Visiting Scientist Feature – Mr. Muhammad Masrur Islami

Hello! We are back again with another visiting scientist feature – this time, on Mr. Muhammad Masrur Islami, a research associate from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) in Ambon, Indonesia.

Mr. Masrur is collaborating with our curator, Mr. Tan Siong Kiat, and Dr. Tan Koh Siang from the Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) to sort and identify deep-sea molluscs collected from the SJADES 2018 expedition.

They have been working on the hundreds of specimens collected from the expedition, examining and sorting gastropods, bivalves, and chitons into more specific taxonomic groups.

It’s been a hefty task – firstly because of the sheer amount of specimens collected, but also because for all of them, it’s their first time dealing with deep-sea molluscs.

Despite a huge amount of work accomplished on this visit, more research is still needed to pore through the scattered literature to identify the specimens before there is any confidence to determine if any species is new to science.

We wish them all the best, and look forward to the results of their research! 😉