niah
—
nature
west mouth
at niah
has the world’s largest and most spectacular cave entrance with over 60 meters in height and 250 meters in width. There are 8 main caves located within Niah-Subis limestone massif while Great Cave, Moon Cave, Painted Cave and Trader’s cave are the four well-known caves. Niah is rich with significant natural habitat with many undiscovered flora and fauna species. Postings of flora and fauna observations are posted on iNaturist App to spark scientific interest in Niah’s biodiversity. Niah Cave is the home of half million swiftlets and is the place where it that make their nests purely from their saliva.
flora
The flora at Niah National Park has varied, rich and high levels of endemism. The flora species are varied with their extensive limestone vegetation or what we called as karst vegetation. There are a total of at least 334 species representing 100 families listed in flora specimen database. A partial list of species from Niah, know to be endemic to Borneo includes 27 species found at the Niah area. Recently, the Claderia viridiflora (Orchid) and Ampelocissus sp. (Wild Grape) were among the recently discovered endemic flora in Niah.
fauna
Niah is bestowed with rich and diverse Fauna with 75 specials of mammals, 241 specials of birds and 104 specials of reptilian and amphibian. While you are walking and exploring around Niah area, you might stumble upon the naked bats darting out or Niah Cave gecko, a lizard found only in Borneo. There are some species which like Vitrinula Glutinosa (World’s Smallest Snail), Niah Cave Gecko, Green Dragontail Butterfly and Katydid were recently discovered as endemic fauna.
bird nests
Swiftlets are cavernicolous birds that roost and nest in caves or cave-like man-made structures. All species of swiftlets use at least some salivary nest cement in building their nests. In Niah cave, the largest naturally occurring Aerodramus Maximus Swiftlet population due to conservation efforts. The swiftlets produce the highly prized edible Black-nest used in Traditional Chinese Cuisines.
