I tagged along with some staff members of Butterfly Lodge @ Oh' Farms who went on a guided tour to Kota Kinabalu (KK), Sabah. The fully-booked Jetstar flight touched down KK slightly behind schedule on 3 June. After a sumptuous chicken rice lunch and a rather long coach journey, we finally checked in at the Zen Garden Resort in the late afternoon.
There were many beautiful flowers outside our rooms.
The sun rises very much early here. I was awaken by the loud calls of roosters before 5 am. The morning cool highland breeze and fresh air swept away my fatique due to insufficient sleep. I explored the surrounding places and found a few green leaf beetles.
This is a kind of firefly beetle I guess.
After breakfast, we were on our way to Poring Hot Spring - less than an hour journey. Our tour guide Clement knew where to find the lantern bug which belongs to the genus Pyrops in the order Hempitera. The contrastingly beautiful colours and patterns on the wings enticed many of us queing up to take a picture of it - only pity was that they stayed rather high up on the tree trunk.
Instead of going to the Canopy Walk, I chose to explore the jungle trail. My first interesting sighting on the trail was this extremely striking red ginger flower growing at the soil level - a peculiar and interesting plant indeed which attracted a few passerby to take its picture.
It was a hot day, most butterflies I encountered were very alert and active - only a few Laycaenids allowed me to take some shots. This shot looks like a Pointed Line Blue (Ionolyce helicon) taking a short break on a grass blade.
There was a waterfall at the end of the jungle trail where I shot this Nacaduba species - quite a few of them puddling on the moist ground or rocks. (note : Seow TL has identified this a male N. calauria)
There were a few species of butterflies fluttering along the trail leading to the waterfall. One of them was this Purple Bush Brown (Mycalesis orseis) 
This is a Jamides species which was fluttering around some Torch Ginger flowers just outside the entrance gate of Poring Hot Spring.
The upperside of this Blue is whitish without any metallic blue markings, she finally found a ideal spot to lay her egg. 
In my next post, I will feature the critters I found at Kinabalu Park, Sapi Island and the Mari Mari Cultural Village.
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