It is one of the most common questions people ask before coming here, and one of the worst served online. Search for Koh Lanta's wildlife and you get the same handful of sentences copied between travel sites, usually a photograph of a monkey that does not live here.

So here is what the record actually says, where it is solid, and where it is not.

The two monkeys, which are not the same monkey

Most visitors who see a monkey on Koh Lanta see one of two species, and they are routinely confused for each other.

The dusky langur, also called the spectacled langur, is the one people remember. It is grey-black with bright white rings around the eyes that look drawn on, and it eats leaves. It is shy, lives in the canopy, and is most often seen in the forested south of the island around the national park.

The crab-eating macaque, also called the long-tailed macaque, is the other one. Browner, bolder, and far more willing to approach people, which is the problem: macaques that have learned to associate humans with food become confident, and a confident macaque near a bag of fruit is not a charming encounter. Do not feed them, and that is not a politeness rule, it is how a wild population becomes a nuisance population.

The ones almost nobody sees

Two of the island's more remarkable mammals are nocturnal and easy to miss entirely.

The Sunda slow loris is here, and Mu Ko Lanta is described by naturalists as one of the more reliable Thai national parks to look for one. It is small, slow, nocturnal, and protected.

The Sunda colugo, sometimes called a flying lemur, is neither a lemur nor capable of flight. It glides between trees on a membrane stretched between its limbs, and it is reported as seen relatively often in the park, which is more than can be said for most gliding mammals anywhere.

Also on the park's list: wild boar and leopard cat.

The elephants, and why they are not wildlife

There are elephants on Koh Lanta, and this is the part most write-ups get wrong by omission: they are not wild. There is no wild elephant population on the island. Every elephant here is a captive animal, and almost all of them worked in trekking before they arrived where they are now.

That matters if you are deciding whether to visit one. Two places on the island keep elephants, and they operate on different models.

Following Giants, on forested land at the edge of Mu Ko Lanta National Park, describes itself as observation-only: it says it was formerly a riding camp, changed its model in collaboration with World Animal Protection, and now houses rescued elephants that visitors watch without touching, feeding or bathing them.

Lanta Elephant Sanctuary offers a hands-on visit, including walking with the elephants, feeding them, and bathing and mud-spa sessions.

Both describe their animals as rescued from trekking work. Which model you prefer is your call, and it is a live argument among people who care about elephants rather than a settled one. We are describing what each place says about itself, not certifying either.

Snakes

Koh Lanta has snakes, including seriously venomous ones, and pretending otherwise would not help anybody.

Species recorded on and around the island include the king cobra, monocled cobra, Malayan pit viper, Malayan krait and banded krait, and in the water the yellow-lipped sea krait. Non-venomous and mildly venomous residents include the painted bronzeback, the oriental whipsnake, the golden tree snake and the paradise flying snake, which flattens its body and glides between trees, reportedly as far as 20 metres.

The practical picture is much less alarming than the species list sounds. Across Thailand there are roughly 12,000 snakebite consultations a year, and with antivenom available fatalities stay below 0.1%. The pattern of bites is the useful part: around four in five happen when somebody tries to catch or kill the snake, and about 60% happen at night. Closed shoes and long trousers on jungle trails, a torch after dark, and leaving any snake you meet entirely alone covers almost all of the risk.

The lizard you will actually meet

The water monitor is the animal most likely to genuinely startle you. They are large, common, entirely at home around resorts and canals, and harmless if left alone. A metre and a half of lizard walking past a pool is normal here.

The park's list also carries reticulated pythons and flying dragons, the small gliding lizards that launch between tree trunks.

Spiders

The one you will see, and probably walk into, is the golden orb weaver. The female is big, black and yellow, and strings an enormous circular web at head height across gaps in vegetation. The silk is faintly gold in sunlight and startlingly strong for its thickness. She is not dangerous to you.

Huntsman spiders are the large flat fast ones that turn up on walls and ceilings and get mistaken for tarantulas. Thailand also has genuine tarantulas, including the Thai black tarantula, generally reckoned the country's largest spider.

