Mount Kinabalu (Dusun: Gayo Ngaran or Nulu Nabalu, ) is the highest mountain in Malaysia and Maritime Southeast Asia, located on the island of Borneo in Sabah. With a height of , it is the third-highest peak of an island on Earth, the 28th-highest peak in Southeast Asia, and 20th-most-prominent mountain in the world. The mountain is located in Ranau district, West Coast Division of Sabah, Malaysia. It is protected as Kinabalu Park, a World Heritage Site.
In 1997, a re-survey using satellite technology was conducted. It established Mount Kinabalu had a summit (known as Low's Peak) height of above sea level, some less than the hitherto-published figure of .Phillipps, A. & F. Liew 2000. Globetrotter Visitor's Guide – Kinabalu Park. New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd.
The mountain and its surroundings have high biodiversity, with 5,000 to 6,000 species of plants, 326 species of birds, and over 100 mammalian species identified. Among this rich collection of wildlife are famous species such as the Rafflesia plants and orangutans.
Low's Peak can be climbed by a person in good physical condition without mountaineering equipment on the main route. However, climbers must be accompanied by accredited guides at all times due to national park regulations and the risk of experiencing altitude sickness.
Geology Mount Kinabalu is a massive pluton formed from granodiorite that intruded into sedimentary and ultrabasic rocks, and forms the central part, or core, of the Kinabalu massif. The granodiorite is intrusive into strongly folded strata, probably of Eocene to Miocene age, and associated ultrabasic and basic igneous rocks. It was pushed up from the Earth's crust as molten rock millions of years ago. In geological terms, it is a very young mountain, as the granodiorite cooled and hardened only about 10 million years ago.
The present landform is considered to be a mid-Pliocene peneplain, arched and deeply dissected, through which the Kinabalu granodiorite body has risen in isostatic adjustment. It is still gaining roughly of height per year.
During the Pleistocene Epoch of about 100,000 years ago, the mountain was covered by sheets of ice and glaciers. As these glaciers flowed down its slopes, they scoured the surface of Mount Kinabalu in the process and creating the Low's Gully (named after Hugh Low) on its north side. Its granitic composition and the glacial formative processes are readily apparent when viewing its craggy, rocky peaks.
IUGS geological heritage site Because it is "one of the youngest granitic intrusions exposed on Earth and the site of spectacular tropical glacial landscapes", the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) included the Mount Kinabalu Neogene granite in its assemblage of 100 geological heritage sites around the world in a listing published in October 2022. The organisation defines an IUGS Geological Heritage Site as "a key place with geological elements and/or processes of international scientific relevance, used as a reference, and/or with a substantial contribution to the development of geological sciences through history."
Climate
The climate of the mountain varies from humid tropical at its base to alpine at its summit.Beaman, J.H., Beaman, R.S. (1990). Diversity and distribution patterns in the flora of Mount Kinabalu. In: Baas, P., Kalkman, K., Geesink, R. (eds) The Plant Diversity of Malesia. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2107-8_14 The temperature at the summit of Mount Kinabalu ranges from from December to January, and from June to September. Depending on how cold the mountain remains from December to January, there are a few occasions where frost and ice appear at the summit. Snow has been recorded three times in this area, in 1975, 1993, and 2022.
Biology Mount Kinabalu, along with other upland areas of the Crocker Mountains, is known worldwide for its biodiversity with plants of Himalayan, Australasian, and Indomalayan origin. A recent botanical survey of the mountain estimated a staggering 5,000 to 6,000 plant species (excluding mosses and liverwort but including ferns) thrive upon the mountain.Parris, By. S., R. S. Beaman, and J. H. Beaman. 1992. The Plants of Mount Kinabalu: 1. Ferns and Fern Allies. Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens. 165 pp + 5 pl.Wood, J. J., J. H. Beaman, and R. S. Beaman. 1993. The Plants of Mount Kinabalu. 2. Orchids. Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens. xii + 411 pp + 84 pl.Beaman, J. H., and R. S. Beaman. 1998. The Plants of Mount Kinabalu. 3. Gymnosperms and Non-Orchid Monocotyledons. Kota Kinabalu: Natural History Publications (Borneo) Sdn. Bhd.; Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens. xii + 220 pp + 25 pl.Beaman, J. H., C. Anderson, and R. S. Beaman. 2001. The plants of Mount Kinabalu. 4: Dicotyledon families Acanthaceae to Lythraceae. xiv + 570 pp + 45 pl. Kota Kinabalu: Natural History Publications (Borneo) Sdn. Bhd.; Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens.Beaman, J. H., and C. Anderson. 2004. The plants of Mount Kinabalu. 5: Dicotyledon families Magnoliaceae to Winteraceae. xiv + 609 pp + 40 pl. Kota Kinabalu: Natural History Publications (Borneo) Sdn. Bhd.; Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens. It is therefore one of the world's most important biological sites. A reason for its rich diversity and endemisms is that its extreme height provides refuge to cold-adapted species during interglacials.Miguel Camacho-Sanchez, Irene Quintanilla, Melissa T. R. Hawkins, Fred Y. Y. Tuh, Konstans Wells, Jesus E. Maldonado and Jennifer A. Leonard. 2018. "Interglacial refugia on tropical mountains: novel insights from the summit rat (Rattus baluensis), a Borneo mountain endemic". Diversity and Distributions, 24: 1252–1266. https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12761
In 2015, a major Malaysian–Dutch study showed that the unique flora, fauna, and fungi on the mountain summit are younger than the mountain itself, and have evolved from both local and distant montane ancestors.
