Dr. Juan Carlos T. Gonzalez, Professor at the Institute of Biological Sciences (IBS) and Curator of the UPLB Museum of Natural History’s Zoological and Wildlife Collection, has been appointed as the new director of the MNH effective February 16, 2015.

UPLB Chancellor Fernando C. Sanchez, Jr. appointed Gonzalez after receiving the report of the search committee headed by Assistant to the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Extension Dr. Susan May F. Calumpang.

Dr. Gonzalez finished his BS and MS degrees in Zoology from UPLB and DPhil in Zoology at Edward Grey Institute for Field Ornithology and St. Anne's College, University of Oxford. He has served as the Deputy Director of the Institute of Biological Sciences and was recently conferred as UP Scientist II.

Residents from this once restive town could have never thought that their quiet bird visitors that have arrived and gone for half of the year may have come all the way from a distant land.

“Some of the birds we see here in our shores were a bit unfamiliar; we hadn’t realized that many of them were actually migratory,” Popot Pereda, a Mulanay native said.

Migratory birds have been flying in on the town’s coast in small flocks since November last year, feeding on insects, small crustaceans and fish during low tide. Mulanay, in Quezon Province, lies along the eastern coast of the Philippines and offers a quick rest stop for birds passing through migratory flyways.

To help Mulanay authorities identify these birds, the Museum of Natural History’s Zoological and Wildlife section recently surveyed more than 20 kilometers of Mulanay’s coastline on February 7, 2015.

When we think of bats, most of us think of vampire bats and get spine-tingling chill and nerve-wrecking fear in the process. But did you know that there are only three species of bats which source of food is blood and the rest eat mostly insects, fruits and pollen?

And odd as it may seem, although there are some reports of humans being bit by bats, the occurrence is far less than the number of hidden cases of bats victimized by another vampire – one that almost never leaves.

Meet the bat fly – flattened, spiderlike flies seldom with no eyes and wings, and highly specialized for a nearly permanent ectoparasitic relationship with their hosts, the Chiroptera (bats). Bat flies belong to the Family Nycteribiidae of the insect Order Diptera.

A new species of moth from the Philippines has been named after MNH curator for moths and spiders Dr. Aimee Lynn B. Dupo by French scientist Claude Tautel of the Entomology Department of Systematics and Evolution, Museum National d'Historie Naturelle in Paris, France.

The male holotype of the new species, collected in 2012 in Banaue, Mountain Province is named Cleora aimeelynnae Tautel. Genus Cleora is a member of the Geometridae family of Order Lepidoptera. The moth has a forewing length of 20 mm and a wingspan of 34 mm. The species would be most probably seen in primary forests of low mountains and middle elevations from 1650 and 2100 meters above sea level.

A recent study by the UPLB Museum of Natural History (MNH) and the School of Environmental Science and Management (SESAM) revealed that businesses along P. Burgos St., in Batangas City were unaware of several issues or aspects on the thousands of migratory barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) which roost along the said thoroughfare.

Batangas City has been put in the spotlight on several occasions due to the swallows’ phenomenal urban roosting during the months of November to March. An estimated 250,000 birds roost on top of power lines, trees, posts and even buildings every dusk during those months. (Related story: Stalking the swallow swarm)

Entomologists from the UPLB Museum of Natural History have described two new species of spiders discovered in Mt. Makiling, Luzon, Philippines.

Dr. Aimee Lynn Barrion-Dupo and Dr. Alberto T. Barrion, curators at the MNH Entomology Section recently reported in two scientific journals of their discovery of the orb-weaver spider Prolochus junlitjri and the comb-footed spider Chrysso makiling.

Dr. Barrion-Dupo is also a Professor at the Institute of Biological Sciences at UPLB while Dr. Barrion is Adjunct Curator of spiders, parasitic hymenoptera and rice arthropods at the Museum.