InternationalCoastalTCleanup

he International Coastal CleanUp (ICC) is the largest marine

pollution cleanup effort in theworld, involving over 1 million
volunteers in more than 100
countries. The Raftles Museum led
the Mangrove Section ofthe ICC
Singapore in 2001, and we worked
the Kranji as well as the Buloh
mangroves for the first time in thefive-year history ofthe programme.
From July to September 2001 ,more than 11 "recce" trips wereconrlucterl by museum statTanrl
volunteers to prepare the operational procerlure for the exercise,the communications network (withthe help oftheSingapore AmateurRadio TransmittingSociety), safety
plans and routes,guide training, etc.
It helped that we
had been conducting research andstudies in themangroves there for10 years ormore!
A briefing sessionin NUS explained to participants the surprising biodiversity of Singapore andthe rationale and operational
details of the cleanup. Participants
were then guided and quizzed atSungei Buloh Nature Park to
introduce to them the depth andbeauty of our mangrove ecosystem.
The cleanup itself was conducted
on 8th September 2001. More thanThe briefing

sessionfor guides

300 students arrived early thatmoming, from Catholic High,Commonwealth Secondary
School's Girl Guides, St. Andrew's
Junior College, Tao Nan Marlin
Sea Scouts, Singapore American
School, Middle School and SAVE,
Temasek Junior College, Victoria
Junior College, Woodlands Ring
Secondary School and Yusof Ishak
Secondary School.

beforethe operations

began

Ratfies Museum Newsletter, No.2, April 15, 2002

ferred the trash to the disposal
point near the road. The shore line
team wouldjoin them later andsome of the wheelbarrows evenbroke down under the load! Threetonnes in all,which ENV's Western
Environment Health District Officeand Altvater Jakob Pte. Ltd.
coordinated in hauling away at theend ofthe day.

Tbe day started witb "dry ops" students battling tbrougb somevery soft mud to reacb tbeir site.
For many, it was tbeir first taste oftbe mangroves so tbe expedition
was accompanied witb a lot of
screaming! Museum volunteers andstudent leaders wbo bad attended
tbe relevant "recce" trips belped
guide tbem to tbeir sites.
The groups set to work at their prearranged quadrats, collecting trash
while data recorders took note of
the type and nurnber of debris
collected. Strong young students("loaders") transferred the filledtrash bags to a collection site wherebags were weighed before beingstacked.
Injust 90 minutes, the marine debris
collection was haited. There wasenough trash there to supply 10
years of cleanups, so we weretaking it slow. And as part ofthe
programme to expose the students
to new challenges, they discovered
how fast the tide rises, for the
muddy channel they had crossed
earlier had been filled by the risingand orange-capped guides oneither side in the water, students2were treated ta the excitement af ariver crassing!
At Sungei Buloh Nature Park, theyreported to the Data Manager,and thell washed, dried, and fed
hungrily on pizza spollsored by theNature Society (Singapore).
Meanwhile, the aftemoon high tide
operation ("wet ops") began Tao Nan Marlin Sea Scouts andvolunteer sailors from Raffles
Marina transferred the accumulated
marine debris to Kranji Reservoir
Park. Dry ops guides had rushed
back to help out and were wrestlingtrash bags onto boats and canoes.
The bags broke under their load, sothe guides struggled to re-bag thetrash on the spot as the tide kept
rising -exhausting work!
At the unloading point, primaryschool scouts from Tao Nan
scrambled over boats and trans-Once the result had been collated, it
was uploaded onto the website at
http://mangrove.nus.edu.sg/iccs onthe very same day! A new record in
the 10-year history ofthe cleanupin Singapore! The preliminary
results immediately revealed thesober news that 90% of the 2.7
tonnes of marine debris collected
was plastic, which lasts for years in
the ocean.
The data report was submitted tothe global coordinator at the Centre
for Marine Conservation inWashington, United States ofAmerica. Analysed data is used toraise legislative issues at the United
Nations, and at the nationallevelin various countries to promote
public awarenessand education
programmes.
The ultimate goal ofthe cleanup is
to reduce marine debri and enhancemarine co?servationby eliminating
pollution by people and industries
in the first place. That will take avery long time, but with little steps
such as these, we will get there!
-N. SivasothiRatfies Museum Newsletter,

