Ask iNaturalist what Sang Nila Utama saw at the southern tip of Malaya
Legend has it that, in 1299, the Prince of Palembang saw a lion when he arrived at a place surrounded by the sea¹. He named this island Lion City².
Had he imagined the lion after braving stormy weather on a ship and arriving in 90°F (32°C) tropical heat? Quite possibly.
Had his crew subconsciously said it’s a lion because of its symbolic values? Very likely.
Had iNaturalist existed back then, would this lion sighting be disputed by locals and ecologists? Most definitely!
iNaturalist 101 — The Science of Deduction
On a trip to Grenada, Jon and I thought we saw a Black Heron.
As we uploaded our mysterious bird observation, we instantly learned from iNaturalist’s database that:
- No Black Herons have ever been sighted on the island;
- There are 11 possible species of typical herons and egrets;
- Of the 11 species, there are 4 egrets and 2 night herons. The Green, Straited, and Tricolored Herons seem too colorful. We know the Great Blue Heron by heart so it has to be a Little Blue Heron.
Even though our bird was in the shade and didn’t look quite blue, our sighting became “Research Grade” after three confirmations on iNaturalist.
iNaturalist is a crowdsourced web tool for curious nature lovers (in any part of the world).
It’s (more than) elementary
The most intelligent part of iNaturalist isn’t the AI’s ability to prompt amateur naturalists like us with probable suggestions, it is the part where anyone could challenge our sightings or tell us why we could be wrong.
iNaturalist users range from casual Observers (who upload 1–100 sightings, in a month) to committed Identifiers (who identify 1–100 sightings, in a day). The latter tend to monitor a certain genus or geographical area.
Rudyard Wallen is one fanatic Identifier who agrees/disagrees with 50–100 sightings during dinner (his idea of telly). He watches over projects like Birds of San Francisco and Birds of Golden Gate Park.
Over time, he answered countless questions, educated me about wasp stings, and got involved in my most disputed feather sighting.
iNaturalist is an online community that connects people with nature (as well as one another).
The case of the Great Slaty Woodpecker
In August 2023, Jon and I went deep into the Lion City (Singapore) searching for the Great Slaty Woodpecker. It is the largest woodpecker in the world and is vulnerable to extinction.
We had not anticipated the rain and how hungry we would be afterward. The sun was about to set from the back of the yellow flame trees when the sky started clearing.
At that crucial moment, a family of four showed up.
Mother and son pointed out the pterodactyl-like bird’s call! It didn’t sound like the roar of a dinosaur. Instead, it sounded like a gentle whistle. It was cute.
With the birding skills and knowledge we acquired in San Francisco, we followed the calls and spotted the Great Slaty Woodpecker from a distance! We channeled Rudy and made sure everyone saw the woodpecker.
According to the Nature Society’s (Singapore) Bird Group, the Great Slaty Woodpecker was last sighted in 2018, 1905, and 1899. The century of missing data is likely due to a lack of community science activities.
iNaturalist is a digital journal that documents life and existence.
Now, what did Sang Nila Utama see 725 years ago?
Here’s an excerpt from the Malay Annals (Sejarah Melayu):
“There they saw an animal extremely swift and beautiful, its body of a red colour, its head black and its breast white, extremely agile, and of great strength, and its size a little larger than a he-goat. When it saw a great many people, it went towards the inland and disappeared. Sang Nila Utama enquired what animal was this, but none could tell him, till he enquired of Damang Lebar Dawn, who informed him that in the histories of ancient time, the singha or lion was described in the same manner as this animal appeared.”
Let’s revisit iNaturalist 101…
- No wild lions have ever been sighted in (and around) Singapore;
- There are 12 possible species in the cat family;
- Of the 12 species, 8 are spotted; the tiger is striped and the flat-headed cat seems too small. The bay cat is solely found in Borneo hence, it’s the Asian golden cat.
Digging deeper into Taxonomy, we learned that the Northern Asian golden cats are mostly sighted in Thailand and northwards.
CONCLUSION: I think Sang Nila Utama saw a Malayan golden cat*.
Had iNaturalist existed back then, locals would have disputed the lion and ecologists could have confirmed a rare sighting of this elusive species. Rather than Lion City, Singapore might have been called Golden Cat City!
iNaturalist fuels the storyteller’s imagination.
*Epilogue
I went down the rabbit hole to investigate the list of extinct Southeast Asian animals (on Wikipedia). None of the six felines fit the description. The Ussuri dhole, a wild dog, caught my attention and got me scrolling through subspecies of dhole — a “cat-like” cross between gray wolf and red fox.
But then I arrived at a “Malaysia 1987 Protected Animals” stamp set.
The 1987 illustration of the Malayan golden cat perfectly fits.