The Ficus punctata liana which grows next to the Belalong Canopy Walkway at Ulu Temburong, Brunei provides ripe figs almost continuously for a a number of locally resident mammals including a gibbon family, a group of Long-tailed Macaques, a Bornean Palm Civet family and a Binturong that visits regularly, usually at night.
Based on research carried out at Danum Valley and the Maliau Basin in Sabah, by Miyabi Nakabayashi, Nakabayashi (2019) Limited directed seed dispersal by Binturong , the Binturong is a fig eating specialist with an unusual habit. Unlike most other fig eaters such as gibbons and hornbills which eject their feces, to fall by gravity, the Binturong, carefully deposits its feces on a suitable microsite high in the canopy. Suitable microsites included tree forks, epiphyte clumps and wide mossy branches. Nakabayashi hypothesizes that this habit has evolved to promote the establishment of epiphytic fig saplings on tall forest host trees. Based on Nakabayashi’s findings Binturongs are likely the most efficient dispersers of hemi-epiphytic strangling figs in Bornean forests.
The photos above and below show a pile of soft sticky Binturong dung full of Ficus punctata seeds in a typical canopy microsite next to a fruiting Ficus punctata liana.
Note that Ficus punctata is a trunk climbing liana which grows from the ground upwards not by dropping aerial roots from the canopy down to the ground. Therefore in this particular case the fig seeds contained in the Binturong dung will need to be washed to the ground by rainfall before they could grow successfully up a nearby tree trunk.
Thanks to Miyabi Nakabayashi, Hans Hazebroek, Hanyrol H. Ahmad Sah, Zdenek Macat, and Anthony Chieng for photos and information