No.2, April 15, 2002The Body-snatchersO

nce in a while, our forests andseasreveal their hidden
animal secretsto our great surpriseand dismay. For when we dowitness the surprises, it is usually
animals which turn up dead, as aresult of roadkill, injury or old age.
The body is still important -it is an
important record ofthe species'continued presence in Singapore,and fresh specimens provide clues
about diet from stomach contents.
DNA is also easily extracted from
fresh intemal organs. All importantin conservation work, we do try ourbest to retrieve these carcasses.
Getting the carcasscan be tricky!
Though I once reached the scene ofroadkill at Adam Road within anhour of the phone call, the pangolin(a scaly anteater) had disappeared!
Ex-graduate student Alvin Wong
once separated the head of a deaddugong at Changi beach, toiling inthe rain. Too smelly for the car, hehid the head for retrievallater. It
too disappeared! Both occasions,workers from the Ministry ofthe
Environment (ENV) had cleanedup
the sceneby early moming.
In recent years, we publicised theneed to retrieve such dead animalsthrough our electronic newsletter
Habitatnews, ensured that we werebetter prepared when retrieving
bodies, and got the help of volunteers and the ENV or NParks unit incharge ofthe area. And the groupof us who do this call ourselves"the Bodysnatchers"!
The year 200 1 saw more bodies
recovered. A rare leopard cat
roadkill was recovered (June) -thefirst such incident in more than 30
years, three beautiful, migratory
Blue-winged Pittas which mistook
glass panes for the sky and bashedtheir heads against the hard glass(October), we extracted a dugongskull from a 5-day old rotting
carcass offEast Coast (July) anda fresh young pangolin roadkill
was collected off Jalan Bahar(November).
Singapore is full of surprising
wildlife, and when you encounter
a wild animal that has met with anuntimely demise, call us at themuseum at 6874-5082 and fill in theroadkill report at the webpage.
We'll try to convert that specimen
into a valuable record. It willremain within the museum ofRMBR for a long time. Having
lasted more than 150 years, that's
not an idle promise!
Once in a whiie, we get pieasant
news. I received a ca!! about a !ivepango!in walldering in a friend'sgarden. I contacted olle of ourBodysnatchers in NParks,
Benjamin Lee. He retrieved theanima! and it was reieasedback
into its forest horne!
-N. Sivasothi

3

RatFIes Museum Newsletter, No.2, April 15, 2002

T

an Heok Hui's love affair withfishes started when he was akid. From aquarium fish, he went
on to collect wild fishes in streams
around Singapore and the region.
In 1995, he completed his honours
thesis on fighting fishes (see boxbelow). And for the last six years,
the zoologist, who is pursuing his
doctorate at the NUS, has been
studying a unique freshwater fishliving in fast-flowing waters ofBorneo, commonly known as theBorneo sucker or Gastromyzon.

In 2000, he wellt to the headwaters
ofthe Red River, Mekong, Yangtze,
Irrawaddy and Salween basins insouthem China. He says, "we had awonderful time collecting fishes,
but at the sametime, it was
somewhat of a culture shock,because the hygiene conditions
were not very good, and I had a bitof food poisoning." But he wasnone the worse for the experience.
"It's trips like these that make you
count your blessings and kiss yourtoilet bowl," he says.
-Leu Wee

When asked abaut his current
chaice afresearch, he deadpans:"Well, it takes a big sucker ta study
a sillall sucker."But on a more seriousßote, heexplains that these fishes, whichhave a distinctive ventral suction
disc formed by modified fins, arestill poorly known. The suction discallows Borneo suckers to stayfirmly attached to rocks or crawlalong the bottoms offast-moving
waters, making them difficult tocollect. This task was made easierby various simple tricks taught toHeok Hui by local fishermen during
his field trips.
It is a chance to leam from thelocals and other cultures that makefield trips so fun, says Heok Hui.
On one memorable trip to theKayan Basin at East Kalimantan in
1999, he stayed with a Christianfarming-cum-hunting gatheringcommunity. "They still cook with
firewood, and either boil or steam
their food. Sugar and coffee areconsidered luxury items. We had
two meals a day, and by the time I
had to come back, I had lost 5 kg!"
4Ratfies Museum Newsletter,ater (for its dark colour).
This is in sharp contrast to moretheir movements and use ofunsustainable fishing methods (likeI n the angling world, the Indian

colourful species like the Goldenand Chinese river carps.

with poison).

mahseer (genus Tor) is renowned
as a fighter. Growing to a metre in
length, many species ofthese large
river carps are found in Asia.

Like many large riverine fishes in
the region, they are threatened bywater pollution, dams which cut off

Ref' Roberts, T, R., 1999. Fishes ofthe
cyprinid genus Tor in the Narn Theun
Watershed (Mekong Basin) ofLaos, withdescription of a new species. Raffles Bu11.
Zool., 47: 225-236.

