On a recent working visit to Sandakan we went to the Rainforest Discovery Centre (RDC) and Forest Research Centre (FRC) located near Sepilok (yes, near the Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre). Probably most visitors to Sepilok would bypass the first 2 places I mentioned and straight away go see the cute primates, but actually they are well worth the visit, at least to see for themselves the following.

At the RDC:

The Highways of the Forest – these crawling plant are as big as trees!

Posing with a 1,000 year old belian (ironwood) tree:

At the 150m long solid-steel forest canopy walkway – in the process of being lengthened to 1.1km, which will make it the world’s longest:

We also visited a garden of medicinal plants, some of the herbs there are renowned locally for their use in weight-loss programs, perhaps they should be included in alli reviews in the US.

At the FRC:

The world’s longest insect, caught at Sunsuron, Tambunan, Sabah on 10th October 1989. I think it’s at least 2 feet long and totally looks like a stick, except it has a head!

The world’s biggest moth species, Attacus atlas Linnaeus, with a wing span of 26cm, collected at the Arboretum of the FRC on 7th May 1994:

The world’s tiniest beetle species – they’re merely dots!

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