World's one and only display at UMS
Published on: Thursday, March 09, 2017
Kota Kinabalu: The world's one and only actual pygmy elephant model skeleton can be found only at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah's (UMS) Institute of Tropical Biology and Conservation.Elephant Tagas died and was buried in Lok Kawi Zoo in 2011. The man who expertly pieced its scattered bones together starting June 2016 to the exact size and posture of the original elephant is rare Japanese master palaeontologist, Dr Hiroshi Sawamura, Curator of Ashora, Museum of Paleontoloy, Obihiro, Hokkaido.
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Wednesday morning, Dr Hiroshi gave UMS students an hour-long talk on how he came to Sabah three times between June 2016 right up to March 7, 2017 to piece together the skeletal puzzle which was launched straight afterwards by Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof. Kamarudiin Mudin, on behalf of Vice Chancellor Prof. Datuk Dr Mohd Harun Abdullah.He said two unique characters of Bornean pygmy elephant is a distinctive rise at the centre of its backbone and a very long tail reaching almost the ground. But everything about Project Tagas started with an idea from Prof. Dr Charles Santhanaraju Vairappan, Director of the Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ITBC) back in 2015. "We have this Bornensis Exhibition Gallery for Environmental Education but what we were lacking was an exhibit of the biggest mammal in Sabah," Prof. Charles told Daily Express.
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"So I floated the idea to former Director of Sabah Wildlife Department Datuk Dr Laurentius Ambu in 2015. He agreed with the idea and told me there's an elephant buried in 2011 at the Lok Kawi Zoo, so we went and excavated it, brought it back to UMS but it was quite a puzzle to put it together, the parts and pieces were everywhere, too much for us to do by ourselves, " Prof. Charles related. Clearly UMS needed help.
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"In fact, I asked people in London, then US, then Europe and all said 'we have no experts' but finally someone in UK suggested somebody in Hokkaido and since I have contacts in Japan who finally found out Dr Hiroshi," Prof. Charles plotted the globe spanning hunt for this rare expertise and pinned him down. "Dr Hiroshi came in three phases, Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) helped us and it's a collaboration between the Sabah Wildlife Department, UMS and JICA that we finally got it done and put it up as a permanent exhibit for environmental education and conservation."In fact, it's not just putting the bones together, you need to put back the exact size and get the posture right, it's a bit complicated and tricky but he was very good and very fast because this guy has been doing it for years," Prof Charles said. "Everything is real except the tusks (wood) and some small parts of the tail and toes," he said. "He is even able to restore the hanging bones that control the in and out movements of the tongue, a very unique bone that you don't find in other elephant exhibits in London and his work is hat meticulous," he pointed out. But for what specific purpose will this serve?"We have friends of Bornensis," Prof. Charles explained. "For example, next Saturday, we have students coming in and camp here, then we teach kids and the public the importance of biodiversity and how to conserve it and we have this Gallery where they'll go inside to view all the exhibits but now we have this elephant skeleton model to make a first big impression strike before they move into the Gallery," Prof. Charles explained how his idea came true. However, there is still some undisclosed mystery about Tagas .Dr Hiroshi estimated Tagas is aged between 10 -15 years based on analysis of its molars hence basically a "teenager" when it was rescued before being transferred to Lok Kawi Zoo where it later died of undisclosed cause. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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