Ref: Ng, KL Peter & Damele Guinot, 2001.
On the land crabs ofthe genus Discoplax A.
Milne Edwards, 1867 (Crustacea:Decapoda: Brachyura: Gecarcinidae ),with description of a new cavernicolous
species from the Philippines.
Raffies Bull. Zool.,
49: 311-338.

A new..Torglantrlver

No.2, April 15, 2002

carpIn Malaysia, they are known asKelah and are popular with anglers
and fishing enthusiats.

Recently, American ichthyologist
Tyson Roberts reported a large andalmost black species from Laos,
which he appropriately named

N ewlandcrab

Land crabs (Fan1ily Gecarcinidae)
are important components ofmany tropical island ecosystems.
This group of relatively large crabs
is weIl studied, and also is also a
regular feature in the diet oflocals
where they occur.
The recent discovery of apreviously unknown species fromcoastal caves in Philippines cameas a bit of a surprise to some,including the scientists whoreported on the new species, Peter
Ng and Daniele Guinot. The newspecies is called Discoplax
gracilipes, alluding to its long,
slender walking legs.

5Raffles Museum Newsletter,

No.2, April 15, 2002

New Discoveries

Frogs

galoreT

he wet forests of Southeast
Asia abound in frogs. The
discovery of new species is thus not
surprising. Just two years ago, Rob
Stuebing (Chicago Fie1d Museum)and Anna Wong (Sabah Museum)described a new species of tree
frog, Philautus erythrophthalmus(appropriate1y named the "red-eyedone"), from a 1500 m highmountain in Sabah.

Kottelat had to inch along theface of the waterfall with its
smooth boulders and thundering
water, risking life and limb.
Together, they named the newly
discovered speciesAmolops
cremnobatus, its specific epithet
meaning "frequenter of steep
places"!

At about the same time, Australianherpetologist Stephen Richards andhis Indonesian counterpart, Djoko
Iskandar, reported on a new but
extremely small frog, measuring only
11.5 mm in length, from themountains ofIndonesian Irian Jaya!
Naming it Orephryne minuta, thespeciesis known only from a 2000 mhigh mountain thus far!
In 1999, renowned American
herpetologist Bob Inger discoveredthat a odd-1ooking frog co11ectedby
Swiss ichthyologist Maurice
Kotte1at from an isolated waterfall
in Laos belonged to a new speciesof with numerous special
adaptations (such as suction-tippedfingers) für living in such a hostile
habitat! To get the torrent frog,

N ew snapping
shrimpsW

hile walking along an
exposed rocky shoreline at

low tide, one can often hearcharacteristic snapping sounds.
These are produced by snapping
shrimps (also known as pistolshrimps) ofthe family Alpheidae
using a specially modified enlarged
claw. Snapping shrimps are one of
the most prominent groups ofcrustaceans,and can be found innumerous other habitats as weIl,
including coral reefs, mangroves
and even freshwaters.
Taxonomic studies of snapping
shrimps are notoriously difficult,with very little separating many

6

cryptic or sibling species, resulting
in live coloration being relied on as
the only easy way to distinguishspecies.An example ofthis is seenin the recent description oftwo newspecies,Alpheus tricolor andAlpheus fasqueli, from lndonesia
and Sri Lanka, respectively, byArthur Anker (Paris Museum).
Both species are closely related,with only very slight morphologicaldifferences separating them.
However, their unique colours andcolour patterns sets them apartfrom each other as weIl as from allother known snapping shrimp.

Ref: Anker, A, 2001. Two new speciesof snapping shrimps from the lndo- Pacific,
with remarks on colour patterns and sibling
species in Alpheidae (Crustacea: Caridea).
Raffies Bull. 2001., 49: 57-72.

Refs: Inger, RF & M Kottelat, 1999. Anew
species of ranid frog from Laos. Raffles
Bull. Zool., 46. 29-34. Richards, S & D
Iskandar, 2000. A new minute Orephryne(Anura: Microhylidae) from the mountains
oflrian Jaya, Indonesia. Raffles Bull. Zool.,
48: 257-262. Stuebing, RB & A Wong,
2000. A new species of frog, Philautus
erythrophthalmus (Rhacophoridae) fromsoutbwestem Sabah, Malaysia. Raffles Bull.
Zool., 48: 293-296.

