o_19ko2dt161ng2j4e1tgnoqv1s45a.pdf

G.W.H. DAVISON & ZUBAID AKBAR (2007)
LITERATURE REVIEW
The basis for an understanding of mammal diversity in Peninsular Malaysia was set in place
by the work of H.C. Robinson, C.B. Kloss and F.N. Chasen, in the period from 1902 until
1941. Their work was primarily taxonomic and geographical, sampling and listing, describing
species and subspecies, especially island races, of nearly all mammals. They deposited their
collections in the Federated Malay States Museums and/or the Raffles Museum Singapore,
with duplicates going largely to the British Museum (Natural History). Chasen (1940)
published the definitive Handlist that summarises all of the earlier literature. Between them
these three scientists produced nearly 200 publications on mammals of the region, including
38 by Chasen (Tweedie 1948) and a massive 86 by Kloss (Banks 1951), mostly concerning
Peninsular Malaysia but extending as far as India, Vietnam, Hainan and Java.
In Sarawak, an equivalent process was undertaken first by A.H. Everett (1893), who collected
natural history specimens and published a first list of mammals for Borneo, and then by the
directors of the Sarawak Museum. Sarawak and Sabah received some attention from the
Federated Malay States Museums (e.g., Chasen & Kloss 1931), while Hill (1960) provided a
long publication on the Robinson Collection of mammals in the British Museum (Natural
History) that included Bornean as well as Malay Peninsula material. Knowledge about the
mammals of Sabah was added to by Davis (1962) and by Harrison (1964).
Beginning at a slightly later period, agencies such as the Institute for Medical Research, the
Department of Wildlife & National Parks, related institutions such as the Malaysian
Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) and the Palm Oil Research
Institute Malaysia (PORIM and its successors), as well as Malaysian universities have
contributed to a wide array of mammalian studies. Thus, while the main taxonomic collections
were museum-based and dated largely from the colonial era, more specialized collections for
particular research purposes were also developed on a smaller scale within local institutions.
The range of taxonomic methods applied has become highly sophisticated, including DNA
hybridization (e.g., Han et al. 2000), gene sequencing (e.g., Fernando et al. 2003), and
analysis of ultrasound (e.g., Kingston et al. 2001) and audible sound (Ross 2004). The emphasis
of recent taxonomic work has been on cryptic species within traditionally difficult taxa,
using a combination of new and classical morphometric techniques to separate out the species,
e.g. by Ruedi (1995, 1996). The following paragraphs touch on some main areas of work, but
are far from complete; many other studies of equal interest could be mentioned. Many relevant
papers have appeared in the Journal of Wildlife & Parks, the Malayan Nature Journal and the
Sarawak Museum Journal.
Bio-medical studies, especially of mammal-borne zoonoses, have been the province of the
Institute for Medical Research (e.g., Lim 1973; Lim et al. 1977). There has been a very
strong emphasis on small mammals such as rats and squirrels, but a liberal research policy
has led to publications on many species of mammals large and small, and on community
ecology, altitudinal zonation and other topics. As vectors of economically and socially
important diseases, the parasites of Malaysian mammals have come under scrutiny for many
years (e.g. Mullin et al. 1972; Zunika et al. 2002). Escalante et al. (2005) have recently
shown that South-east Asia—rather than Africa, as previously thought—may be the origin
of the human-infecting Plasmodium vivax, now existing nearly worldwide. Furthermore, the
dependence of endoparasites and ectoparasites (e.g., Fain et al. 1984) on mammalian (and,
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