhan these tourist arrivals stopped abruptly.
Once the humans left the wildlife started to move back in.
The hundreds of tourist buses used to ferry these tourists around were parked up as with the bus below which was abandoned at Tg Au beach.
The local population of small Cynopterus fruit bats soon started using the undercarriage of this bus as a feeding and sleeping roost.
Eighteen months later these Ficus septica saplings appeared.
Photos and information provided by Shavez Cheema and Chun Xing WONG of 1Stop Borneo Wildlife.
Prior to the Covid 19 this beach at Tg Aru, Kota Kinabalu was packed with hundreds of tourists every night so they could watch the sun set over the islands of the Tunku Abdul Rahman national park.
This coach park at Tg Aru beach used to be full of coaches every afternoon and evening.
Ficus septica is a very common fig of urban wasteland around Kota Kinabalu.
Ficus septica is eaten and dispersed by small Cynopterus fruit bats.
Ficus septica dispersed by fruit bats on Balambangan Island, Sabah
Lim et al. (2017) Impact of urbanization and agriculture on the diet of fruit bats Malaya
