Gunung Ambang Nature Reserve

Gunung Ambang Nature Reserve is a preserved area in the north of the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. It is in a mountainous, little-explored region and contains a large number of indigenous plants and animals.

The Gunung Ambang Nature Reserve has an area of about 8,000 hectares and is situated close to the equator in the mountainous area to the east of Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park in the northern peninsula of Sulawesi. It ranges in altitude from 700 m (2,297 ft) to the summit of Mount Moyayat at 1,760 m (5,774 ft) andconsists mostly of valleys and steep-sided mountains. The lower parts are covered by evergreen rainforest with few palms and a canopy of up to 25 m (82 ft) with some emergent trees. In the higher parts the trees are not so tall and there is a dense understorey of palms and other vegetation. There are a number of marshes and small lakes and, particularly near the edge of the park, trees have been felled and there are clearings and the growth of secondary forest.

The reserve is best accessed from the village of Singsingon, which is an hour's drive from Kotamobagu. Visitors need a permit to visit the park and these can be obtained from the National Park Office in Kotamobagu.

Trees in the lowland rainforest area of the reserve include Calophyllum, Eugenia, Knema, Litsea, Sterculia insularis, Acalypha caturus and with the largest trees being Pometia pinnata, Endospermum peltatum and Canarium asperum. On higher slopes Eugenia sp., Lithocarpus celebicus, Lithocarpus bancanus, Calophyllum treubii, Calophyllum soulattri, Derris dalbergoides and Vaccinium sp. predominated with an understorey which included many palms.

The Gunung Ambang Nature Reserve is of particular interest to bird watchers and many species of bird endemic to Sulawesi can be seen here. One of the rarest is the cinnabar hawk owl, first described in 1999. Other nocturnal birds include the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi scops owl and the great eared nightjar.

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Wikipedia