Raffles Museum Newsletter, No.2, April 15, 2002

Fabulous ferns and fernallies of Gunung Pulai,Johor, Malaysia
Gunungsituated

Pulai
45km

ForestReserve,to the northof

Johor Bahru, is an 8-hectare
protected forest reserve, and was awater catchment area for Singapore
in the recent past. The summit ofthis mountain is about 654 rn above
sea level. Unlike some ofthe othermountains in Johor (i.e. Gunung
Belurnut and Gunung Panti), few
botanical studies have been carriedout in Gunung Pulai. This spurred
us to seek out the hidden treasuresof pteridophytes in this mountain.
Pteridophytes (fems and fern allies)
are non-vascular plants whose
reproduction and dispersal relyon the spores. Based on past
publications, Gunung Pulai boasts I
roughly 73 species of teridophytes. !,"Our studies conducted from 1999- ~"2000 resulted in six more species. !

intermedia, fofllls beautiful anddense carpets on the forest floor.
A speciesnow endangeredin
Singapore, Bua Cek (Dipteris
conjugata), can be seen inabundance at the edge of this forest
reserve. Taenitis dimorpha,
believed to be endemic to the Peninsular Malaysia, can be found inisolated populations in the shadierpartsofthis forest. Likewise,
Schizaea dichotoma, an uncommongrass-like fern, was found growing
singly along a forested path.
In addition, the fascinating tree-tenerum) and the spoon shaped
fern (Anthrophyum callifolium).
Undoubtedly, due to the wide arrayof micro-habitats, more species ofpteridophytes will be discovered
with additional effort of investigation. Because of its geographicalproximity to Singapore, thepteridophytes of Gunung Pulai is agood starting point for students
who want to study the great diversity of the regional pteridophytic
flora.
-Faridabinti

Yusuf & BenitoC. Tan

twining fern, Teratophyllum
aculeatum, is frequently encountered.
As Gunung Pulai is a relatively dry
farest, many epiphytes encaunteredare in areas clase ta the river andwaterfalls. Amang them are theTender Bird's Nest fern (Asplenium

Centipede fern (Blechnumorientale) -Contrary
to popularbelief, ferns are not always justplain green, as displayed by thejuvenile plant of the centipede fern

Grass fern (Schizaeadichotoma)-This plant can be mistaken asa grass, hence, its common
name-the grass fern

The pteridophytes found here
include several sun-loving fems,
the Resam (Dicranopteris linearisand D. curranii), and some speciesof Tectaria and Blechnum.
Contrastingly, there occur shadeand moisture dependent species,
such as members ofthe filmy fern
family, found mostly by theriverbank. In the relatively moist
areas,the fern ally, Selaginella

Peacock fern (Selaginella wildenowil) .The iridescent foliageof this plant is an unbelievably brilliant blue!
7

Ratfies Museum Newsletter, No.2, April 15, 2002

Freshwater

fishstudies

in Brunei

manoeuvre on smooth rocksurfaces without getting swept
away by strong currents. They feedon algae and other organisms
growing on the rocks.

net. A more gentle method involved
positioning the net downstream of arock, and running our hands over
the rock to chase Borneo suckers
into the net.

From specimensobtained, morphological data will be collected, andlive colour patterns and ecologicalobservations noted. These will thenbe compared with congeners in therest of Borneo. Preliminarytindings from this trip indicate atleast three of the tive species in theBelalong area are new to science.

Another method was to quickly lifta rock out ofthe water and hold it
over a net. Ifthey are present,
Borneo suckers will drop in.

Over the past few years, Brunei
has been visited by staff andstudents from the Raffies Museum
ofBiodiversity Research,
Singapore, participating in joint
field work with local institutions on
the diverse freshwater fish fauna
there. Various habitats, including
lakes, freshwater swamps and peatswamps, have been surveyed, andseveral new species of freshwater
fishes have been identified, as aresult ofthese studies.
During a recent visit in October
2001, we collaborated with staff ofthe Universiti Brunei Darussalarn
on a field study ofBorneo suckers(genus Gastromyzon). These areflattened fishes that inhabit theupper reaches of river systems
throughout Borneo. Their pectoraland pelvic fins form a skirt orsuction disc around their abdomen,
enabling the fish to cling and

Their ability to cling tightly to rocks
or river bottoms makes Borneo
suckers difficult fishes to obtain forstudies. One collecting method wetried was to set a net downstreamof a bunch of rocks, and then kickthe rocks to dislodge whatever
fishes may be hiding there into theAs well as sampling, we also
snorkelled in order to observe thefish's feeding and social behaviour.
Despite the strong currents, wewere able to view fishes that weotherwise couldn 't see from above
the water because they hide underrocks.
KelvinK. P. Lim& Tan Heok Hui

The Raffles Museum Newsletter is published by the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, National University of Singapore,
Lower Kent Ridge Road, Singapore 117600. Editors' Chua KS, N Sivasothi & Darren CJ Yeo.
For more information on these and many other stories, see our webpage at http.llrmbr.nus.edu.sg/newsletter/8