sign in a cave in Laos

3 April 2020

Memorial issue to Tony Whitten

Tony Whitten tragically died in a road traffic accident in Dec 2017. In March 2020 the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology produced a memorial issue dedicated to Tony, Supplement No 35. See more on my website.

Tony was very actively involved with trying to protect Gunung Kanthan from quarrying, see this blog. The hill and caves are home to the endemic Liphiustius kanthan.

Some relevant articles in the RBZ special issue :

BROWNE, Stephen (2020) Foreward. RBZ, Supplement No. 35: pp v-vi.
This has an interesting piece about Tony and Liphistius kanthan.

LIEW, Thor-Seng &  CLEMENTS, Gopalasamy Reuben (2020) Whittenia, a new genus of land snails from Perak, Peninsular Malaysia (Gastropoda: Diplommatinidae). RBZ, Supplement No. 35: 143–148.
"This paper proposes a new genus, Whittenia, for a group of irregularly coiled land snail species hitherto placed in the genus Opisthostoma. Whittenia differs from congeners in Diplommatinidae based on both molecular phylogeny and shell morphology. We reassign two previously described species (Opisthostoma vermiculum and O. gittenbergeri) to Whittenia. Both species are endemic to the limestone karsts of Kinta Valley in Perak, Peninsular Malaysia."
This genus is named after Tony Whitten.

ANON (2020) The Tony Whitten conservation prize. RBZ, Supplement No. 35: pp 15–16.
One recipient of a prize was Junn Kitt Foon, for his work on conservation and taxonomy of land snails in Malaysia. Tony had a particular interest in snails.

FOON, Junn Kitt & MOHAMMAD Effendi Marzuki (2020) Two new species of land snails of the genus Rahula from Peninsular Malaysia (Gastropoda: Euconulidae). RBZ, Supplement No. 35: 137–142.
This paper describes 2 new snail species, one of which is named after Tony, Rahula tonywhitteni .

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Malaysian taxa named for Tony Whitten , RBZ, Supplement No. 35: p 9 :

Plectostoma whitteni Liew, Vermeulen, Marzuki, & Schilthuizen, 2014: 63 (a micro-landsnail from
Malaysia)

Rahula tonywhitteni Foon & Marzuki, 2020: 141 (a land snail from Malaysia)


Whittenia Liew & Clements, 2020: 144 (a land snail from Malaysia)

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See more on my website, on Archives 2020.