Rohan Pethiyagoda

Rohan David Pethiyagoda (abbreviated to Rohan Pett by deed poll in 2010),[1] is one of Sri Lanka's leading naturalists and a taxonomist on Freshwater fish of Sri Lanka.

Rohan Pethiyagoda
Born
Tilak Rohan David Pethiyagoda

(1955-11-19) 19 November 1955
Colombo, Sri Lanka
NationalitySri Lankan
EducationB.Sc., M.Phil
Alma materKing's College, London, University of Sussex
OccupationTaxonomist
Years active1990–present
EmployerAustralian Museum
Notable work
Freshwater fishes of Sri Lanka (1990)
Pearls, spices and green gold: an illustrated history of biodiversity exploration in Sri Lanka (2007)
Horton Plains: Sri Lanka's cloud-forest national park (2012)
AwardsRolex Award for Enterprise
WebsiteThe Wildlife Heritage Trust of Sri Lanka

Early life and career

Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 19 November 1955. Secondary education at St Thomas’s College, Mount Lavinia. B.Sc. (Eng.) Hons. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, King’s College, University of London 1977; M.Phil. in Biomedical Engineering, University of Sussex 1980.[2]

Service

From 1981-82 Pethiyagoda served as an engineer in the Division of Biomedical Engineering of the Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka, and from 1982-87 as director of that institution. In 1984 he was concurrently appointed chairman of Sri Lanka’s Water Resources Board. He served as Advisor on Environment and Natural resources to the Government of Sri Lanka from 2002–2004 and was in 2005 elected Deputy Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.[3] In 2008 Pethiyagoda was elected to the board of trustees of the International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature, having previously served a four-year term as Deputy Chair of the Assurance Group of the British American Tobacco Biodiversity Partnership. In 2009 he was appointed a Research Associate of the Australian Museum, Sydney[4], and from 2015 to 2018 he served as Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tea Board[5].

Naturalist life

He resigned from government office in 1987 to commence work on a project to explore the island’s freshwater fishes,[6] which led to his first book, Freshwater fishes of Sri Lanka[2] (1990), a richly-illustrated account of the country’s freshwater-fish fauna.[7]

Pethiyagoda diverted the profits from this book to an endowment for the Wildlife Heritage Trust (WHT), a foundation he established in 1990 to further biodiversity exploration in Sri Lanka, with the business-model of publishing natural-history books and channeling the proceeds into further exploration and research.[6] Between 1991 and 2012 WHT published some 40 books in both English and Sinhala, including widely circulated titles such as A field guide to the birds of Sri Lanka,[8] one of several titles translated into Sinhala and, aided by a grant from the Biodiversity Window of the World Bank / Netherlands Partnership Programme, provided free to 5,000 school libraries.[9][10][11][12] This program served, for the first time in Sri Lanka, to put scientific local-language biodiversity texts in the hands of young people.[13]

Discoveries

Together with colleagues at WHT Pethiyagoda has been responsible for the discovery and/or description of almost 100 new species of vertebrates from Sri Lanka, including fishes,[2][14] amphibians[12][15] and lizards,[16][17] in addition to 43 species of freshwater crabs.[18] This work also led to the finding that some 19 species of Sri Lankan amphibians have become extinct in the past 130 years,[15] the highest national extinction record in the world.[19]

Recognition

In 1998, concerned by the rapid loss of montane forest in Sri Lanka, Pethiyagoda began a (still on-going) project to convert abandoned tea plantations into natural forest,[20] for which he was honoured by the Rolex Awards for Enterprise.[6]

In recognition of his contribution to biodiversity conservation Pethiyagoda, a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.[21] In addition to some 60 papers in the scientific literature,[22] his most recently published books are on the history of natural-history exploration in Sri Lanka,[23] Sri Lankan primates[24] and Horton Plains National Park.[25] He is a Research Associate of the Australian Museum[26] and serves as editor for Asian Freshwater Fishes of the journal Zootaxa.[27]

Legacy

Several new species have been named in his honour, including the fishes Dawkinsia rohani[28] and Rasboroides rohani;[29] the microhylid frog Uperodon rohani[30][31]; the dragon lizard Calotes pethiyagodai;[32] the jumping spider Onomastus pethiyagodai[33] and the dragonfly Macromidia donaldi pethiyagodai.[34]

