‘Splash in the water’ turns out to be ‘species of mystery’ in Malaysia. See it
As darkness settled over a nature reserve of Malaysia, a “rare” creature emerged and moved along the riverbank. A nearby trail camera captured its presence in the country’s first such sighting “in over a decade.”
But no one realized the significance of the photos — until now.
Conservationists and forestry officials set up trail cameras at Tangkulap Forest Reserve last year as part of a project to survey flat-headed cats, an endangered species of wildcats, the organization Panthera said in a July 1 blog post.
During the survey, the trail cameras photographed whatever animals wandered past. Later, researchers sifted through these images and found some “unidentified otter photos,” which they labeled “by-catch” and put in the “general archives,” Thye Lim, Panthera’s Malaysia project coordinator, told McClatchy News.
The otter photos sat around, largely untouched, until earlier this year, when Panthera researchers revisited the data as part of a “collaboration with the Malaysian Otter Network,” Lim said.
To their surprise and excitement, the otter experts noticed a set of photos from February 2024 showing a Eurasian otter — the country’s first sighting of the species in 11 years, the organization told McClatchy News via email.
Eurasian otters are widespread from Asia to Europe, but “its presence in Southeast Asia is largely unknown and extremely rare, and it’s considered highly endangered” in Malaysia, Panthera said.
“The Eurasian otter has long been a species of mystery in Sabah,” Lim said.
Photos show the otter moving along a riverbank at night.
Panthera praised the Eurasian otter sighting, saying its “splash in the water has made waves in the conservation world.”
“It is exciting to hear about this recent discovery of the Eurasian otter in Sabah,” Mohd Azlan Jayasilan bin Abdul Gulam Azad, a specialist with Malaysian Otter Network, said in the blog post. “Studying otters is challenging and often underrepresented in many natural history-related research efforts in Malaysia.”
“This rare discovery marks a historic moment,” Panthera wrote in a July 2 Facebook post.
Tangkulap Forest Reserve is now “the only location in Malaysia where all four of the country’s otter species coexist,” Panthera said. Still, “pollution, habitat fragmentation and overfishing remain significant threats to their survival.”
Tangkulap Forest Reserve is in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo, which is shared between Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.
This story was originally published July 11, 2025 at 10:42 AM with the headline "‘Splash in the water’ turns out to be ‘species of mystery’ in Malaysia. See it."
