Butterflies taken on the Batu Lawi expedition
J.C. Moulton’s 1912 account documents the first successful European approach to Mount Batu Lawi in the Limbang district of Sarawak, an expedition undertaken in the wet season of 1911 that yielded a small but taxonomically significant collection of butterflies from one of Borneo’s least-known highland regions. The piece forms part of a larger multi-author expedition report and serves as both a travel narrative and a faunal record of an area previously accessible only to scattered indigenous inhabitants.
Summary
The expedition was motivated by the mountain’s legendary status among local peoples—surrounded by stories of inaccessibility and supernatural protection—and by the scientific desire to document the fauna of an unexplored highland zone. Moulton’s narrative traces the arduous river journey up the Limbang and Madihit, the overland crossing through dense virgin jungle at altitudes exceeding 5,000 feet, and the eventual arrival at the base of Batu Lawi itself, where the party was hampered by persistent cloud and rain that limited both observation and collecting. The butterfly observations woven throughout the account reveal a fauna of considerable interest, with several species noted as rare or locally restricted within Sarawak.
A particularly noteworthy observation was of the Lycaenid Allotinus nivalis attending a Homopteran larva in the presence of ants at the kuala Madihit—a behaviour Moulton had previously encountered only in reports from museum collectors and which he had communicated to the Entomological Society of London without having witnessed it himself. The high-altitude collecting on the summit of Mt. Selinguid proved productive, with butterflies described as plentiful despite the cold and damp conditions. Moulton is candid about the limitations imposed by the expedition’s hurried, transit-oriented character: the party rarely remained in one place long enough for sustained collecting, and the sparse population of the Madihit district made it impossible to arrange provision relays that would have permitted a longer stay at the mountain.
Key Findings
- The expedition covered 40 days from Limbang to Claudetown (Baram), of which 31 were spent in actual travelling; the river journey occupied 10 days and the mountain walk 12 days, with the party sleeping two consecutive nights in the same place on only five occasions (p. 56).
- Kallima inachis buxtoni was observed at the kuala Madalam and noted as “not uncommon in the Limbang district but rarely met with in other parts of Sarawak,” indicating a degree of local restriction (p. 13).
- Papilio payeni brunei and Amblypodia narada were both recorded as rare species in Sarawak; the latter was captured feeding on animal excrement on a sunny gravel bed in mid-stream (p. 13).
- Allotinus nivalis was observed attending a Homopteran larva in the presence of two small black ants at the kuala Madihit, a trophallaxis-like interaction Moulton had not previously witnessed personally (p. 23).
- At the summit of Mt. Selinguid (4,850 ft.), butterflies were described as “plentiful” and the party spent most of a full day collecting there (p. 41).
- The base of Batu Lawi sits at approximately 3,500 ft. above sea level, with the mountain rising a further 2,700 ft.; the higher peak presented a sheer column of some 600 ft. that the party judged impractical to climb (pp. 40–42).
Conclusion
Moulton’s definitive historical takeaway is that despite the small absolute size of the collections—a direct consequence of the expedition’s hurried, transit-oriented character—the presence of numerous new and rare species demonstrates that the Batu Lawi highland region harbours a fauna of exceptional interest and limited prior documentation. The scientific value of the expedition lay not in volume but in revealing the degree of endemism and rarity concentrated in this previously inaccessible part of Borneo, and in establishing a baseline against which future, more sustained collecting efforts could be measured.
Context
- The expedition was undertaken under the auspices of the Sarawak Government with Moulton acting as naturalist-collector; the broader report was a collaborative effort involving H. N. Ridley, E. B. Copeland, J. J. Smith, A. Griffini, and F. F. Laidlaw, reflecting the multi-disciplinary approach typical of Sarawak Museum expeditions of this period.
- The study’s historiographical contribution lies in being the first detailed European account of the highland zone around Batu Lawi, building on Sir Spenser St. John’s 1858 journey which came within two days’ walk of the mountain but did not reach it, and on R. S. Douglas’s 1908 expedition from the Baram side which reached the Bah plain but not the eastern boundary.