One honest caveat: unlike the mammal and bird records, the spider material we could find is written about Thailand generally rather than surveyed for Koh Lanta specifically. Treat it as what is common in this part of the country rather than a species list for this island.

Birds

The bird life is the part the island undersells. Overhead you are most likely to see brahminy kites, rust-coloured with a white head, and white-bellied sea eagles. Kingfishers, sunbirds and bulbuls are common in the trees. Oriental pied hornbills turn up around the island, sometimes as semi-resident pairs at particular resorts.

How many bird species the park holds is where we have to be careful. Published figures disagree: the national park species page lists 132 birds, while other compilations of the same park put the figure closer to 185. We are not going to pick one and present it as settled. The parks database itself carries a blunt warning that applies to every list of this kind, including the one you are reading: the species records are "collected from various sources and publications, it is not necessarily complete nor accurate", and may include animals long gone from the park, rare migrants recorded once, or simple misidentifications.

In the water

Most of what makes Koh Lanta's marine life famous is not on the island at all, it is at the dive sites reached from it.

Koh Haa, a cluster of small islands west of Lanta, is where operators report hawksbill turtles, reef rays, blacktip reef sharks, moray eels and schooling barracuda. Hin Daeng and Hin Muang, two pinnacles further out, are the ones divers travel for: walls dropping past 60 metres, soft coral in red and purple, and the chance of leopard sharks, manta rays and the occasional whale shark. Operators put the best odds for mantas and whale sharks between February and April.

Those accounts come from dive operators rather than survey data, so read them as what experienced divers see on good days, not as a guarantee.

The dugong, and the part that is not cheerful

Dugongs, the seagrass-grazing marine mammals sometimes called sea cows, live along this coast, and their situation is the most serious wildlife story in the Andaman right now.

They depend on seagrass meadows, and the meadows are failing. Thailand's Department of Marine and Coastal Resources recorded seagrass cover around Koh Libong, down the coast in Trang, shrinking by up to half between 2020 and 2024, with losses across Trang, Krabi and Phuket. In one Krabi bay, Ao Nammao, coverage reportedly fell from around 60% to 1% in 2024. Post-mortem work indicated that at least 40% of dugong deaths in 2024 were likely starvation.

The population counts move alarmingly, and they are worth reading carefully rather than as a single headline. A 2022 national survey put roughly 273 dugongs in Thai waters, about 90% of them on the Andaman coast. A 2023 estimate put around 194 at Koh Libong alone. By early 2025 some estimates suggested as few as 10 might remain there. Aerial surveys in early 2026 counted 33 at Koh Libong, including mother-and-calf pairs.

Those numbers cannot all be describing the same thing in the same way, and we would be inventing certainty we do not have if we picked one. What is not in dispute is the direction of the seagrass loss and the reason it matters. Researchers attribute the decline to a combination of marine heat waves, tidal anomalies, dredging at river mouths and agricultural runoff, rather than any single cause.

Dugongs are seen off Koh Lanta only occasionally. The animals themselves are mostly further south. But the seagrass they need grows along this whole coast, including here.

The waterfall, and the forest behind the beaches

The island most visitors see is a strip of west-coast beach. The interior and the south are forest, and that is where the wildlife is.

Khlong Chak waterfall is the island's best-known freshwater walk, in the south, reached by a jungle trail of a little over a kilometre each way with a modest climb. About halfway along is a large cave with tree roots framing the entrance. Its name is not settled: travel guides generally call it Tiger Cave and mention bats inside, while OpenStreetMap maps the cave on this trail as Bat Cave and places a separate Tiger Cave about three and a half kilometres away in the mid-island interior. We have not been able to resolve which name the cave on the trail properly carries. Reported entry is around 200 baht.

The timing is genuinely awkward and worth knowing before you go: the trail is most comfortable in the drier months from November to May, but the waterfall itself has the most water in the wet season from May to October. In the driest stretch it can be a trickle over rock. Visitors going for a swimmable pool and visitors going for an easy walk want opposite halves of the year.