In July 2012 Pethiyagoda and colleagues named[35] a genus of South Asian freshwater fishes Dawkinsia in honour of the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, following which Pethiyagoda told AFP that "Richard Dawkins has through his writings helped us understand that the universe is far more beautiful and awe-inspiring than any religion has imagined".[36] Pethiyagoda also named the freshwater cyprinid genus Haludaria[37] after the Begali youth known only as Haludar, who illustrated the fishes depicted in Francis Hamilton's (1822) "Fishes of the Ganges", the founder work of Indian ichthyology.

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References
  1. Ceylon Daily News. 6 September 2010. p. 21. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. Pethiyagoda, Rohan (1990). Freshwater fishes of Sri Lanka. Colombo: WHT. p. 362. ISBN 955-9114-00-X.
  3. Black, Richard. "Global plan to rescue amphibians". BBC News. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
  4. News, Opening Hours Closed to the public until mid-2020 Address 1 William StreetSydney NSW 2010 Australia Phone +61 2 9320 6000 www australianmuseum net au Copyright © 2020 The Australian Museum ABN 85 407 224 698 View Museum. "Fish Section Research Associates". The Australian Museum. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  5. "Rohan Pethiyagoda new Tea Board Chairman | Daily FT". www.ft.lk. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  6. "Rohan Pethiyagoda - The Project". Rolex Awards for Enterprise. Retrieved 14 January 2012.
  7. Moyle, P.B. (1991). "Review of R. Pethiyagoda, Freshwater Fishes of Sri Lanka". Copeia. 1991 (4): 1166–1177. doi:10.2307/1446131. JSTOR 1446131.
  8. Kotagama S.; Wijayasinghe, A. (1995). A field guide to the birds of Sri Lanka. WHT. p. 224. ISBN 955-9114-07-7.
  9. Kotagama, S.; Wijayasinghe, A. Siri Laka kurullo ['Birds of Sri Lanka']. Colombo: WHT. p. 516. ISBN 955-9114-18-2.
  10. Ashton, M.S.; Gunatilleke, S.; de Zoysa, N.; Dassanayake, M.D.; Gunatilleke, N.; Siril Wijesundera, S. (2004). Siri Laka gaskolan athpotha ['A handbook to the trees and shrubs of Sri Lanka']. Translated by Wijayasinghe, A. Colombo: WHT. p. 513. ISBN 978-955-9114-30-7.
  11. Somaweera, R. (2006). Sri Lankawe Sarpayin ['Snakes of Sri Lanka']. Colombo: WHT. p. 297. ISBN 955-9114-35-2.
  12. Manamendra-Arachchi, K.; Pethiyagoda, R. (2007). Sri Lankawe Ubhayajeeveen ['The amphibian fauna of Sri Lanka']. Colombo: WHT. p. 440. ISBN 978-955-9114-34-5.
  13. Fernando, Prithiviraj. "New perspective on amphibians". The Sunday Leader. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
  14. Pethiyagoda, R.; Kottelat, M.; Silva, A.; Maduwage, M.; Meegaskumbura, M. (2008). "A review of the genus Laubuca in Sri Lanka, with description of three new species (Teleostei: Cyprinidae)". Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters. 19: 7–26.
  15. Manamendra-Arachchi, K.; Pethiyagoda, R. (2005). "The Sri Lankan shrub frogs of the genus Philautus Gistel". Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. Supplement 12: 163–303.
  16. Pethiyagoda, R.; Manamendra-Arachchi, K. (1998). "A revision of the endemic Sri Lankan agamid lizard genus Ceratophora Gray, 1835, with description of two new species". Journal of South Asian Natural History. 3: 1–52.
  17. Manamendra–Arachchi, K.; Batuwita, S.; Pethiyagoda, R. (2007). "A revision of the Sri Lankan day geckos (Reptilia: Gekkonidae: Cnemaspis), with description of new species from Sri Lanka and southern India". Zeylanica. 7: 9–122.
  18. Bahir, Mohomed M.; Ng, P.K.L.; Crandall, K.; Pethiyagoda, R. (2005). "A conservation assessment of the freshwater crabs of Sri Lanka". Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. Supplement 12: 121–126.
