Visiting Scientists Feature: January 2018

It’s been a great start to the year here at LKCNHM, with visits from old friends and new faces.

Dr. Yang Chien-Hui

Dr. Yang, Assistant Researcher from the National Taiwan Ocean University, is no stranger to the museum. She has visited LKCNHM numerous times in recent years, and was working on the shrimp and lobster specimens in the Zoological Reference Collection (ZRC) for three months in 2016.

Dr. Yang is working on a 3-year research project on the DNA barcoding of penaeoid prawns. This project involves the sequencing of the entire genome for prawns in the superfamily Penaeoidea, which contains more than 456 species.

During her week-long stint at LKCNHM, she visited the wet market in Chinatown as well as Jurong fish port to collect fresh penaoid prawn specimens. These specimens will be brought back to Taiwan for further research and analysis, along with other penaeoid prawn specimens borrowed from the ZRC.

Dr. Kantapon Suraprasit

Dr. Suraprasit is a palaeontologist from the Department of Geology at Chulalongkorn University.

Dr. Kantapon was here for four days to photograph recent mammal skulls in the Zoological Reference Collection (ZRC). He is collaborating with a French-Thai palaeontological team from the University of Poitiers on a project of the Cenozoic mammals in Thailand.

Among the Pleistocene fossil sites, some mammal fossils including a rare hominid tooth, estimated to be about 170,000 years old, were found in northeast Thailand two decades ago. Dr. Kantapon is identifying these fossils by comparing their morphologies to those of the recent mammal skulls in the ZRC

This is Dr. Suraprasit’s first visit to LKCNHM. He mentioned that the mammal collection in the ZRC is extensive and contains many species that are found in Southeast Asia, which was very helpful for his research.

We wish Dr. Yang and Dr. Suraprasit all the best for their research, and hope to see them again soon.