Faculty of Science

Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research

Freshwater Fishes

Inspiration of the fish group...
the Chinese characters here
mean prosperity year after year

The freshwater fish research program is focused on Southeast Asia, with emphasis on catfishes, fighting fishes and the fauna of peat swamps. The research from these areas has thus far, been the most productive.

The freshwater fish is helped substantially by the ZRC's honorary research associate, M. Kottelat.

There are currently one academic staff (Dr P. K. L. Ng) and four MSc students working on the systematics of fishes. One PhD, one MSc and four Honours students in ichthyology have graduated on the basis of work on freshwater fishes over the last 10 years.

The knight goby, Stigmatogobius sadanundio, a pretty aquarium fish species commonly found in estuarine habitats	The slender rasbora, Rasbora subtilis, from Sumatra
The freshwater puffer fish, Tetraodon palembangensis, shortly after being caught by fishermen for food	A puffed up freshwater puffer fish
The infamous eel-loach, Pangio semicincta, a "bread and butter" species for the aquarium trade	The rarely seen fire-eyed loach, Barbucca diabolica

The fish program is extremely active, and at the moment involves ongoing collaborations with:

Maurice Kottelat,

Lynne Parenti (USA),

Helen Larson (Australia),

Ralf Britz (Germany),

Darrell Siebert (England),

Mario di Pinna (Brazil),

Keith Martin-Smith (England),

Julian Dodson (Canada),

Ike Rachmatika (Indonesia) and

Mai Dinh Yen (Vietnam).

An interesting article on snakeheads by Prof Peter Ng and Mr Kelvin Lim has been published on the web at http://www.snakeheads.org. The article Snakeheads (Pisces: Channidae): Natural History, Biology and economic Importance was first published in: Essays in Zoology, papers commemorating the 40th of the Department of Zoology, National University of Singapore, Singapore by Chou, L.M.and P.K.L. Ng (eds.) 1990, pp. 127-152.