
The RMBR hosted the Minister of Foreign Affairs, BG George Yeo (extreme left), for a quick tour of the Gallery and facilities. He was accompanied by Professor Leo Tan (second from left), Professor Tommy Koh (centre), Professor Andrew Wee, Dean of the Faculty of Science (second from right) and Professor Peter Ng (extreme right).

The Minister was shown a specimen of a moth that he had previously sent to the RMBR for identification purposes in 1992. Here he is pictured with Ms. Lua H. K., one of our curators. He was rather amused by the fact that after all these years, the moth looks little different from the day he found it. This underlines the RMBR’s role as a depository and custodian of the Nation’s biodiversity, oftentimes collected by the most unlikley of persons!
Kent is an old friend of Peter Ng and Swee Hee from way back in 1995 during the FAO workshop in Manila, Philippines, which lead to the publication of the “FAO species identification guide for fishery purposes. The living marine resources of the Western Central Pacific” series of identification guides. He is visiting us for a few days en route to Perth to attend the 8th Indo Pacific Fish Conference (IPFC).

Ye Hein Htet (right), seen here with Dr. Ralf Britz, is an exporter of aquarium fish from Myanmar.
Originally from the United Kingdom, Rupert is a keen aquarist, and this interest in ichthyology led him to complete an MSc in Taxonomy and Biodiversity at the Natural History Museum and Imperial College, London.

Dr. Andreas Wilting from Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany. He visited the RMBR on 3rd April 2009 to assess our holdings of cat and civet specimens for future research. Andreas is presently involved in a survey of mammal diversity and population using camera trapping equipment in a forest reserve in Sabah, Malaysia.
Mr Juan Carlos Gonzalez is a PhD candidate reading Zoology at the University of Oxford, UK. His thesis is on the evolution, ecology and conservation of Philippine hornbills. He is investigating the phylogeographic relations between Philippine hornbills and those from other parts of Asia to see how the present Philippine hornbill assemblage was formed. He visited the RMBR on 26th and 27th March 2009 to examine the museum’s collection of hornbills after attending the 5th International Hornbill Conference (22-25 March 2009) held at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.