The Peterson Pack on the Move

In the Indonesian language, the word orangutan means "people of the forest," and that is truly what they are. They look incredibly humanoid sitting in the trees, and many of their behaviors remind me a lot of things humans do. But we also saw another people of the forest while we traveled in Borneo—humans living in small villages along the forested riverbank, living much like they have for hundreds of years. But as modernity brought scooters, electricity, and medicine to these villages, it also brought the need for money, the cause of so many problem s in our modern world. Unfortunately, many of the villagers' opportunities to make money are in direct conflict with the wellbeing of the orangutans. D ue to human impact, orangutans have become threatened by habitat loss. They've been forced into a fraction of their former range, and now wild orangutans can only be found among the dispersed rainforests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. We visited Tanjung Puting Nati...

The Jakare A few days ago my family and I went on a boat in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. This boat was called the Jakare. It was a live aboard as well as a dive boat. We were on the Jakare for nine nights. So it was a good thing it was 26m, much bigger than the kayaks at home. We shared the boat with 12 Indonesian crew, a French woman, two Scottish kiwis, and two Greeks. And I’ll tell you all about it from the beginning. DUN DUN DUN! We flew to Sarong, Indonesia on a red eye so we slept through the day and the night. When I woke up I had to get dressed and run downstairs with my family so we could get picked up to go to the boat. We drove in a car the the busy streets, all the way to the dock and then hopped on a skiff and rode to the Jakare. We had to take our shoes off to keep the boat clean. When we got on the boat, some of the crew gave us watermelon juice. It was delicious! When we were done with that we were shown to our rooms. They were small, but they were also cozy and nice. Once ev...

I've given up on funny titles. When you're writing this much, you get to a point where all the puns and funny sayings are used up, so we'll just stick with what it is: a post about The Wallace Line. Let's start with the line's namesake, Alfred Wallace, an often overlooked historical figure. Alfred Russel Wallace was a British explorer and scientist, who traveled through the Indonesian Archipelago and gathered over 126,000 specimens, several thousand of which were new to science. We actually got to visit one of the places he stayed in Indonesia while we were on a hike to see birds of paradise. It was a tiny raised shack that wasn't even big enough to stand in. He spent six weeks there, collecting birds of paradise specimens and probably swatting lot of mosquitos. Not only was Wallace an accomplished explorer, he was also a biologist to rival Charles Darwin. While he was traveling in the Indonesian Archipelago, Wallace came up with the Theory of Evolution Through ...

There are many different types of primates.  In fact, there are so many I could write about them for months. In this post, I’m only going to cover a few, the ones we saw in Borneo.  Apes and monkeys are both types of primates. The main difference between apes and monkeys is that monkeys have tails and apes don’t.  The first primate I am going to cover is a monkey called the long tailed macaque. The long tailed macaque eats mainly fruit but it can also eat insects, leaves, and crabs. Speaking of crabs, the long tailed macaque is also known as the crab eating macaque. They live in the trees of the rainforest for all of their life. They sleep in the branches of the trees but they don’t make nests or beds.  Adorable-ness (in the form of a long tailed macaque) Next, I’m going to talk about another monkey called the proboscis monkey.  They survive on leaves, seeds, and unripe fruit, but will occasionally eat insects. Proboscis monkeys only eat unripe fruit because rip...

The tasseled wobbegong, also known as the carpet shark, is a very non-sharky looking shark. (But I am not getting into shark vs wobbegong shark because it will take up the rest of this article). They are referred to as a carpet shark because they like to hang out on the bottom near coral reefs. They also have flattened bodies and patterned skin, so they resemble a carpet. They are called tasseled wobbegong because of their brownish orange to yellow bodies which are decorated with light ringed dark spots making it look like a coral reef.  The tasseled part of the name refers to the beard-like skin flaps on its lower jaw.  Other cool features include rounded pectoral fins, a broad head and a habit of resting with the tail curved instead of straight.  Wobbegongs are solitary and nocturnal normally but they will feed at any time of the day. During the day they like to spend time in coral reefs where their camouflage is the best and their flattened bodies let them maneuver und...