Borneo's Rare Mammals Tour 2024 Trip Report

Sunda clouded leopard walking along a forest road toward a Malay porcupine in daylight, Deramakot Forest Reserve

A Sunda Clouded Leopard closes in on a Malay Porcupine in broad daylight, Deramakot Forest Reserve. Photo by Carrie Mostert, Royle Safaris.

One of the best Sunda Clouded Leopard sightings we've heard of in Borneo this year: a cat stalking a Malay Porcupine down the middle of the road in daylight at Deramakot Forest Reserve, watched by a Royle Safaris group on their 2024 Borneo's Rare Mammals Tour. Below is Royle Safaris' trip report in full — Deramakot's clouded leopard sightings, plus Kinabatangan and Tabin, in their own words.

Trip report by Royle Safaris

Once a year Royle Safaris runs our Borneo's Rare Mammals Tour (with optional post tour extension to Tawau Hills National Park) as a small group tour. We also run several private tailored tours to Sabah, Borneo (often focusing on mammals but sometimes birds, diving or herpetofauna), but for anyone wanting to visit Malaysian Borneo on a specific mammalwatching tour at a competitive price our groups are the perfect one. Our tour in late summer 2024 was one of our best ever in terms of having an incredible sightings of a Sunda Clouded Leopard which was observed during the day padding down the road in pursuit of a Malay Porcupine, coming right next to the vehicle! We also had sightings of several other mammals which we count as rare mammals for the purposes of our Rare Mammals Tours, these included Banteng, Sunda Pangolin, Short-tailed Mongoose & Pen-tailed Tree-shrew.

This itinerary is an ever present on our mammalwatching group tour calendar and over the years we have recorded over 117 species of mammals, 200+ species of birds, 55+ species of reptiles, 30+ species of amphibians and even 7 species of fish (across the various different trips we have run); and we added some iconic species to these lists during this trip including the iconic pen-tailed tree-shrew which being a monotypic species is a key one for many family collectors and the incredibly rare banteng.

Targets and expectations

The trip's headline targets were Sunda Clouded Leopard and its smaller relatives — Sunda Leopard Cat, Flat-headed Cat, Marbled Cat and the near-mythical Bay Cat — alongside the world's smallest bear species (the sun bear), several civets, gibbons, langurs, macaques, colugos and slow lorises. As Royle Safaris is candid about, there's a good probability of not seeing every target on any given trip — that's the nature of looking for genuinely rare and elusive animals — but it's very hard to spend serious time in Borneo's forests and not see an impressive spread of species across the mammal, bird, reptile and amphibian lists.

The main trip had the expert help of local spotters throughout, with Mike Gordon as leader for the main tour and Shavez Cheema guiding the Tawau Hills extension, plus advice from leading field biologists in Borneo. Even with all of that experience, expert spotting equipment and a considerable amount of luck were needed to find the rarest species — and even then, success is never guaranteed.

The route: Sepilok to Tabin

The trip started in Sandakan with a transfer to Sepilok for the first night and a night walk around the Rainforest Discovery Centre — the most reliable spot on the itinerary for Western Tarsier, and the group's target here. The night walk also produced good sightings of Prevost's Squirrel and Red Giant Flying Squirrel.

From there the group spent 8 nights at Deramakot Forest Reserve, a sustainably logged, low-impact reserve that in fact holds higher densities of several species than even the primary forests of Danum Valley. This was where the trip's standout sighting happened: a Sunda Clouded Leopard stalking a Malay Porcupine in the middle of the road, in daylight. Other Deramakot highlights included moonrat, diademed leaf-nosed bat, trefoil horseshoe bat, pen-tailed tree-shrew, Philippine slow loris, Bornean orangutan, Sunda pangolin, cream-coloured giant squirrel, Sunda colugo, plantain squirrel, Thomas's flying squirrel, Borneo striped palm civet, Sunda leopard cat, large pencil-tailed tree mouse, Malay civet, Island palm civet, lesser mouse deer, Hose's pygmy flying squirrel and large flying fox.

The group then moved to the Kinabatangan River, Malaysian Borneo's largest, for a couple of nights looking for the semi-aquatic Flat-headed Cat along its banks. The flat-headed cat didn't show this time, but the river delivered Bornean Orangutan, Proboscis Monkey, Sundaic silvered langur, long-tailed macaque and southern pig-tailed macaque, among others.

The final stop was Tabin Wildlife Reserve, targeting North Bornean Gibbon and Sunda Stink Badger; the reserve's proximity to a palm oil plantation also brings in a good number of rodents, which in turn keep civets and leopard cats around. Sun bears stayed hard to see on this trip despite Tabin's usually strong track record. Tabin is also the last-known site for the Sumatran rhino in Malaysia — one held in a forest enclosure here died a couple of years ago, leaving Malaysia with no rhinos left at all.

Tawau Hills & Maliau Basin extension

After the main trip, three clients continued on to explore Tawau Hills National Park as part of the optional post-tour extension — a week-long trip to this remote and rarely visited park and its neighbouring forests, guided by Chun. Highlights included a helmeted hornbill, many reptiles and amphibians, a Sunda Colugo gliding 40–50 yards over the road, a wandering Banteng, a Maroon Langur troop with a white-morph individual, a pair of Irrawaddy Dolphins on a mangrove tour, and a Binturong crossing an open tree in daylight. From 2026, Royle Safaris plans to combine the Tawau Hills and Maliau Basin extensions to increase the chance of new mammal species not otherwise seen on the main trip.

Photo highlights

Sunda clouded leopard following a Malay porcupine down a forest road

Sunda clouded leopard close behind a Malay porcupine, approaching the camera

Sunda Clouded Leopard stalking a Malay Porcupine in broad daylight. Photos by Jill North, Carrie Mostert & Judy Parrish, Royle Safaris.

A Malayan Porcupine on the move.

Binturong, seen crossing an open tree in daylight during the Tawau Hills extension. Photo by Carrie Mostert, Royle Safaris.

Banteng standing in dense undergrowth at night

Banteng, one of the trip's rarest mammal sightings. Photo by Carrie Mostert, Royle Safaris.

Two Bornean orangutans in the canopy along the Kinabatangan River

Bornean Orangutan on the Kinabatangan River. Photo by Carrie Mostert, Royle Safaris.

Sunda colugo clinging to a tree trunk at night

Sunda Colugo, seen gliding over the road during the Tawau Hills extension. Photo by Jill North, Carrie Mostert & Judy Parrish, Royle Safaris.

Smooth-coated otter standing upright in riverside grass

Smooth-coated Otter. Photo by Carrie Mostert, Royle Safaris.

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Full species list

The full trip (main tour plus the Tawau Hills extension) recorded 49 species of mammal, 125 of bird, 12 of reptile and 5 of amphibian. Names link through to their species pages where we have one on the site; a couple of birds aren't yet in our database and are listed as plain text.

Mammals (49)

Birds (125)

Reptiles (12)

Amphibians (5)

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