Today is International Day for Biological Diversity! To celebrate—and in response to many requests—I’m releasing a poster showcasing Borneo’s spectacular biodiversity.

The poster is 100 by 70 cm (approx. 40×28″) and shows thirty species from the beaches of the South China Sea to the summit of Mt Kinabalu, depicted at actual size. All photos are from my recent story for National Geographic.

The price is € 24.95 excluding shipping. Also available in English on request.

Order yours now by sending me an email

Next time you go on a tropical dive, take a close look at any anemones you find. Many small creatures live between their poisonous tentacles for protection, and during my last visit to Indonesia I was lucky enough to encounter a few of them:

The glass anemone shrimp (Periclemenes brevicarpalis) has evolved to be mostly transparent, helping it to avoid detection by predators immune to stinging tentacles. Ternate, Indonesia.

Living up to its name, this mushroom coral shrimp (Periclemenes kororensis) lives between the tentacles of a mushroom coral, rather than an anemone. Ternate, Indonesia.

The porcelain crab (Neopetrolisthes oshimai) grows a layer of mucus that protects it from the poisonous sting of its host anemone (Stichodactyla mertensii). Ternate, Indonesia.

Three clown anemonefish (Amphiprion ocellaris) seek shelter between the tentacles of a magnificent sea anemone (Heteractis magnifica). Ternate, Indonesia.

Fans of De Nieuwe Wildernis on Facebook had the chance to ask questions about underwater photography, which I’ve answered in a short video Q&A session on location in the Oostvaardersplassen:

Watch on YouTube.

Do you have any questions of your own?

Like anemone fish, this porcelain crab (Neopetrolisthes oshimai) grows a layer of mucus that protects it from the poisonous sting of its host anemone (Stichodactyla mertensii). Ternate, Indonesia.

Only three centimeters in size, this beautiful porcelain crab is seeking shelter between the tentacles of a carpet sea anemone. Like anemone fish, it has a special trick to keep safe from the poisonous sting of its host.

You see, sea anemones feed in much the same way as jellyfish. In fact, the two are closely related. Their tentacles are covered with tiny poisonous harpoons that fire on touch, capturing and paralyzing prey that swim into them, as well as keeping predators at bay. It’s a nice trick, but of course there is a catch—without some way to prevent it from stinging itself, tentacles bumping into each other would constantly trigger those little harpoons. And so the sea anemone coats itself in a mucus that effectively carries a message: This is me, don’t sting!

However, some animals have found a way to exploit the sea anemone’s defense against itself. Most famous for this are of course anemone fish, but there are many other small ocean creatures that use the same tactic. The porcelain crab is one of them. It coats itself in sea anemone mucus, tricking the sea anemone into confusing the porcelain crab for itself. This way the porcelain crab is safe from the sea anemone, but more importantly, hiding between its host’s poisonous tentacles, it is safe from other predators. It can go about its business feeding without too much fear of becoming a meal itself.

Some of the common frog footage I mentioned filming in my previous post just aired on Vroege Vogels TV. You can watch it back here (there’s a bit at 02:50 and then all of the underwater close-ups that follow).

A male common frog (Rana temporaria) floats amid a mass of millions of eggs, croaking loudly to attract a female. Oostvaardersplassen, the Netherlands.

After a long-stretched winter that brought on our coldest March since 1987, we’re finally seeing the arrival of spring here in the Netherlands. Ah! Can you smell it? It’s nature’s season of romance… Or is it?

A good three weeks behind schedule, but with temperatures shooting up into the twenties spring is now quickly getting into full swing. The rising night temperature is the cue many amphibians have been waiting for to start their yearly migration to the breeding waters. Dutch readers will know this mass synchronized event as the toad migration (“paddentrek”), but in reality many more species of amphibian are on the road at this time. As such I’ve spent the past few days filming the breeding behavior of the common frog (Rana temporaria) for De Nieuwe Wildernis.

Out in the open the frogs are vulnerable, tasty little snacks to herons and other predators. And so they migrate under the cover of darkness. Unfortunately that doesn’t protect them from us, humans, and our cars. In a densely populated area like the Netherlands, most frogs will need to cross one or more roads to reach their breeding ponds, and many don’t make it.

This female didn’t make it across the road, nor did her eggs.

The male in the photo at the top of this post, however, has just reached his breeding pond in the Oostvaardersplassen. It is probably the same pond where he once hatched as a tadpole. Now he floats in a mass of hundreds of thousands of eggs, croaking loudly in hopes of attracting a female to mate with. If he finds a potential mate, he wraps his arms around her in a mating embrace known as amplexus. He may need to hold her like this for two days before she is ready. When she finally lays her eggs in a small clump, up to 4,000 at a time, the male can fertilize them as they emerge from her belly. Isn’t that romantic?

In a mating embrace known as amplexus, a male common frog wraps his forelimbs around a female.

Clutch Pirates

Not everything is quite as romantic as it seems, however. There is another reason for the male to hang around this mass of eggs. Scientists call it ‘clutch piracy’. Instead of attracting a female and waiting for her to spawn, unromantic ‘pirate’ males search for freshly laid eggs and attempt to fertilize them again. Hang on, weren’t those eggs already fertilized at the time they were laid? After all, an egg can be fertilized only once. Well, it turns out that a few eggs are usually left unfertilized the first time around.

That may not seem fair to the male that took the trouble of attracting a female, but actually it seems everyone benefits from this behavior. The ‘pirate’ male benefits as he will get more offspring. The female benefits as more of her eggs are fertilized, and she too will get more offspring. And the original male that mated with her can go on to become a clutch pirate himself.

Three white stork (Ciconia ciconia) take to the air. Picardie, France.

After the French revolution, the story goes, the white stork went practically extinct in France over the course of just a single hunting season. Before the revolution, the right to hunt had been reserved for the nobility. Unfortunately, the newly acquired equal rights to hunt would not have come with equal marksmanship, and the stork was an easy target.

Whether the story is true or not, breeding programs in the last decades, notably in the Netherlands, have brought a steady recovery of the stork population. And indeed the aluminum rings on the legs of two birds in this image suggest that these individuals may have come from such a program. They are part of a group of nine that, according to a man who works there, have spent the past month at a landfill in France. There is lots of food lying around on a landfill, so despite the smell it may not seem like such a bad place to spend the winter to a stork.

Just a quick snapshot taken from the car as I was passing by, but I wanted to share something fresh with you and can’t show anything from my current project just yet. For a really spectacular photo of stork on a landfill, though, check out this image by Jasper Doest.