Orangutan encounter in Borneo’s peat swamp forest

ByKathleen Morf Vandervust

After a hot and sleepless night under the tin roof of our guesthouse in BaunBango, it is time to make our way down to the pier to embark ontoSurahmansyah’s boat. The “official” forest ranger never arrived andSurahmansyah has offered to be our guide to the park today. He proudly pointsto his T-shirt saying that he has been trained by the WWF. Jacques and I are inCentral Kalimantan and on our way to Sebangau.

Deep-sea images reveal colorful life off Indonesia

Scientistsusing cutting-edge technology to explore waters off Indonesia were wowed bycolorful and diverse images of marine life on the ocean floor - includingplate-sized sea spiders and flower-like sponges that appear to be carnivorous.

They predicted Thursday that as many as 40 new plant and animal species mayhave been discovered during the three-week expedition that ended Aug. 14.

More than 100 hours of video and 100,000 photographs, captured using a roboticvehicle with high-definition cameras, were piped to shore in real-time bysatellite and high-speed Internet.