Minister of Foreign Affairs BG George Yeo visits the Raffles Museum

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 Carpenter

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).

Miss Mitra Asgari and Amir with Swee Hee

Miss Mitra Asgari (right) from the Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran, was in Singapore to work with Swee Hee (left) on a collection of crabs from Qeshm Island in the northern Persian Gulf. With us is her friend, Amir (centre), a civil engineer by training. It is their first visit to Singapore and we hope that this will lead to more collaborations between Singapore and Iran on crab taxonomy.

Chris & Kevin Webb with Dr Ralf Britz

Chris (centre) & Kevin Webb (right) are aquarists from the UK who specialise in keeping and breeding air-breathing fishes like bettas (fighting fishes) and gouramies. They are members of the Anabantoid Association of Great Britain.

They were here to attend Aquarama 2009, the 11th International Ornamental Fish & Accessories Exhibition held at Suntec City from 28 to 31 May 2009. They made a brief stop at the museum to visit some of our staff, and Dr. Ralf Britz.

Ye Hein Htet with Dr. Ralf Britz

Ye Hein Htet (right), seen here with Dr. Ralf Britz, is an exporter of aquarium fish from Myanmar.

He is here to attend Aquarama 2009, the 11th International Ornamental Fish & Accessories Exhibition held at Suntec City from 28 to 31 May 2009.

He made a brief stop at the museum to visit some of our staff, and Dr. Ralf Britz.

Rupert Collins

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.

His main research interest is with the species level taxonomy and systematics of freshwater fishes, including many of those popular in the aquarium trade. He is currently based at the Bio-Protection Research Centre, Lincoln University, New Zealand, researching molecular ornamental fish identification techniques for biosecurity applications.

His visit to the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research has been to gather aquarium fish specimens for DNA analysis, and to link up with other ichthyologists.

Dr Ralf Britz

Dr Ralf Britz, a fish researcher, is currently based at the Natural History Museum, London. He specialises in ontogeny of fishes, with particular interest in miniature fishes (e.g. Danionella, Paedocypris) and enigmatic groups (e.g. Indostomus, Chaudhuriidae). He was invited to Singapore as part of the collaborative research on Paedocypris taxonomy.

The Dragonfly Experts

Dr. Matti Hamalainen (University of Helsinki, Most left) and Yeh Wen-Chi (Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, Second from left) are here for two weeks by invitation from NUS-PUB. Dr. Matti is a recognised odonata taxonomist with years of experience on Southeast Asia odonates. Mr. Yeh is well-known for his expertise in odonate larvae and those from the family Aeshnidae.

While here, both of them will be examining odonata specimens in RMBR as well as survey trips. Besides lending their expertise to the NUS-PUB reservoir project, they are also conducting a workshop for staff from PUB and NParks; NUS researchers; and local dragonfly enthusiasts. Dr. Matti will also be giving an open public seminar on 24th April (4pm LT20, Blk S2, Level 3, NUS). There is also be an opportunity for NParks and PUB staff to join a private round-table discussion with Matti and Wen-Chi from 5pm on Friday (after Matti’s lecture). Dr. Matti and Wen-Chi will no doubt improve our current knowledge on Singapore’s odonata diversity.

Dr. Andreas Wilting

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.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

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.

Photo by Kelvin Lim.