Colugo – hang in there!
28th March 2014 – Friday
We opted to take her back and try our luck.
My sister said she would be the best person to take care of them. She looked after a civet-cat before and the animal live, thrives and rehabilitated. Compare to me that looked after 3 colugos and only 1 made it. Her success rate 100% and mine 33%. The colugo will have 100% chance if they live with her and only 33% chance if they live with me. So ok.. lah, argument aside.. I believe she will best person anyway… We moved them to her place.
My job is to find medicine that would suit mama colugo and food plants for them. I think solcoceryl made from calves blood, would be the best medicine to close her would quickly. We drove all the way to padang matsirat only to find the pharmacy is closed. Duh…! Did not remember it was Friday. So mama colugo will have to wait till tomorrow.
Shakira mention that she notice colugos always hangout around one of the gluta aptera family and ate the fruits. I would not dare come near any of these plants following my incident of getting itchy for 2 weeks from touching its fruits. Mind you at the time I did not know it was called Rengas.
Easiest place for us at the moment is pasar malam. We acquired some mango and honey dew melon. Along the way we pluck some young tamarin leaves, muyu leaves, salam leaves and jambu leaves for them.
29 March 2014 – Saturday
In the morning, I received a reply from Bee Choo and Norman Lim with a list of plants the colugo feeds on.
List of species and family names of trees on which Cynocephalus variegatus has personally been observed to feed from.
Scientific name Family Remarks
Artocarpus kemando Moraceae Native tree, fed on mature leaves
Campnosperma auriculatum Anacardiaceae Native tree, fed on young leaves
Peltophorum pterocarpus Leguminosae Native tree, fed on young leaves
Rhodamnia cinerea Myrtaceae Native tree, fed on young leaves
Syzygium lineatum Myrtaceae Native tree, fed on young leaves
Syzygium grande Myrtaceae Native tree, fed on young leaves
Saraca thaipingensis Leguminosae Non-native tree, fed on young leaves and flower buds
More food source for them.
I visited them in the evening to see their progress. She looks much better. She can hang on to the piece of wood offered and can moved to the coconut trunk provided in the cage.
