Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
water buffalo, a wild ox called the banteng, and another called the gaur, also known as the
seladang or Indian bison.
Other nuggets on Vietnamese rarities emerged with a bit more detective work. I read, for
example, of a wild animal shipped in 1937 from Saigon to the Vincennes Zoo in Paris that
turned out to be not the calf of a gaur, as assumed, but something entirely new to Western
science. As a result, the regal-looking kouprey, a gray ox that roamed in small herds across
the savannas and woodlands of Indochina, was first described. Larger than Brahma bulls, at
900 kilograms the males carried such an impressive rack that they could be called the Cam-
bodian longhorn. Their magnificent horns often sported a ring of abraded splinters known as
a “crown of thorns,” the result of the bulls' frequent digging into the earth with their pointed
headgear. The reason for this behavior is unclear, but it might have been a form of dominance
display. The captive kouprey in Vincennes never had the chance to show off its imposing
profile, though. It lived for only three years before starving to death during the German oc-
cupation of France in World War II.
Another discovery was a monograph published in 1957 by biologist Charles H. Wharton,
who led an expedition to Cambodia and became the first to film wild koupreys. His planned
decadelong field study ended prematurely when the war of independence against the French
broke out in the early 1950s. What we know about this creature in the wild comes largely
from Wharton. For decades, conservationists ranked the kouprey among the thirty rarest
mammals in the world. Although few people read Wharton's monograph, many saw his re-
markable 1957 film about his Cambodian journeys. A wildlife classic, the prosaically titled
ForestCattleSurveyExpeditiontoSoutheastAsia
is a tour de force among nature document-
aries. The film describes the eastern plains of Cambodia as Asia's Serengeti, harboring high
densities of large mammals. Some of the scenes are priceless: Wharton, bare-chested at the
wheel of a Willys Jeep bouncing through malarial jungles; sharpfeatured guides using ci-
garette smoke to test the wind while tracking big game; and the images of large mammals
Wharton captured for posterity on film—gaurs, bantengs, wild water buffalo, Eld's deer, and
koupreys.
All of these pieces of biological history replayed in my mind during the two-hour flight
from Bangkok to Hanoi. I returned to reality when, with a sharp bounce, our plane hit the
tarmac. Minutes later, we were inside the terminal and soon we were through customs. A
young man sporting a Beatles-like mop of hair held up a sign with our names on it. Although
his attire suggested Asian disco—a flashy safari suit and shiny black shoes with platform
heels—he was our chaperone and translator, Mr. Tam, now smiling broadly and waving.
“Welcome to Vietnam,” he offered in excellent English.
