Published on: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 |
Christopher Chan, Operations Manager of Mimpian Jadi Resort in Tuaran, noticed it crossing a tarred access road, while driving to work with wife Rosie last Friday.
"I've never seen it in my life," said Chan and sought Daily Express for help. We showed the pictures of it to a certified diver who shook his head and said: "I have no idea."
We then ran to the Fisheries Department where Dr Ahemed Sade, Head of the Resource and Marine Research Division, took a keen long look. His intense curiosity was immediately fired up.
"Where is it?" he asked. "We certainly want to investigate this." Lawrence Aissol, Head of the Permit Section for Imports and Exports of Marine Products for many years, deepened the mystery further still:
"This is very rare, just like the Coconut Crab is very rare," he remarked. Even Jephhren Zefrinus Wong, Head of Inland Fisheries Division, said the creature surprised him.
There are more than 500 species of crayfish in the world. Could this be one of the 500 or could it even be a new species?
Characteristic of crayfish is its joined head with the thorax (mid-section) and a segmented body, four pairs of legs and a pair of pincers.
This creature has all those general features but there is something very unusual about the pincers - they are not equally curved claws as in most cases.
Rather, the lower claw is short while the upper claw shapes like a sharp blade three times longer.
And it is combative and fierce.
When Christopher tried to hold it, it lunged forward and snapped its claws with a very audible "dik" like two metal claws hitting each other.
Further on its uniqueness, the segmented body of most crayfish is rather full but in this case, it is conspicuously slender and long, not much meat for eating it seems, though it measures about 8 inches long.
Villagers however, said they knew the creature.
Jabar Ibrahim, a Bajau resort staff, said his people call it 'Bankala'. But even so, they said it is a rare sight.
"They bore deep into the earth in the mangrove and nipah forest floor and won't come out unless their holes are covered by big floods," he said.
"This is why they are very elusive. Also because their claws are so sharp and attack so much, we don't catch them," he said.
But Christopher and Rosie had the lucky encounter on sunny and dry morning when the creature decided to cross the road leading to Mempian Jadi.
"I am used to seeing Long-tail macaques, monitor lizards, and sea otters," he said.
"When I saw something crawling, initially I thought it was a crab which crawl sideways but then I saw it did something unusual - it could reverse backwards. So, we stopped," he recalled.
"To me, it doesn't look like a prawn, it doesn't look l like a crab or rather it has the pincers and legs of a crab, but the head and tail of a fresh water prawn. It's unique," Christopher said.
He told Rosie to grab a plastic bag and slotted it in tail first because it was so fierce. He has decided to keep the mystery creature in the resort's aquarium.
"My local staff told me they last no more than two days in captivity but it's already four days and it's still very much alive and kicking," Chan said. "There is a difference between awareness and knowledge," he said, eco-literacy that is.
"I am interested in nature conservation," he said. "Go to any beach in the morning, you see thousands of little sand balls.
"Small crabs take sand into their mouth to filter nutrients and throw out sand balls," he said.
"I suspected this mystery creature use mud to filter nutrients and so I asked Jabar to collect mud from the mangrove swamp and put that into the aquarium."
Sure, enough, it worked all over the mud, presumably ingesting them because it is depositing depositing little mud balls on the fringe. I believe that's why it has survived almost a week now because it was able to filter food from the mud," Christopher said.
The incident highlights the importance of the mangrove and nipah ecosystem, as Mempian Jadi is set amid thousands of hectres of Sulaman Mangrove Reserve.
"When a mystery creature like this suddenly appears to surprise everyone illustrates the incredible biodiversity in Sabah's mangrove ecosystems which our resort treasure and want to protect," said Christopher.
Here is an elusive creature which is willing to live on mud, boring deep into the bowels of mangrove grounds, turning over, aerating and cleaning the mud beds daily .
Surely, it is performing a very valuable ecological service in an ecosystem that is known to nurture a huge diversity of marine life and seafood for man.
Interested members of the public are welcome to visit the resort to view the creature, he said.
