Yangtze river dolphin (the Baiji)

The Baiji (Lipotes vexillifer)

Facts:
-estimated 75-150 in the wild.
-endemic to the Yangtze
-Declined from 500 in 20 years
-no captive population
-hard to find/assess

Probs:
-10% of the world's human population lives on the banks of the Yangtze
-pollution from factories
-collision with boat propellers
-fishing
-hard to locate

Proposed solution:
-100 km impounded stretch of th river where fishing would be banned and pollution from the banks controlled
-a 25 km oxbow lake with nets at each end
-captive breeding including 3 pools and a 1 km artificial river has been constructed.


erm...Any other solution??

Ant wet specimens moved to Wet Collection Room

Hassan and I have moved most of the ant wet specimens from Bilik Belajar 3 to the Wet Specimen Collection room, just next to the Isoptera cabinet. All what we need now is to sort and document them. In some cases, we need to identify them too to genera. Thanks Hassan for the help.

News from CPS BORNEO

Hi all...
just to let everybody know that Ms. Milena Salgado-Lynn, a PhD candidate from Cardiff University is here with us for the next few years. Shes going to work in Kinabatangan on primates genetics. If you are anywhere near the CPS BORNEO office, please drop by and said hi.. she very nice and friendly.

Also, I would like to wish 'Selamat Hari Raya and maaf zahir batin' to everybody.

Cheers

Fairus

Which is the specimen?

I went to Sipadan to come face-to-face for the first time with the cooconut crab (Birgus latro). It was first described by Bazin (1970) - Bazin, F., 1970. Étude comparée de l''organe deutocérébral des macroures reptantia et des anomoures (Crustacés Décapodes). Arch. Zool. exp. gén. 111: 245–264.

If you're collecting this one for BORNEENSIS - what is going to happen to the Dynamo washing liquid bottle cap? He looks gorgeous in there, don't you thing so? Furthermore, you don't have to fix the cap with formalin and it goes well with alcohol 75%, too!

WELCOMING NEW MEMBERS

Guys, this is the captain speaking, please welcome our new members:

Pethrine, Buck, Fairus and Dato Noramly.

I hope you guys are comfortable, sit back, relax, enjoy the valley and contribute. This is BV797 operating to somewhere.

Amid

The midget's access to specimens

Guys,
I received some updates from our friends in KL-based unis on the questions of how outsiders had access to specimens from Malaysia.

One of them is like so:

Provide some huge fund.
Use local vendors to buy specimens from locals.
Vendors collect specimens and pay locals.
After some times of accumulation, guys or their worms enter Malaysia using tourist visa.
They acquire the specimens and quickly fly back as quickly as quick tourist will be and...
BINGO!

People would think it will be difficult for midgets to get things out from Malaysia - because the checks at airports are sooooo intimidating. Believe you me, the real problem is actually to collect the bloody specimens.

Just a note to you guys, be a little more vigilant - for all you know, the specimens they are getting are of your own interests.

Hamid.

butterflies

Dear all,

we just received about 600 butterflies specimens from Japan, which were arrived here in kk this morning (4th September - 2.00 am at KKIA).. thank to bak and pak zainal coz willing to help me to pick up the specimens.

to butteflies people... cantikkk tau tak percaya tanya fairus..kan fairus?