Fig Trees: Borneo’s Strangler Fig Trees

A young rhinoceros hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros) tosses up a fig from a strangler fig tree (Ficus dubia) before swallowing it. Lowland rain forest of Gunung Palung National Park, Borneo.
A strangler fig tree with roots wrapped around its host tree in a canopy level view in the rain forest of Borneo.
Cross section of a fig from the Strangler Fig (Ficus stupenda1) Gunung Palung National Park, Indonesia.
A red-crowned barbet (Megalaima rafflesii) eats a strangler fig
Researcher Cheryl Knott climbs a rope into a giant canopy tree with stranger fig tree roots growing down its side. Gunung Palung National Park, Borneo, Indonesia.
Rhinoceros Hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros) in flight. Gunung Palung N.P., Borneo, Indonesia.
Long-tailed macaque (Macaca fasicularis) in a Strangler fig tree (Ficus sp.) ladened with ripe figs on which macaques feed.
Moss-covered roots of the Strangler fig tree (Ficus caulocarpa), which surround its host in what appears to be scaffolding.
A Bornean White-bearded Gibbon (Hylobates albibarbis) with young clinging to her as she swings through the rai n forest canopy in search of strangler figs to eat. Gunung Palung National Park, Borneo, Indonesia.
Lowland rain forest with morning mist in Gunung Palung National Park, Borneo, taken from high in the canopy.
A Polyrhachis ant discards a morsel of strangler fig pulp from its nest after extracting the seeds to eat later.
A Polyrhacis ant on a strangler fig leaf.
A butterfly sips juice from a fig.
Seed of the Bornean ironwood tree shown dwarfing the size of the barely visible seed of a strangler fig tree.
Root tips of a Giant strangler fig tree (Ficus stupenda) creep down and traverse the trunk of a host tree. Though never sapping it of nutrients, it will stifle the host’s growth as the roots meet and fuse together.
Seedling of the Giant strangler fig tree (Ficus stupenda) sprouts on the moss and mulch covered floor of the rain forest.
A male fighting wasp, also an opportunist, emerges from a fig. His enlarged mandibles may have served him inside in a battle over mates, but-winner or los er-he will take only a step or two before he dies.
A young female gravid wasp covered with pollen, wriggles through a tunnel opened by a male that has hatched before her in a strangler fig
A female gravid wasp after having mated in a strangler fig and emerged, flies off to another fig guided by chemical attractions to begin the life cycle anew.
This female gravid wasp will use her long ovipositor to lay her eggs without ever entering or pollinating the fig.