Where to find what

Roughly, by part of the island:

• The south, in and around Mu Ko Lanta National Park: the best forest, and the best chance of dusky langurs, hornbills and, at night, slow loris and colugo. The park headquarters and lighthouse sit at the southern tip.
• The southern interior: Khlong Chak waterfall and Tiger Cave, on the jungle trail described above.
• The edge of the national park: the elephant camps.
• West-coast beaches, resorts and gardens: water monitors, macaques, golden orb weavers, kingfishers and sea eagles overhead. Most people's actual wildlife encounters happen here, not on a trek.
• Offshore to the west: Koh Haa for turtles, reef rays and blacktip sharks. Hin Daeng and Hin Muang, further out, for the big pelagic animals.
• The shallow coastal seagrass: where dugongs feed. Sightings here are rare, and the studied population is further south around Koh Libong in Trang.

See these places on the island map

What we could not confirm

We approached Mu Ko Lanta National Park for its own account of what lives in the park. The contact address published on the Thai national parks portal does not accept mail, and a corrected version has not yet been answered. Where this piece relies on published species lists, it says so, and where those lists disagree, it says that too. The spider section, as noted, rests on national rather than local records.

If you work on the island and know this ground better than a published checklist does, we would like to hear from you, and we will correct anything here that is wrong.

On August 23, Thai television personalities Woonsen Viritipat, Chris Horwang, and Polla Taylor attended the funeral of Ray MacDonald at Wat Yang temple. All three opened up about their profound sadness over his sudden and unexpected death, recalling his warmth and the life lessons he taught them about living each day fully, knowing tomorrow may bring no second chances.

Chris Horwang expressed his deep sorrow, noting that everyone who visits the temple daily feels a chill, and all agree his passing came far too soon and without warning. Woonsen recalled spending quality time with Ray in the past and treasuring all the good memories, valuable feelings, and teachings he shared. Though still emotionally shaken, she emphasized the importance of supporting Ray's family.

When asked about Ray's charm during their work together, Chris described him as incredibly likable both on and off camera. Ray once told him: "Live life to the fullest without regret. Tomorrow will come, and you'll wish you had done the things you wanted to do." Chris now realizes he should live by that philosophy and expressed concern for Ray's safety during his travels, knowing how much Ray loved to explore.

Polla reflected that Ray was uniquely himself and irreplaceable. Woonsen added that people should spend time doing what they love, with the people they care about, and take care of their health, since good health is the foundation for a long life with loved ones.

Chris admitted a deep regret: over many years of genuine affection for Ray, he never once called him to invite him for a meal, perhaps because their closeness did not feel sufficient compared to his love for him. He acknowledged that everyone has people they care about and wish well, but cannot personally connect with all of them. Now that Ray is gone, Chris feels profound heartache, realizing he never sent Ray a message or invited him to eat together. He emphasized that time is precious and regrets not reconnecting with Ray in person over the nearly 10 years since they last met.

The Pure Heart Foundation donated 6,000 milk-flavored cakes valued at 60,000 baht on August 24 to support flood relief efforts under the Royal Kindness Project administered by the Thai Social Welfare Council. Foundation chair Theerayut Nawamawat presented the donation, which was received by Thidaruk Sajjapong, Secretary-General of the Thai Social Welfare Council, for distribution to flood-affected families and communities. The foundation stressed its commitment to alleviating hardship during this difficult period and thanked partner organizations for their collaborative relief efforts. The foundation pledged to continue its social mission in coordination with government agencies and network partners to reach affected populations across various areas and improve their quality of life.

The Army commander has ordered improvements to intelligence gathering following over 50 disturbances in the southern border region. Military spokesman Surasant Kongsiri and Army spokesman Vindhai Suwari stated that intelligence operations have not failed but require enhanced effectiveness. They rejected allegations that helicopters fired on civilians, noting that such tactics are not feasible at night. All incidents are linked to the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN).

