Malaysian Borneo · real-time 3D

Rimba Kita

“Our forest.” A walk from the top of a Bornean rainforest to its floor — and sixteen of the trees that live there.

Move your cursor to stir the canopy Scroll to descend

04 families · 08 genera · 16 species

A constellation of names.

Every species hangs from a genus, every genus from a family. Hover a star to trace its lineage; click it to open the record. The branches lean towards your cursor.

Hover a star

Trace a lineage

Family → genus → species

Sixteen portraits

Faces of the forest.

Scroll faster and the forest leans · hover to slow down · click to open

Di · pteron · karpos

Two wings, one spin.

Dipterocarpaceae is Greek for “two-winged fruit”. The wings are enlarged sepals; as a fruit falls they make it autorotate like a helicopter, slowing its descent so the wind can carry it a little further.

  • Click anywhere in the crown to release a fruit.
  • Move your cursor left or right — that is the wind.
  • Stretch the wings and watch the fall slow down.
Descent speed
Wind
Drift from 30 m
Landed within 10 m

Toy model, not measured data: a 5 g fruit with two 2 cm-wide wings; descent speed from a drag balance, so it scales with the square root of wing loading. Fruit drawn enlarged; playback 2×. A field study in Sepilok found 90% of dipterocarp seeds landed less than 10 m away. Sources:

The field guide

Sixteen trees, up close.

After dark

Night walk.

Your cursor is a torch. Sixteen specimens are hidden on the forest floor — light them up and click to collect them.

0 / 16 found

Test your eye

Name that family.

Eight photographs, four families. Pick the family each tree belongs to.

Your field notebook

Record what you saw.

Drop in a photo and a few notes. Entries are saved only in this browser — nothing is uploaded anywhere.