We had been portaging canoes through ephemeral swamp channels for two days after crossing from oil palm plantations into virgin forest along the east coast of Sumatra. We used the skeletons of dead trees to gain footing in mud that pulled us down to our waists and the tropical heat caused the mud to dry on our skin and clothes, forming what looked like pieces of shattered pottery. Members of the team could be seen wiping sweat from their eyes with wet and muddy sleeves, and during the peak heat of the day, nobody said a word for hours.
We had been in Sumatra for over a month with the goal of finding and surveying Sunda gharial populations (Tomistoma schlegelii). It was the focus of a portion of my doctoral dissertation, and we were traveling into the most remote stretch of jungle we had visited to date. We were entering the core zone of Berbak National Park in Jambi province. An intact patch of black water peat swamp forest, where Sumatran tiger populations, two species of crocodilians, Asian sun bears and probably king cobras still thrived.
On our third day, we paddled our canoes into a billabong where thin swamp channels opened up into a large black pond. I was being guided by a local, Kasno and his son, Andi. We pushed the canoe to shore along the edge of the swamp to wait for the rest of our party to arrive, which included a young undergraduate student from Indonesia, Aisyah Arimbi, a local national park guide, Sismanto and an additional canoe captain, Imran.
As we waited, Kasno noticed a small fragment of bone along the shoreline. I watched with curiosity as he picked at other pieces before pulling up a single vertebra.
“Buaya (crocodile) mister” he said in Indonesian. I was unsure and pressed him a bit. “Mungkin babi (Maybe it’s a pig)” I said.
“Tidak! (no!)” he said, emphasizing he was certain.
I watched as he proceeded to wade into the swamp digging for more bones. He swept his hands through decaying leaf matter for a short time before lifting a piece of the mandible of a very large crocodilian. My eyes grew and I waded into the swamp telling him “you are right pak (sir)”, “you are right”!
We both swept our hands through mud and leaf matter, slowly wading deeper into the swamp. As we reached our waist, we each had collected osteoderms, more vertebrae and other random fragments. The animal had died and its whole skeleton seemed to be left in place, the way you see a fully preserved raptor skeleton formed into a single fossilized piece of rock.
We pushed deeper into the swamp, and by that time the rest of our party had arrived. They watched with eyes fixated on Kasno and I. With each step deeper, more bones emerged. We formed a collection on the bank by passing them from one person to the other and we pushed deeper.
Kasno and I stood up to our necks and began taking deep breaths and diving down to sift through the muddy bottom. The substrate reminded me of a thin pancake batter, hardly thick enough to stay in my hands under water. While diving down, I opened my eyes to see what was out in the water, but the visibility was so limited that I couldn’t see Kasno swimming just a few meters away.
I came up gasping for air without anything in my hands and watched as Kasno took another dive. We continued to dive, one after the other, occasionally finding leg bones and other things. I estimate that I reached a point where I was diving to roughly nine or ten feet down. After coming up for air and moving to a position to stand, I stood dripping and waiting for Kasno to come to the surface. Moments later he emerged with a massive crocodile skull, measuring 65 cm in length. The skull was stained brown from the tannins in the water, but otherwise fully intact.
We cheered and moved to the bank, dripping from head to toe, and investigated the skull. It was in fact a member of the rare species, the Sunda gharial, which we had been searching for. We strapped the skull to a tarp and carried it for another week through the jungle for the rest of our surveys. We delivered it to the national park headquarters where it proudly sits in their entry in Jambi, Sumatra.
Kasno (seen in the picture) truly deserves the bulk of the credit for the find, but we did work together that day in the swamp to make the discovery. Without local knowledge and expertise, these expeditions would never be successful. Kasno, Sismanto, Andi and others still help us with our work in Berbak until this day. Hopefully you enjoy the story behind this skull. I will try to post more info on our YouTube channel: https://m.youtube.com/@emptyforests
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