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Anker,
Authur Alekseev,
V. R.
Amoroso,
Victor
Bahir,
Mohomed
Benayahu,
Y.
Brook, Barry
Chen
Hui-Lian
Corlett,
Richard
Das,
Indraneil
Davie,
Peter
de
Pinna, M.
Diesmos,
Arvin
Dominy,
N.
Fernando,
C.H.
Grootaert, P.
Guinot,
Daniele
Jayne,
Bruce
Karns,
Daryl
Kottelat,
Maurice
Kunimatsu, Y.
Larson,
Helen
Lheknim,
V.
Liao,
Lawrence
Liu
Riu-Yu
Panha,
Somsa
Pollard,
Simon
Rachmatika,
Ike
Rahayu,
D. L.
Schubart,
C.
Huei-Ping
Shen
Siebert,
Darrell
Song
Daxiong
Voris,
Harold
Wu
Sugong
Wasim Ahmad
Zettel,
Herbert
Department of Freshwater Invertebrate Taxonomy
and Systematics at the Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of
Sciences in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Visit: May-July 1998
Dr. Victor R. Alekseev specialises in the taxonomy
of freshwater copepods, a group of microscopic crustaceans that
often show up in plankton samples. Dr. Alekseev was in Singapore
to help set up the large freshwater zooplankton collection donated
by Prof C. H. Fernando to the RMBR. It was this Russian's first
outing to Southeast Asia.
Institute of Oceanology,
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Qingdao, People's Republic of China
Visit: October-November 1998
Dr. Chen Hui-Lian is a resident carcinologist
in the Qingdao station of the Chinese Academia Sinica, and has
worked extensively on many groups of marine brachyuran crabs over
the last 20 years. She has spent many months in the early 1990s
working with the ORSTOM laboratory in Paris and the Senckenberg
Museum in Frankfurt on leucosiid, calappid and dorippid crabs
of New Caledonia, Polynesia, Indonesia and Hainan.
She is generally acknowledged as an expert in
these groups of crabs. She has also published extensively on the
crabs of the South China Sea. She was invited under the South
China Sea Biodiversity Program to work in Singapore in the NUS
crustacean laboratory, specifically to sort out the extensive
leucosiid and calappid collections in the ZRC. Exchanges of key
crab specimens between Qingdao and Singapore have been implemented
to the benefit of staff from both organisations.
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Department of Biology,
University of Waterloo in Canada
Visit: May-June 1998
Professor C. H. Fernando (left in photo above
with Dr Victor R. Alekseev) was a former staff member of the University
of Singapore in the 1960s. Since retired from teaching at the
University of Waterloo in Canada, he is now Emeritus Professor
of Biology there.
In 1997, Prof. Fernando presented a large collection
of freshwater zooplankton to the RMBR. Said to be the largest
of its kind in the world, this collection was assembled by him
since 1950 and contains samples from some 40 countries.
This well-known and academically prolific freshwater
biologist was born in Sri Lanka, but now resides in Canada. Prof.
Fernando visited Singapore to oversee the installation of his
plankton collection at the RMBR.
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Cornol, Switzerland
Visit: October 1998
Dr. Kottelat has been the ZRC's honorary research
associate for freshwater ichthyology for a number of years now
and has, on previous years, visited the ZRC regularly to work
with staff and students in NUS.
With his current employment as a consultant for
the World Bank on freshwater biodiversity, his timetable is much
tighter now. Dr. Kottelat spent 5 days in Singapore this time
round on his way home from Vietnam where he was part of a team
examining north Vietnam's freshwaters.
Specimens of various kinds of interesting freshwater
crustaceans and insects were transferred to the ZRC for study.
During this short visit, a few collaborative projects were finished,
and several others initiated for the years ahead.
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Institute of Oceanology,
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS),
Qingdao, People's Republic of China
Visit: August 1998
Professor Liu is the senior marine biologist
in the Chinese Academy of Science, and one of the most senior
and most respected biologists in China.
He has worked extensively on the marine and freshwater
prawns of many families as well as mantis shrimps (Stomatopoda)
of China over the years, and is currently also in charge of numerous
research and exploratory programs pertaining to marine biodiversity
in China.
