Bako National Park, Malaysia Photograph by © WWF-Canon/Luc DESLARZES   Southeastern Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei Mangroves   14,400 square miles (37,400 square kilometers) -- about the size of Maryland and Connecticut combined Critical/Endangered

· Monkey of the Mangroves
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Monkey of the Mangroves

Along the coastline and within the river deltas of Borneo and eastern Sumatra, you might glimpse a quick-moving, cinnamon-colored animal leaping from branch to branch or swimming across a narrow span of water. You would have to look fast, because this animal would soon be hidden again in the mangroves. If you did happen to see it, the first thing you would notice on a male would be the animal’s immense nose, for which it is named. It is the proboscis monkey.

Special Features

The Sunda Shelf mangroves are considered among the most biologically diverse mangroves in the world. Five major mangrove types grow here, depending on differences in soils, salinity, and tidal movements. Along the coast, Avicennia and Sonneratia species dominate. Moving inland, deeper mud fosters a forest of Rhizophora and Bruguiera species. Where freshwater is plentiful farther away from the coast, Nypa palm mangroves can be found. Mangroves are essential to marine, freshwater, and terrestrial biodiversity because they stabilize coastlines against erosion, collect sediment, and provide a nursery for coastal fishes.

	The proboscis monkey is locally known as orang belanda, or Dutchman, for its similarity to colonial settlers who were viewed by natives as hairy, pot-bellied and big-nosed.

Wild Side

After napping in the trees, a male proboscis monkey will give a few honks to let the females in the group know he is awake and ready to move on. The monkeys tend to cross rivers and streams at narrower points in an attempt to avoid predators such as the false gavial, a crocodile. The animals cross in large numbers, and males tend to be the last to cross. Sometimes the monkeys will "spring-board" across the waterways by launching themselves from flexible streamside branches. Proboscis monkeys like to eat young leaves and the seeds of unripe fruit. To digest these foods, the animals have complex stomachs with bacteria that can break down the plant material.

Cause for Concern

Throughout the region, mangrove forests have long been harvested for fuelwood, charcoal production, and timber. In recent decades, large areas of mangroves have been converted to agricultural land, urban areas, and shrimp farms.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.