Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research Volunteers
Snakehunters

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Eyes and hands for: Harold Voris, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, USA Daryl Karns, Hanover College, Indiana, USA Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, USA Bruce Jayne, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Hosted in Singapore by the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research on a project on Homalopsine snake ecology, with approval from the National Parks Board. Phase I - February - April 2001; Phase II - August - September 2001. Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research | Field Museum of Nature History, Chicago

Latest News

"The Ecology and Feeding Behavior of Crustacean-eating Snakes
(Homalopsinae) in the Mangrove Forests of Singapore."
Friday, 24th August 2001: 4-5pm, LT32

Phase II surveys begin in mid-August 2001

Mailing List (restricted)
Snakehunters
Updates and arrangement will be posted here.

Phase I surveys. Schedule for 7-11 Feb 2001.

Tide tables
Check tide-tables here

Meeting places
Pasir Ris Park - Carpark
Sungei Buloh Nature Park - Visitor Centre

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Seminars

"The Ecology and Feeding Behavior of Crustacean-eating Snakes (Homalopsinae) in the Mangrove Forests of Singapore." by D. Karns, HK Voris & B. Jayne. Friday, 24th August 2001: 4-5pm, for the Department of Biologcal Sciences, NUS.

"Integrating field and laboratory studies of lizard locomotion" by Bruce Jayne. Monday 9th April 2001: 1pm at the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, for the NUS DBS Biodiversity and Ecology Journal Club.

Water snakes of Singapore" by Harold Voris and Daryl Karns. Wednesday, 4th April 2001: 7pm, at the Ang Mo Kio library.
A public talk for members of the Nature Society (Singapore).

Pleistocene Sea-level changes and genetic differences among populations of the Dog-faced water snake, Cerberus rhynchops (Serpentes: Homalopsinae) in Southeast Asia" by Harold Voris and Daryl Karns. Friday 2nd March 2001 for the National Parks Board. Friday, 3rd March 2000 for the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research

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 Articles and photos

"Hunting for snakes and their secrets" by Lea Wee, with photos by Alan Lim, The Sunday Times, 18th March 2001.

"Desperately seeking serpents" by Ria Tan. A photostory from the second day at Sungei Buloh Nature Park and after by the Big Bad Momma

"Tim's diary, Saturday 10th February 2001". Taken on the fourth day at Pasir Ris Park by Timothy Pwee.

"Exploits of the Snakehunters" Assorted photos from Pasir Ris Park and Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve by Kelvin Lim

Prior to this, a graduate student, Jake Socha, had a flying snake team - check out his webpage.

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Background

About the project
See: Field Museum of Natural History - Aquatic Snakes Webpage

The invitation to hunt
This was sent out in February 2001 to The Habitat Group, NUS undergraduates and postgraduates, Ecotax, Nature Singapore & Jalan Hijau mailing llsts, Sungei Buloh Nature Park Volunteers and to Docents andd staff of the Singapore Zoological Gardens. An enthusiastic bunch responded, expecially on Saturday nights, resulting in a successful survey series an little rest for the researchers.

Principal Investigators
Harold K. Voris is Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians at the Field Museum of Natural History and has researched the systematics and ecology of the aquatic snakes of Southeast Asia over the past 35 years.
Daryl R. Karns is Professor of Biology at Hanover College, Hanover, Indiana and a Research Associate at the Field Museum of Natural History. Daryl is an ecologist with strong interests in the ecology, evolution, and conservation of amphibians and reptiles.
Bruce Jayne is an Associate Professor at the University of Cincinnati, and is attempting to understand the evolution of complex systems that involve a combination of behavior, physiology and morphology, using a comparative, functional and experimental approach combined with an ecological perspective to study evolutionary adaptation.