From Reptile Breeding in Bali to the Discovery of Varanus macraei

The story of Duncan Malcolm MacRae, founder of Rimba Reptile Park in Bali, and his role in bringing the blue-spotted tree monitor (Varanus macraei) to the attention of science.

Reptiles have been a fascination of mine for much of my life. What began as a personal interest eventually developed into a business, an adventure, and ultimately a long-term commitment to breeding and conserving some of the world’s rarest reptiles. My journey has taken me from establishing one of Bali’s first licensed reptile breeding operations, to creating Rimba Reptile Park, exploring remote Indonesian islands, and becoming involved in the discovery of a species previously unknown to science.

Today, more than three decades after I first established my breeding farm in Bali, reptiles remain an important part of my life. However, my focus has gradually evolved. What began primarily as a commercial breeding enterprise has increasingly become centred on conservation, particularly the establishment of sustainable ex situ populations of endangered species. This is the story of that journey.

Establishing a Reptile Breeding Farm in Bali

In the early 1990s, I received government approval and the necessary permits to establish a reptile breeding farm in Bali, Indonesia. At the time, this was something quite unusual. The established reptile breeders and exporters in Indonesia were predominantly based around Jakarta, and there was very little comparable activity taking place in Bali.

I established a five-hectare breeding farm in Northwest Bali, far away from the busy tourist areas in the south of the island. It was an ideal location: quiet, spacious and surrounded by the tropical environment of rural Bali.

In the beginning, I concentrated primarily on Indonesian monitor lizards and pythons, although as the operation grew, I gradually expanded the collection to include reptile species from other parts of the world.

The breeding programme became very successful. Over the years, we were able to breed significant numbers of reptiles and export many valuable shipments to the United States, Europe, Japan and Taiwan. The animals went to specialist hobbyists, private keepers and zoological institutions around the world.

For me, however, the fascination was always about more than simply exporting reptiles. I loved learning about the animals themselves — their behaviour, reproduction and the very different conditions required to successfully breed each species. That curiosity would eventually lead me much further than I could ever have imagined.

Rimba Reptile Park, Bali

Once the breeding farm was established and operating successfully, I began thinking about my next project. I wanted to create somewhere in Bali where people could experience reptiles in an entirely different way.

In 1996, PT Rimba Reptil — known internationally simply as Rimba, or the Bali Reptile Park — opened its doors to the public. Situated directly next to the Bali Bird Park, the park quickly became an attraction for both international tourists and local visitors.

My vision was to create something that felt less like a conventional zoo and more like stepping into a scene from an Indiana Jones movie. Set amongst lush tropical gardens, the park was designed to resemble the remains of an ancient civilisation slowly being reclaimed by the jungle. Stone structures and ruins disappeared into dense vegetation, creating an atmosphere of exploration and discovery.

One of the most memorable features was an underground cave system where visitors could walk through and observe an extraordinary collection of reptiles from Indonesia and around the world. Above the caves was a large enclosure housing a pair of Indonesia’s most famous reptiles — the legendary Komodo dragons.

We also created an open-air, walk-in reptarium where visitors could have much closer encounters with selected socialised animals. People could meet and sometimes handle reptiles, take photographs and speak directly with our staff to learn more about the animals.

I wanted the experience to replace fear with fascination. Reptiles are often misunderstood, and one of the purposes of the park was to give people the opportunity to see these remarkable animals at close range and understand them better. But perhaps the most extraordinary chapter of my life with reptiles was still to come.

The Blue-Spotted Tree Monitor of Batanta Island

In the year 2000, I began hearing some intriguing rumours through local contacts in Indonesia. There were stories of a large, bright blue lizard living on Batanta, an island off the western coast of West Papua. The reports immediately caught my attention. A large blue lizard? I had to see it for myself.

My curiosity got the better of me, and before long I was on my way to West Papua. I flew to Sorong and from there continued by boat to Batanta Island.

Soon after arriving, I began speaking with local people about the animal I had heard described. To my amazement, several people knew exactly what I was talking about. They described a striking blue arboreal lizard that they would occasionally see climbing on the trunks and branches of trees.

We assembled a small group of local people who knew the forest and the areas where the lizards had previously been seen, and we set off into the jungles of Batanta. It didn’t take long. Suddenly, one of the local men pointed towards the trees. There it was. A brilliant denim-blue tree monitor. I was absolutely flabbergasted.

The animal clearly reminded me of the well-known green tree monitor, Varanus prasinus, but the intense blue colouration was unlike anything I had ever seen. For a moment, I genuinely struggled to make sense of what I was looking at. I remember wondering whether what I was seeing could possibly be real. But it was very real.

Standing in the jungle on Batanta Island, I was looking at an extraordinary blue tree monitor that, as far as I knew, had never been formally described by science. Over the following days, with the assistance of local people, we managed to collect four specimens, which I brought back to Bali.

I photographed the animals extensively and contacted the renowned German herpetologist Wolfgang Böhme, curator of herpetology at Bonn’s Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig and one of the world’s foremost authorities on monitor lizard taxonomy, having personally described a dozen new Varanus species over his career. I remember receiving a reply very quickly. He was extremely excited.

Shortly afterwards, Professor Böhme came to Bali to examine the animals himself. After seeing them firsthand, he believed we were dealing not simply with an unusual colour variation of another tree monitor, but with a distinct species.

The animals were subsequently studied scientifically and, in 2001, the species was formally described by Wolfgang Böhme and Hans-Werner Jacobs and named Varanus macraei — commonly known today as the blue-spotted tree monitor, or blue tree monitor.

Having a species named after me remains one of the greatest honours of my life. It is difficult to describe the feeling of knowing that an animal so spectacular had existed for countless generations in the forests of a remote Indonesian island, known to the local people but still formally unknown to science — and that through a combination of curiosity, local knowledge and a sense of adventure, I had played a part in bringing it to the attention of the scientific world.

For someone who had spent so much of his life fascinated by reptiles, it was an extraordinary moment.

Read more on Varanus macraei on Wikipedia.

That same curiosity about the natural world eventually led me well beyond reptiles — into ethnobotany and traditional plant medicine, and ultimately to founding Motark Enterprise, a botanical sciences company. You can read the full story on my About page.

Sources

• Bali Reptile Park (official website). Singapadu, Gianyar, Bali, Indonesia.
• Böhme, W.; Jacobs, H.J. (2001). “Varanus macraei sp. n., eine neue Waranart der V. prasinus-Gruppe aus West Irian, Indonesien”. Herpetofauna 23 (133): 5–10. (in German).