Spokesman Vindhai said the southern border provinces have suffered from deliberate misinformation and rumor-mongering intended to damage officials' reputations. The Internal Security Command, Region 4 Forward has adjusted its communication approach. The over 51 incidents occurring simultaneously across multiple areas were not intended to cause casualties but represented psychological operations using communications tactics. He acknowledged the chaotic period with large crowds moving about, while some officials remained deployed elsewhere, which may have created confusion and unverified reports, including statements from political figures.

Vindhai emphasized that helicopters are not designed for targets with rapid movement during nighttime when visibility is impossible. Military use of ground forces supporting internal security operations follows strict international protocols, making weapon use unlikely unless officials are attacked. Suspect tracking is ongoing with reasonable progress. Comparing area size to available personnel shows insufficient coverage, so standard security operations must be paired with improved intelligence work. Most incidents occur outside populated areas and are not high-priority zones. Military, police, and civilian strategies assign varying security concentrations to different areas. These disturbances primarily aim psychological impact on youth rather than casualties, using property destruction as symbolic messaging. Such operations are feasible given the large territory involved.

The Department of Special Investigation submitted charges against Phakkaotharam party MP Chonnapat Nakasum for involvement in online gambling operations, money laundering, and transnational organized crime with over one billion baht in circulation. On August 24, 2025, Chonnapat appeared at the Office of the Special Public Prosecutor to receive the charges and submitted a nine-point fairness request, stating he has never invoked parliamentary immunity despite facing concurrent proceedings at multiple jurisdictional levels.

Chonnapat emphasized that parliamentary protection applies only to investigation and summons stages, not indictment, and described his legal battle as weathering a storm rather than a political assault. He stated his intention to clear his name of accusations that he used parliamentary privilege, insisting he stands as an ordinary citizen under the same laws as everyone else. The public prosecutor will rule on the case on September 28, 2025.

The case stems from an investigation into a large-scale online gambling network in southern Thailand with financial links to Chonnapat. In March 2025, the Department of Special Investigation conducted "Operation Gameflow," searching ten locations across four provinces—five in Songkhla, two in Nonthaburi, one in Pathum Thani, and two in Bangkok—based on 26 court arrest warrants related to the gambling network.

BANGKOK — Art lovers and history buffs have a limited window to explore the legacy of Silpa Bhirasri, widely regarded as the father of modern Thai art, as the National Museum Silpa Bhirasri Memorial has reopened to the public for two months.

The museum is hosting a special exhibition tracing the development of art alongside the history of Bangkok's Rattanakosin era through the works and ideas of Bhirasri, an Italian-born sculptor who became a major figure in Thailand's modern art movement. Visitors can explore his artistic legacy while learning about the evolution of Thai art and its connection to the country's history. The reopening also offers a chance to experience a historic art space that had been closed to visitors for a period.

Born Corrado Feroci in Florence, Italy, in 1892, Bhirasri came to Thailand to work in government service during the reign of King Rama VI. He later became a key figure in the development of formal art education in Thailand. He founded and taught at the School of Fine Arts, which was later elevated to Silpakorn University, where he became the first dean of its Faculty of Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts.

As part of the special opening, the Fine Arts Department is allowing visitors to enter the Hall of Sculpture, offering a rare opportunity to see original sculpture models and learn about traditional casting and metalworking processes.

The hall showcases works by master sculptors who worked with the Fine Arts Department, particularly pieces associated with Bhirasri. Many of the models were created as the basis for national monuments, royal statues, Buddhist images and other major sculptures across Thailand.

Among the works on display are the model for Phra Si Sakkaya Thotsaphonlayan, the principal Buddha image at Phutthamonthon, as well as models of statues of King Narai, King Chulalongkorn, King Prajadhipok and King Ananda Mahidol. The collection also includes a model of Thao Suranari, the celebrated monument in Nakhon Ratchasima, sculpted by Bhirasri in 1934.

The National Museum Silpa Bhirasri Memorial and Hall of Sculpture are open 09:00–16:00, Wednesday to Sunday, through 20 September 2026. Admission is free. For visitors looking to explore Bangkok beyond its better-known temples and museums, the two-month reopening offers a chance to step into an important chapter of Thailand's artistic history at no cost.