Visual Sensibility

According to ScienceDaily, a species of lizard is now extinct from the Hawaiian Islands, making it the latest native vertebrate species to become extirpated from this tropical archipelago. 

Small animals like this skink are prone to what Fisher and Ineich call “cryptic extinction” — when a species is easily confused with similar species that their extinction can go unnoticed for decades.

Read the rest of article here.

Professor Djoko is one of Indonesia’s renowned dedicated herpetologists and also zoologists and I bet he has known about this, or even the symtomps of its extinction. I will have his class on Wednesday and I hope he’s not sad.

(left to right) : Kang Iqbal from #BdgBerkebun and Kang Dicky from Bandung Inisiatip. Both of them came from communities with social purposes aimed for the better condition of Bandung city. Honestly, really hadn’t known about the environmental issues of the city before I listened to their stories. Thanks to people from Ganesha Hijau for giving me a change to participate! :)

I had a general lecture from Jack West this afternoon. The man is an Indonesian conservationist who lives in Australia (I forget exactly where) to conduct a research about the over-population of red fox (Vulpes vulpes) by observing the hunting habit of Australians and each fox’s canine structure (which later relates to the foxes’ diets). What I can say right now is that I really really didn’t regret spending my free afternoon for this lecture. The best thing for an avid fan of animals like me is this kind of thing; a very inspiring and knowledge-expanding lecture, great speaker, and new information come to me into one (Jack even told the attendees one of the biggest secret of Australian conservation and nature threat!). Turned out Jack was a long time friend of my lecturers, Mr. Ahmad Sjarmidi (the famous mammal conservationist in SITH ITB) and Mr. Djoko Iskandar (Indonesia’s well-known herpetologist and a notable professor in SITH ITB), and he helped Mr. Sjarmidi in a ‘Operation Ganesha’, a project to move Sumatran elephants into their new habitat massively.

I’ll tell you more about the general lecture with Jack and my latest painting project in Thursday. Now I really have to study for tomorrow’s Cell and Molecular Biology mid-exam. Wish me success! :)