Bushmeat is still a common commodity in Laos. Such unusual goods sometimes can be found at the most ordinary markets and roadside stalls.
The chef of a street restaurant in Laos showed me this chopped monitor lizard explaining that a customer had ordered to cook this. An image taken with a mobile
The monitor lizard is common in Southeast Asia although it seems strange to me that someone consumes these carrion-eaters. But recently, I spotted rarer types of bushmeat at a market in Xepon.
Xepon is a tiny town, located in mountainous Laos, with the only asphalted street. It has a 24h convenience store and two banks but there is also a lot of the village in Xepon; for example, an abundance of mongrels scurrying on the streets.
This is how most buildings of the Xepon market look like: flimsy sheds filled with cheap Chinese factory goods.
The interior of the main market building is more monumental. They sell vegetables and fruits there as well as all varieties of meat so the smell is appropriate there. Mice aren't uncommon there too.
I used to visit the place to buy mangoes and melons, and, one day, I came across something unusual:
This is, most probably, a black giant squirrel, Ratufa bicolor (wiki).
I couldn't ask who and why might buy it since I don't speak Lao but the Internet confirmed my guess: Lao people eat not only monitor lizards but squirrels either.
I saw another species, a rarer one. This was a flying squirrel and its babies:
The trader showed me what this beast had been once:
I can imagine how beautiful she was while flying.
After a research on the Web, I concluded that it might be Biswamoyopterus laoensis. Compare my images with the the one on Wikipedia - they look identical.
This is a rare species which was discovered in 2012
This discovery has happened at a bushmeat market in Central Laos:
The specimen of the Laotian giant flying squirrel was incidentally found on display for sale at a bush meat market in Central Lao PDR... ...“It is a remarkable discovery for science. It is a very rare species with large body size,” explained Mr Daosavanh Sanamxay... ...Biswamoyopterus laoensis is a large flying squirrel that weighs 1.8 kg and measures about 42 inches (1.08 m) in total length – the body is about 18 inches (0.46 m) long and the tail is 24 inches (0.62 m) long - www.sci.news
A huge animal which fits the description above.
It was especially sad to see that the killed family of flying rodents began to decompose - apparently, there are not many people in Xepon who want to eat squirrels.
More stories from Southeast Asia are ahead! Check out the previous ones on my personal Pinmapple map.
I took the images of the both species of the squirrels on June 24, 2023 with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G on a full frame Nikon D750 in Xepon, Savannakhet Province, Laos.
Just, OMG! 😱
I have always resented the eating habits of the people from the Asian part of the world, but only now, reading your post, I realize that maybe they are not to blame. They probably just ate whatever was available in the past to survive, and that carried over into their lives today. 🤔 Well, I can't be sure...
Great pictures, btw, although so sad 😶
An interesting topic. My opinion is this. Many people of Laos inherited jungle food tradition, a tradition of hunters and gatherers who lived in forests.
The Laotian plain historically hosted Lao principalities based on growing rice, same as in Thailand or Vietnam, but mountains, huge territories, were inhabited by tribes.
Many people in Laos still live like this - a dirt road, then, a village in the middle of the jungle, made of wicker and bamboo, small fields, pigs and dogs. They also eat rice but they are forest inhabitants for centures, not people who live on the endless plain where only rice and reeds...
And this explanation fits well the fact why Laotians don't eat dogs but eat monitor lizards.
A guess.
OMG! I mean, the first one, are they allowed to eat that? I can't help but pity them, also that squirrel and the babies, poor babies. 😲
For sure, they are allowed to eat them since this big reptile is everywhere including cities - a lot. Monitor lizards eat not only corpses and all sort of dirt but cats either (in Bangkok, for example)... I feel no warm feelings for them after I learned that fact. :D
Yes, for sure, they are poor. Could become beautiful beasts flying in the forest but, instead, rotted at the market. :(
It must be really exciting to see such a unique and exotic animal at the market in Laos.
I understand you but it wasn't quite excitement. These baby flying squirrels, for example, looked like soaked rats but my imagination was depicting them having beautiful fur flying between trees. I was rather frustrated by the look of the beasts. But I had a feeling of exploration and discovery below this frustration.
There are a lot of them here in the Philippines. We named it Bayawak(the first picture). The second one looks like a "Kabug" in Bisaya. A big bat here in the Philippines.
Yes, there are many, as I said in the post: "The monitor lizard is common in Southeast Asia".
The second creature is a giant squirrel, it isn't that rare either but doesn't live in Bangkok sewage like monitor lizards do 😁
The third creature and babies aren't bats but flying squirrels. The beasts in my images fit the description of Laotian giant flying squirrel found in 2012 in Central Laos. I took the images in Central Laos too so it must be the same species; this is a rare one.
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i can not imagine, eating that lizzard! how they can eat that? could you?