Straight from the Mammologists

Q: What were your goals for the trip?

A: One of them was to gain a better understanding of Vietnam's mammal diversity working in collaboration with Vietnamese scientists. We wanted to document the occurrence of a variety of mammals in a study area and possibly discover new species. Another goal was to collect species that are not available in our museum's collections or Vietnam's museum's collections. Adding these specimens to our collections would allow us to use them in our own research projects on mammalian evolution and to make them available to other researchers.

Q: What was it like to do research in Vietnam?

A: It was an experience full of surprises, some pleasant, some frustrating, which made this trip unpredictable for the most part. Much frustration had to do with bureaucratic aspects of the process, but fortunately we ended up in a part of the country where biodiversity was high and unexplored.

Q: What discoveries did you make?

A: Among other things, we were able to collect bats in a limestone cave, known by the local villagers as "The Dragon's Hut." We obtained six species of bats, one of which, a species of leaf-nosed bat (genus Hipposideros), was not known to occur in northern Vietnam, and two others, one a horseshoe bat (genus Rhinolophus) and the other another species of leaf-nosed-bat were not known to occur in Vietnam at all. Whether any of these are new species we cannot determine yet, but he hope to find out during the next year.

Q: What was the low point of the trip for you?

A: Having to spend more than two weeks in cities waiting for permits, instead of in the field doing our research.

Q: What was the high point of the trip for you?

A: We were lucky to be in an area where tree shrews occurred abundantly. Tree shrews are an intriguing group of mammals because they are thought to be close relatives of primates and they can tell us a lot about the origins of primates, which includes us. Our museum had only one complete skeleton of a tree shrew before this trip.

Q: What would you hope to accomplish on the next expedition?

A: One thing would be to sample bats in new caves in Vietnam in order to document better the geographical occurrence of the bats we found. I'd also like to collect some dermopterans (also known as flying lemurs, although they are not real lemurs), and to get a better sample of rodent diversity of Vietnam.