Professor Liu was invited to Singapore under
the South China Sea Biodiversity Program to explore possible future
collaborations between the ZRC and CAS in the field of biodiversity
and marine biology.
During his short visit here, he met the resident
marine biologists in DBS and discussed numerous issues. A concrete
program to extend collaborative crustacean research between NUS
and CAS was agreed upon, starting with an open-exchange program
for scientific specimens.
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Department of Biology,
Faculty of Sciences,
Chulalongkorn University,
Bangkok, Thailand.
Visit: June-July 1998
Dr. Panha is a malacologist, and has worked extensively
on the snails and bivales of Thailand for many years. His PhD
was in the University of Kyoto, and since his return to the premier
tertiary institution in Thailand, he has worked tirelessly on
his country's fauna.
His work has included the taxonomy and culture
of freshwater pearl mussels in Kanchanaburi, the biology and culture
of land snails (Hemiplecta), and more recently, the taxonomy of
various species of land snails including Amphidromus and Dyakia,
as well as the highly endemic limestone snails.
Dr. Panha visited the RMBR with two of his graduate
students to examine the extensive mollusc collections in the RMBR
as part of his work. The RMBR's collection of land snails is especially
strong in view of the immense contributions and collections of
the late Van Benthem-Jutting and Michael Tweedie in the early
part of this century.
Dr. Somsak and his students also joined us for
our annual field trip to Sarawak, where he had a first hand look
at Bornean rainforests as well as visit the collections of the
Sarawak Museum curated by Dr. Charles Leh. Dr. Somsak has published
extensively on his snails of his country, and some new species
are expected as the results of his most recent sojourn to Singapore.
Dr. Somsak's visit to Singapore was sponsored by Thai and Japanese
research funds.
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Fish Section, Division of Zoology,
Bogor Museum,
Indonesian Institute of Sciences
(Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia - LIPI), Indonesia.
Visit: July 1998
Ms. Ike Rachmatika is currently one of a team
of several fish researchers in the Bogor Museum in Indonesia.
She graduated with a M.Sc. from Auburn University in Alabama (on
the ecology of American centropomids using morphological and biochemical
techniques) in 1995, and since her return to Indonesia, she has
worked on many aspects of the systematics and ecology of Indonesian
freshwater fishes.
She has also participated in numerous field expeditions,
e.g. to Irian Jaya (New Guinea); Danau Singkarat, Aceh (Sumatra);
Ciliwong (Java); Embaloh, Mendalam (Kapuas, Kalimantan); and Lanjak-Entimau
(Sarawak). She notes that she is encouraged by a very supportive
husband (who works in the forestry department) and a 12 year old
son, who is a pet lover.
Ms. Rachmatika has worked with staff and students
from the department in the past, making joint collections of torrent
fish in Java.
In July 1998, she was invited to work in the
RMBR (under the department's biodiversity grant) for 2 weeks on
selected groups of freshwater fishes from Indonesia, including
the catfishes of the Bentuang-Karimun National Park in Kalimantan
in Borneo. She also examinedb taxonomic problems with other groups
of fishes like torrent loaches (Gastromyzon) and some cyprinids.
As the result of her stint, several papers are
expected. Meanwhile, she has a paper describing a new Bornean
loach in the RAFFLES BULLETIN (in press).
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Department of Zoology,
The Natural History Museum,
Cromwell Road, England
Visit: October 1998
Dr. Siebert is one of the research ichthyologists
in the ex-British Museum of Natural History. He has worked a wide
variety of freshwater fishes from Southeast Asia, and has published
widely on cobitids, sundasalangids and various groups of cyprinids.
He is currently revising various species of Rasbora
(Cyprinidae). The ZRC's collection of regional rasborines and
other cyprinids is very extensive, and various species were examined
by Dr. Siebert during his short visit here.
He was on his way to the Bogor Museum in Indonesia
for a short research stint there. There have already been several
collaborations between students of the Systematics Laboratory
of NUS and Dr. Siebert, with several siluroid papers published
or in press thus far. There have also been several exchanges of
interesting fish specimens between the Natural History Museum
and the ZRC.
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