The Gunung Leuser mountain range were once part
of Gondwanaland, the southerly supercontinent
that existed approximately 300 million years ago
vegetation. Everything my eyes could
absorb reminded me of Jurassic Park,
a terrain long gone from the face of
the earth, except for this one. The
ancient rocks of these mountains
were once part of Gondwanaland, the
southerly supercontinent that existed
approximately 300 million years ago.
A descendant of the
dinosaur age
And it was here, on the sixth day, that
I spotted “her”. It was the porter,
Sulaiman who found the moth, sitting
on the grassy ground at one side of
our trail at Camp Bipak Batu. She
was huge, perhaps 15cm across, and
I instantly recognised her ancient
features – exactly similar venations
on her forewings and hindwings, a
characteristic called Homoneura, a
primitive feature of the Lepidoptera
butterflies and moths.
A direct descendent of the early
Homoneura moths, she has been
passing on her peculiar and primitive
features for perhaps the past 70
million years, as old as the dinosaursINDONESIA
GUNUNG
PUCUK
ANGKASAN
GUNUNG
LEUSER
BERASTAGI
GUNUNG LEUSER
NATIONAL PARK
GUNUNG
LEUSER