o_19ko2dt161ng2j4e1tgnoqv1s45a.pdf

INDRANEIL DAS & NORSHAM YAAKOB (2007)
latter. Mocquard’s paper presented an updated list of herpetofauna of Borneo, with 204 species,
comprising 49 amphibians and 155 reptiles.
Another noteworthy expedition to this mountain was led in 1899 by Karl Richard Hanitsch
(1860–1940), of the Raffles Museum, Singapore. The expedition was described by Hanitsch
(1900), and Boulenger in London identified the herpetological specimens, in the process
describing Leptobrachium baluensis, Gecko rhacophorus (at present Ptychozoon rhacophorus),
Stoliczkia borneensis and Oreocalamus hanitschi. Two field associates of the Raffles Museum
in Singapore, Frederick Nutter Chasen (1897–1942) and Henry Maurice Pendlebury (?–1945)
collected on Kinabalu between April and May 1929 (Pendlebury & Chasen 1932), making
their herpetological material available to Malcolm Smith, who wrote an account based on a
collection of some 600 specimens, that are mostly extant in the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity
Research, National University of Singapore (Smith 1931a). Boden Kloss’s 1928 visit to Gunung
Kinabalu was to select collecting stations for a survey of this mountainous area the following
year, when the Kampung (= village) Kiau approach was taken. Consequently, it bears the
label of a great many specimens, including a number of types.
Malaysia
Robert Frederick Inger (1920–) of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, has been
the most famous of the living scholars of Bornean herpetology. His contributions include
monographs on systematics, field guides, papers on systematics, ecology and biogeography
(e.g., Inger 1954; 1956; 1957; 1958a; 1958b; 1964; 1966; 1967; 1989; Inger & Frogner 1980;
Inger & Gritis 1983; Inger & Haile 1959; Inger & Leviton 1961; Inger & Stuebing 1989;
1991; 1996); 1997; Inger et al. 1995; 1996); 2001; Inger & Tan 1996); Inger & Voris 2001),
which continue to inspire the public, a most interesting tropical fauna. A second staff of the
same institution, Harold Knight Voris (1940–), studied marine and freshwater snakes of the
region, publishing ecological and taxonomic studies (e.g., Han et al. 1991; Voris 1964; 1985;
Voris & Karns 1996). A collaborator of Inger and Voris is Robert Butler Stuebing (1946–)
who conducted research on sea snakes and crocodilians (Engkamat et al. 1991; Stuebing
1985; Stuebing et al. 1985; Stuebing & Voris 1990; Stuebing et al. 2006), and also produced
important accounts of several sites, new species descriptions (Stuebing 1994; Stuebing &
Wong 2000) and an updated checklist of the snakes of Borneo (Stuebing 1991, with an update
in 1994), culminating in a field guide to the snakes of Borneo, coauthored with Inger (Stuebing
& Inger 1999). He also made a passionate plea for the continuation of systematic research in
the region, and pointed out the need for continuing with systematic collections (Stuebing
1998). A number of Japanese colleagues have contributed to our knowledge of the Bornean
herpetofauna. Foremost, for the study of the Amphibia, is Masafumi Matsui (1950–), who
conducted field work in Sabah and Sarawak, describing new species as well as aspects of
distribution and biology, especially acoustics (Matsui 1983; 1986; 1996); Matsui et al. 1985;
1996). His co-workers published significant works on reptiles–Tsutomu Hikida (1951–) and
Hidetoshi Ota (1959–) published a number of papers on the distribution, genetics and
systematics of lizards (e.g., Hikida 1979; 1980; 1982; 1990; Ota & Hikida 1988; 1989; 1991;
1996); Ota et al. 1989; 1990; 1991; 1992; 1996a; 1996b) The German contribution to the
knowledge of Bornean herpetofauna have been significant, including the work of Rudolph
Malkmus and Ulrich Manthey (1946–) throughout Borneo, and especially in Gunung Kinabalu,
culminating in a volume on the herpetofauna of that massif (Malkmus et al. 2002).
41