Visiting Scientist(s) Feature: Dr. Niel Bruce, Ms. Helen Wong, and Ms. Conni Sidabalok

We’re back after the Lunar New Year break with a feature on visiting carcinologists! These crustacean researchers are no strangers to the museum, having worked with us on various projects over the years.

(From left) Dr. Niel Bruce, Ms. Conni Sidabalok, and Ms. Helen Wong looking at an isopod specimen in one of our research labs.

Ms. Sidabalok is here to follow-up on her work from her last visit here – working on describing a new species of giant isopod collected from the SJADES expedition.

On the other hand, Dr. Bruce and Ms. Wong are working together on two separate projects.

The first project focuses on isopod specimens from the genus Argathona, which were collected from the Comprehensive Marine Biodiversity Survey (CMBS) project.

Many new records of Argathona isopods were discovered from the CMBS project – however, there are many more interesting findings that are still unpublished.

Dr. Bruce and Ms. Wong are working to describe a few new species from the specimens collected.

Their second project focuses on isopods from the genus Stenasellus. Although there were already some specimens in our Zoological Reference Collection, Dr. Bruce and Ms. Wong personally went down on a fieldwork trip to caves in Sarawak, Malaysia to collect more of these tiny critters.

In doing so, they could also get a feel of the habitat that the creatures lived in – which may come in helpful in their research.

They will be working to describe about two new species from the specimens collected.

We wish all our visitors all the best for their research!