Saw this on FB today:
facebook.com/photo.php?fbid … permPage=1
It’s called Mogera insularis insularis or 台灣鼴鼠.
Ok, I have never in my life seen that animal here in Taiwan, but I guess Robert Swinhoe did, that guy, give him a couple more years here, he’d have probably named every single animal here on this island…
There’s another type of mole called Mogera kanoana (named after Kano 鹿野).
Now that’s a cute little mole. Was he playing dead or actually dead (the dog looks to have just dropped it).
I’ve seen a masked palm civet, a few greater flying foxes, a couple of muntjak deer (all on Tatajia/Yushan area), some bigger deer (sambar?) I can’t remember where (more than once), a few wild pigs (Taipingshan, Lalashan), and a wee little mountain shrew (maybe a brown-toothed shrew, up on Beidawushan). No photos of any of them.
No bears, leopards, tigers, or chilin. No idea how much time you’d have to spend in the high forests to see any of them.
Less uncommon are the troops of crab-eating macaques, pretty much everywhere.
And plenty of rats and feral dogs in the mountains. I guess the rats are not so uncommon in the cities either.
I saw 3 yellow-throated marten (黃喉貂) at the Walami shelter. When they run around they looked like yellow bouncing rainbows.
Then I read that they are called the tiger of muntjak deer in Taigi (kiunn-á-hóo 羌仔虎), because they can hunt down muntjak deers working in a small pack.
Beautiful creatures which I didn’t dare getting too close to. At night they scratched at the shelter which scared us to death (we thought twas a bear) and stole hanged food.
http://輝哥的天空.tw/mountain/nopaiA/hualien009.htm
http://youngevity.pixnet.net/blog/category/0
I had no camera, so I’m gonna have to borrow other people’s photos of them. They are pretty adorable, too bad they can pretty much rip open my stomach if I get too close…
I saw 2-3 Formosan Serow in Pingtung a couple of months back. Not as rare as I thought but still pretty cool. Not picture though.
I have seen a bear, lots of barking deer, sika and sambar, serow, panagolin, monkeys, gem faced civet, martins, pigs galor, all the indigenous bird species, etc.
I have a pic of 3 sambar on a ridge silhoetted by the moon behind them. I will post later.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]I have seen a bear, lots of barking deer, sika and sambar, serow, panagolin, monkeys, gem faced civet, martins, pigs galor, all the indigenous bird species, etc.
I have a pic of 3 sambar on a ridge silhoetted by the moon behind them. I will post later.[/quote]
When u see da bear? I thought no one had seen one for years except on motion activated infrared equipment.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]I have seen a bear, lots of barking deer, sika and sambar, serow, panagolin, monkeys, gem faced civet, martins, pigs galor, all the indigenous bird species, etc.
I have a pic of 3 sambar on a ridge silhoetted by the moon behind them. I will post later.[/quote]
That’s awesome! I’ve only been in the deep mountains a few times, but I’ve seen lots of snakes I can’t identify, two or three very distant barking deer, and pigs, birds, and monkeys – nothing like a bear!
There is definitely still some bears around. My uncle in law used to hunt them many years ago and recons is still a few. Have heard a few bears when with up in the mountians but yet to see one. But hopfully one day
Snow Mountain about 8 years ago. I know lots of hikers who have seen bears, especially in remote area of Yushan National Park, which has the Dafan bear reserve. Likely a couple hundred there.
Remember the bear hit by a train in Yuli area a few years back? I think there was speculation that the bear numbers are increasing so some are being driven to find new territory? 921 and Morakot, to say nothing of forestry policy to close roads deep into the mountains have created a pretty massive area in the middle of Taiwan that is really hard to get into. No reason to think bears can’t survive.
Last time I interviewed the director at Yushan National Park I think he said the park had at least a few hundred.
Yes, I have been hoping that the southern cross island highway would remain closed to through traffic and instead they could create a park shuttle to a set of nature trails instead of opening the road to every dipshit that wants to drive across it for no reason.
Handheld night shot. Super grainy but I still love this.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]
Handheld night shot. Super grainy but I still love this.[/quote]
man, they are close. that looks like it could be from one of those Disney animations.
Yeah they were no more than 20-30m away.
A mum and two kids? A great shot.
Hey, for this dipshit, I’d guess four or five of my best ten days in Taiwan were driving a scooter on that highway from Tainan! I absolutely loved going up it, camping at the top, and mostly coasting down the next morning. Incredibly beautiful.
That being said … yup, it should probably remain closed. There’s just not enough reason for it, considering the environmental damage that the constant road repairs must cause.
Hey, for this dipshit, I’d guess four or five of my best ten days in Taiwan were driving a scooter on that highway from Tainan! I absolutely loved going up it, camping at the top, and mostly coasting down the next morning. Incredibly beautiful.
That being said … yup, it should probably remain closed. There’s just not enough reason for it, considering the environmental damage that the constant road repairs must cause.[/quote]
I was more so talking about the steady stream of cars and SUV’s that would simply drive across it in an afternoon just because it’s there. It is going to be very difficult to maintain the road in a condition where it can handle that constant stream of cars. It has huge potential as a partially closed off reserve.
Same place earlier in the day. I should send this to North Face. 
25 endemicobirds pf taiwan
DOR Giant Red Flying Squirrel (probably about a year old) I came across on a ride along the Northern Cross-Island Road a few days ago…no external signs of injury…might have plummeted to her death?
Hart’s Glass Lizard (Ophisaurus harti) seen on the Northern Cross-Island Road on 3/30/2015
