Scientific Expeditions and Animal New Species

1. The Department of Forestry Peninsular Malaysia is instrumental in organising scientific expeditions in its forest reserves in the peninsula since 1999. The scientific expeditions were organised in all the states for the duration of 4-5 days due to financial and administrative constraints. Many scientists from the local institutes, universities and NGOs had participated, however, there are some sceptics who questioned the duration of the activities and what could be achieved in those short times, as opposed to the month-long expedition in those colonial times.

2. There had been many discoveries either the finding of new records to Peninsular Malaysia or to the respective states and new species to science in the animal world and plant world. For this posting I would like to discuss the former,

3. In Kedah, there were Theloderma licin, two new species of frog discovered from Ulu Muda; Hylarana montjerai from Gunung Jerai and a new record of Rhizophora stylosa from Pulau Pasir, Pulau Langkawi and a new record for Kedah of Costus oligophylus from Sungai Sedim. In Perak, a new Costus is also discovered. In Johor, a new species of frog, Rhacophorus norhayatii was described from Gunung Panti, a species differentiated from R. reinwardtii. From Pulau Pangkor, a new species of thrip, Thrip razanii has recently been named in honour of the present Director-General of Forestry Department.

4. From Bukit Bauk, a putatively new species of the smallest cyprinid fish was discovered, belonging to the genus Paedocypris and recently been placed in a new family. From Cameron Highlands, a new species of bat of the genus Otomops awaits new description.

5. There are many more cicadas, beetles and other insects, possibly ferns, mosses and angiosperms also awaits description and naming. A putative new Gnetum is discovered from Kenong, Pahang. A new record of Trichosanthes emarginata, a Sumateran species has been collected from Krau Wildlife Sanctuary.

6. All the above clearly showed that with some extra efforts by the zoologists and botanists, many new species and new records had been discovered. These are some spin-offs from the scientific expeditions conducted in the last decade. We look forwards to a new cycle of expeditions starting next year 2011.