Qualla: Gomantong Caves https://qualla.com/gomantong-caves en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:37 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/8/g/z/gomantong-caves-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Gomantong Caves https://qualla.com/gomantong-caves Gomantong Caves: Introduction https://qualla.com/gomantong-caves/ Photo credit Col Ford and Natasha de Vere from living in Wales, CC BY 2.0. Every evening, just before dark, the mouth of Gomantong Hill exhales. A quarter-million wrinkle-lipped free-tailed bats spiral upward from the limestone interior in a churning column, while bat hawks circle the periphery, picking off stragglers with surgical precision. Below, on the cave floor, cockroaches carpet the guano in such density that the ground itself appears to move. This is Gomantong -- the largest limestone outcrop in the Lower Kinabatangan floodplain of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, and one of the most alive places on Earth, in every sense of the word.

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Image: Col Ford and Natasha de Vere from living in Wales | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/8/g/z/gomantong-caves-wp/w8gz-gomantong-caves-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Gomantong Caves: Saliva and Gold https://qualla.com/gomantong-caves/ Photo credit Tim Denholm, CC BY 4.0. The caves have drawn human attention for at least 1,500 years, and the currency has always been the same: bird spit. Since at least AD 500, traders have harvested the nests of swiftlets who build their homes from threads of hardened saliva, cemented to the cave ceilings in the th...

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Image: Tim Denholm | CC BY 4.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/8/g/z/gomantong-caves-wp/w8gz-gomantong-caves-saliva-and-gold.mp3 0:06 2 full Gomantong Caves: The Black Cave and the White https://qualla.com/gomantong-caves/ Photo credit Laura from Geneva, Switzerland, CC BY 2.0. Gomantong's cave system divides into two distinct chambers, stacked one above the other. Simud Hitam -- the Black Cave -- is the more accessible of the two, reached by a wooden boardwalk that circuits the interior just minutes from the entrance building. Its name refers not to th...

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Image: Laura from Geneva, Switzerland | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/8/g/z/gomantong-caves-wp/w8gz-gomantong-caves-the-black-cave-and-the-white.mp3 0:06 3 full Gomantong Caves: A Hill That Breathes https://qualla.com/gomantong-caves/ Photo credit Mike Prince from Bangalore, India, CC BY 2.0. Gomantong Hill is not merely a geological formation; it functions as a living system. The Gomantong Forest Reserve that surrounds it protects orangutans in the canopy and harbors the only known population of Plectostoma mirabile, an endangered land snail found nowhere else. Outsi...

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Image: Mike Prince from Bangalore, India | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/8/g/z/gomantong-caves-wp/w8gz-gomantong-caves-a-hill-that-breathes.mp3 0:06 4 full Gomantong Caves: Tradition Under Protection https://qualla.com/gomantong-caves/ Photo credit Josefito123, CC BY-SA 4.0. Nest harvesting at Gomantong is not a free-for-all. The Wildlife Conservation Enactment of 1997 brought the practice under strict legal control, with heavy fines for unlicensed collectors. Government-issued permits go to specific communities with historical ties to the caves, and...

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Image: Josefito123 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/8/g/z/gomantong-caves-wp/w8gz-gomantong-caves-tradition-under-protection.mp3 0:06 5 full