Flora The flora of the mountain varies with elevation and geology. Lowland forest extends up to about elevation, and consists of two main types, based on the dominant tree species – mixed dipterocarp forest and mixed Casuarina forest. Lowland forests generally have a closed canopy , along with an understory stratum of lower trees, and an emergent stratum of taller trees which extend above the canopy.van der Ent, A., Erskine, P., Mulligan, D., Repin, R., & Karim, R. (2016). Vegetation on ultramafic edaphic “islands” in Kinabalu Park (Sabah, Malaysia) in relation to soil chemistry and elevation. Plant and Soil, 403(1/2), 77–101. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43872634
Montane rain forest, also known as cloud forest, extends from approximately . Montane forest typically has a closed canopy with single stratum, and the canopy height generally decreases with elevation. Typical trees include species of the plant families Fagaceae and Lauraceae, with conifers increasingly abundant at higher elevations. The lower montane forests have a high diversity of orchid and fern species. Carnivorous plants, including species of Nepenthes, Drosera, and Utricularia, are most diverse between elevation, in areas with high rainfall and a stunted, open tree canopy. The montane forests are interspersed with areas of graminoid scrub, generally associated with hypermagnesic cambisol soils.
Sub-alpine scrub extends from . It includes short trees and shrubs such the conifer Dacrydium gibbsiae, Leptospermum recurvum, and species from the plant families Myrtaceae and Ericaceae, along with dwarf shrubs, mosses, lichens, liverworts, and ferns. Orchids are abundant and diverse in subalpine and alpine plant communities, except at the highest summits. Above 3,500 meters, conditions are too extreme for trees, and above 3,700 meters, persistent ground frost limits plants to the hardiest grasses, sedges, and dwarf shrubs, including Leptospermum recurvatum and Rhododendron ericoides, which grow in crevices and other sheltered areas on the rocky summits.Wikramanayake, Eric. Kinabalu Montane Alpine Meadows. One Earth. Accessed 5 March 2023.
The plants of Mount Kinabalu have high levels of biodiversity and endemism (i.e. species which are found only within Kinabalu Park and are not found anywhere else in the world). Orchids are the best-known example, with 866 species in 134 genera, including species of Bulbophyllum, Dendrobium, Coelogyne, Liparis, and Calanthe, and some of the highly valued Paphiopedilum slipper orchids. There are also over 600 species of ferns (more than the whole of Africa's 500 species), of which 50 are found nowhere else. Mount Kinabalu has the richest collection in the world of Nepenthes pitcher plants (five of the thirteen are found nowhere else on earth), some of which reach spectacular proportions (the largest-pitchered in the world being the endemic Nepenthes rajah).Kurata, S. 1976. Nepenthes of Mount Kinabalu. Sabah National Parks Publications No. 2, Sabah National Parks Trustees, Kota Kinabalu. The parasitic Rafflesia plant, which has the largest single flower in the world, is also found in Kinabalu (particularly Rafflesia keithii whose flower grows to in diameter), though blooms of the flower are rare and difficult to find. Meanwhile, another Rafflesia species, Rafflesia tengku-adlinii, can be found on the neighbouring Mount Trus Madi and the nearby Maliau Basin.
Mount Kinabalu's above-average biodiversity in plant life is due to a combination of several unique factors: its setting in one of the richest plant regions of the world (the tropical biogeographical region known as western Malesia which comprises the island of Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and the island of Borneo), the fact that the mountain covers a wide climatic range from near sea level to freezing ground conditions near the summit, the jagged terrain and diversity of rocks and soils, the high levels of rainfall (averaging about a year at park headquarters), and the climatic instability caused by periods of glaciation and catastrophic droughts which result in evolution and speciation. This diversity is greatest in the lowland regions (consisting of lowland dipterocarp forests, so called because the tree family Dipterocarpaceae are dominant). However, most of Kinabalu's endemic species are found in the mountain forests, particularly on ultramafic soils.
The ultramafic rocks which make up parts of the mountain create soils rich in certain metallic elements (nickel, cobalt, chromium, and manganese), high cation imbalances (high Mg:Ca molar quotients), and deficiencies of some nutrients including potassium and phosphorus. These soil conditions affect the plant life, and plant communities on ultramafic soils show lower stature and lower biomass, higher levels of endemism, and a distinct species composition compared to plant communities at similar elevations elsewhere on the mountain.
Fauna
The variety of plant life is also habitat for a great variety of birds and mammals.Camacho-Sanchez M, Hawkins MTR, Tuh Yit Yu F, Maldonado JE, Leonard JA. 2019. Endemism and diversity of small mammals along two neighboring Bornean mountains. PeerJ 7:e7858 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7858 There are some 326 species of birds in Kinabalu Park, including the spectacular rhinoceros hornbill, mountain serpent-eagle, Dulit frogmouth, eyebrowed jungle flycatcher, and bare-headed laughingthrush. Twenty-four birds are mainly found on the mountain. Four species – the Borneo thrush (Turdus poliocephalus seebohmi), mountain blackeye (Zosterops emiliae), friendly bush warbler (Locustella accentor), and aberrant bush warbler (Horornis flavolivaceus) – are native to the subalpine zone.Smythies, B. E. The Birds of Mt Kinabalu and Their Zoogeographical Relationships. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 161, no. 982 (1964): 75–80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/75416.