  19. Bambaradeniya, Channa, ed. (2006). The fauna of Sri Lanka: status of taxonomy, research and conservation (PDF). International Union for Conservation of Nature. pp. 125–131. ISBN 955-8177-51-2.
  20. Pethiyagoda, Rohan S. Jr.; Nanayakkara, S. (2011). "Invasion by Austroeupatorium inulifolium (Asteraceae) arrests succession following tea cultivation in the highlands of Sri Lanka". Ceylon Journal of Science (Biological Sciences). 40 (2): 175–181. doi:10.4038/cjsbs.v40i2.3934.
  21. "The Island".
  22. "Google Scholar".
  23. Pethiyagoda, R. (2007). Pearls, spices and green gold: an illustrated history of biodiversity exploration in Sri Lanka. Colombo: WHT. p. 241. ISBN 978-955-9114-38-3.
  24. Pethiyagoda, Rohan (2012). Sri Lankan primates: An enthusiasts' guide. Colombo: Wildlife Conservation Society, Galle. p. 126. ISBN 9789550954001.
  25. Pethiyagoda, R. (2012). Horton Plains: Sri Lanka's cloud-forest national park. WHT. p. 320. ISBN 978-955-9114-41-3.
  26. "Fish Section Research Associates". The Australian Museum. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
  27. "Pisces". Magnolia Press. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
  28. Devi, K. Rema; Indra, T.J.; Knight, J.D. Marcus (26 August 2010). "Puntius rohani (Teleostei: Cyprinidae), a new species of barb in the Puntius filamentosus group from southern Western Ghats of India". Journal of Threatened Taxa. 2 (9): 1121–1129. doi:10.11609/jott.o2505.1121-9.
  29. Batuwita, Sudesh; de Silva, M.; Edirisinghe, U. (November 2013). "A review of the danionine genera Rasboroides and Horadandia (Pisces: Cyprinidae), with description of a new species from Sri Lanka". Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters. 24 (2): 121–140.
  30. Garg, Sonali; Senevirathne, Gayani; Wijayathilaka, Nayana; Phuge, Samadhan; Deuti, Kaushik; Manamendra-Arachchi, Kelum; Meegaskumbura, Madhava; Biju, Sd (22 February 2018). "An integrative taxonomic review of the South Asian microhylid genus Uperodon". Zootaxa. 4384 (1): 1–88. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4384.1.1. ISSN 1175-5334.
  31. "'Yala Toilet Frog' named after departing Tea Board chairman | Daily FT". www.ft.lk. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  32. Amarasinghe, A.A. Thasun; Karunarathna, D.M.S.S.; Hallermann, J.; Fujunuma, J.; Grillitsch, H.; Campbell, P.D. (2014). "A new species of the genus Calotes (Squamata: Agamidae) from high elevations of the Knuckles Massif of Sri Lanka". Zootaxa. 3785 (1): 59–78. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3785.1.5. PMID 24872171.
  33. Benjamin, Suresh P. (2010). "Revision and cladistic analysis of the humping spider genus Onomastus (Araneae: Salticidae)". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 159 (3): 711–745. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2009.00580.x.
  34. van der Poorten, Nancy (2012). "Macromidia donaldi pethiyagodai subsp. nov. from Sri Lanka (Odonata: Corduliidae)". International Journal of Odonatology. 15 (2): 99–106. doi:10.1080/13887890.2012.692112.
  35. Pethiyagoda, Rohan; Meegaskumbura, M.; Maduwage, K. (2012). "A synopsis of the genus Puntius in South Asia (Pisces: Cyprinidae)" (PDF). Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters. 23: 69–95. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
  36. AFP (16 July 2012). "Sri Lankans name new type of fish after Richard Dawkins". The Telegraph. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
  37. Pethiyagoda, Rohan (2 May 2013). "Haludaria, a replacement generic name for Dravidia (Teleostei: Cyprinidae)". Zootaxa. 3646 (2): 199. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3646.2.9. ISSN 1175-5334.
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