The inaugural year began with a training course held in Alaungdaw Kathapa National Park in July 1999. Twenty foresters and park rangers from the Nature and Wildlife Conservation Division of the Forestry Department attended. The course, taught by Joe Slowinski, Jens Vindum, and Heidi Robeck, focused on the fundamentals of herpetology, systematics, and the practical aspects of fieldwork. Participants learned how to identify animals, how to sample tissues, how to prepare and preserve scientific museum specimens, as well as record associated ecological and collection data. At the completion of the course, the most interested and talented individuals were identified for the Myanmar Herpetological Survey field team.

In November 1999, Slowinski and Heidi Robeck (graduate student, Harvard University) traveled with the field team to Kyaik Hti Yo Wildlife Sanctuary, Mon State, and then to the Lake Inle area of western Shan State. This trip offered the field team additional training before they started extensive surveys.

After Slowinski left in November, the field team, consisting of Htun Win (team leader), Thin Thin, San Lwin Oo, Sai Wunna Kyi, and photographer Hla Tun started their survey work. They began surveying Hlawga Wildlife Park, about a forty minute drive from Yangon. The close proximity to Yangon allowed the team to try out their equipment and purchase additional needed items.

2000 began with the field team traveling farther afield. In January, the team headed north to Shwesettaw Wildife Sanctuary, Magwe State. From there, they headed north to Popa Mountain Park, Mandalay Division. Both areas are in the central dry zone of the Ayeyarwady plains. At Popa Mountain Park, they collected a new species of gecko (Cyrtodactylus brevidactylus Bauer 2002). This lizard is most likely endemic to Mount Popa.

Shown here in a view from the International Space Station, the extinct volcano of Mount Popa (5,080 ft. elev.) is the dark vegetated peak surrounded by the arid plain of the Ayerarwady basin. Light-colored sandbars can be seen in the main channel of the Ayerarwady River.

Earth Sciences and Image Analysis, NASA-Johnson Space Center. 27 Jun. 2003. "The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth" <http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Coll/> image STS095-721-AT November 1998.

In April, Slowinski, Zug, Vindum and Lucas met up with the field team. Vindum, Lucas, and Sai Wunna Kyi traveled to a small village in the Ayeyarwady delta where they spent six weeks collecting along the mangrove sloughs of the delta. Forty-seven species were recorded, including the little known vine snake, Ahaetulla fronticincta, and a number of homalopsine snakes such as Cerberus, Bitia, Cantoria, Fordonia and Gerarda. Two new species were also found in the delta area, a caecilian and a gecko.

At the same time, Slowinski, Zug and the rest of the field team explored the areas in western Shan State and Mandalay Division.

In late November, the field team joined Slowinski and Academy staff from the Department of Entomology and Department of Ornithology and Mammalogy and traveled to the coastal mountain forests in the Rakhine Yoma Elephant Range. Thirty-four amphibian and reptile species were collected. During the trip, a few days were spent surveying coastal mangroves which resulted in the capture of three species of sea snakes: Laticauda colubrina, L. laticaudata, and Hydrophis ornatus. The Academy's revolving exhibit Science Now highlighted this multi-disciplinary trip.

In January, graduate students Lucas and Wogan joined the field team and together conducted surveys in the coastal rainforests and mangroves of Mon State, Ayeyarwady Division, and Rakhine State. Several new sites as well as previously surveyed areas were visited. The return visits to Mwe Hauk Village in the Ayeyarwady Division and Gwa Village in southern Rakhine State are part of the effort to document the seasonality of faunal assemblages in these coastal habitats.

In February, Zug returned to Myanmar and, with Sai Wunna Kyi, traveled to Kyaik Hti Yo Wildlife Sanctuary, Bago Mountains, and Moeyingyi Bird Sanctuary. The purpose of their trip was to locate sites that could be used for long-term monitoring projects.

From early March to mid May, the field team went back to Hkakabo Razi Protected Area to begin a three-month survey. In the shadow of the jagged, snow-covered peaks, the field team traveled by foot for over 140 km into the park. Here is the intriguing meeting of the Sino-Burman Range, which forms the uplifted eastern bounds of the country, and the eastern Himalayan range to the north. The area had the highest diversity the Project had found in any given area in Myanmar, with 82 species recorded. Highlights include the vipers Protobothrops kaulbacki, P. mucrosquamatus and Ovophis monticola, the rare toad Bufo stuarti, and the relatively rare agamids Calotes jerdoni and Ptyctolaemus gularis.

This region has only recently been declared a protected area and had previously been lightly surveyed by Ronald Kaulback in the 1930's. As a result of Kaulback's survey, several new species were described by Malcolm Smith (1940) that are currently only known from the few specimens. Thus, specimens collected from this region will be important comparative material for several species. In addition, several new species have been collected from the region (Wilkinson, in prep.), and analysis has just begun.

After a break, the field team, accompanied by Lucas, Wogan and Vindum, focused on western Shan State, collecting in the Panlaung-Pyadalin Cave Wildlife Sanctuary and the Inle Lake Bird Sanctuary, for approximately six weeks. Their itinerary brought them into Indaing forests through moist mountain evergreen forests, all areas previously unsurveyed. Again, a number of new species were collected, including another new species of Cyrtodactylus (Bauer, in press), another tree frog (Wilkinson, in prep.), and two new species of frogs (Wogan, in prep.).

In November, the field team traveled to northern Sagaing State, near the Indian border, to the Htamanthi Wildlife Sanctuary, which preserves 2,151 sq. km. of evergreen to semi-evergreen forests and is considered one of the most important remaining areas of intact habitat for large mammals such as tigers and wild elephants (Rabinowitz 1995). Its position on the east bank of the Chindwin River, a major tributary of the Ayeyarwady River, also makes it inviting to ichthyological and herpetological surveying.

In late January, basic equipment for establishing a natural history museum was sent by cargo ship to Yangon. CAS donated supplies such as glass jars and lids, shelving units, books, journals and computers for the newly established Myanmar Biodiversity Museum located in Hlawga Wildlife Park outside of Yangon.

In February, Vindum returned to help unpack the shipping container filled with museum supplies. Unfortunately, the ship carrying the container broke down in Singapore and didn't arrive until after Vindum returned to CAS.

Wogan, Jeffery Wilkinson and Vindum returned to Myanmar in late April. The first portion of the trip involved organizing the Herpetology Section of the Myanmar Biodiversity Museum. With the help of the field team and others, collection and library shelves were installed. Library books were unpacked and organized, and the first jars of specimens were placed on the collection shelving.

The new museum collection will house many of the specimens collected by the survey. Daw Thin Thin, one of the field team members, will curate the new collection. The building of the collection space was the subject of a Science Now exhibit at CAS.

The rest of trip, the field team, Vindum, Wogan and Wilkinson conducted the first herpetological survey in the newly established Indawgyi Lake Wildlife Sanctuary in Kachin State. A surprisingly high diversity (75 species) was encountered, with potentially 12 new species.

The field team spent July and the first half of August surveying the mountains of northern Chin State. Again, the collection yielded a number of potentially new species of lizards.

In the latter part of August and the end of September, the team flew to eastern Shan State to survey the remote Wildlife Refuges of Pa-Sa and Loimwe.

The last two months of the project (November and December) will be spent in the southern portion of Taninthary Division. We are certain that these collections will contain new records for the country.

All these areas are newly sampled areas that have helped increased our sampling of new habitats and ecoregions.