Commissioners
Dr Maurice Kottelat
Overview
Maurice Kottelat's main field of expertise is the taxonomy of
freshwater fishes of Eurasia. After holding a museum position
for a few years, he became a "free-lance" taxonomist
specialised in biodiversity surveys of aquatic habitats. Especially
active in Southeast Asia for international agencies and industrial
and development projects, he has the experience of the biodiversity
data and taxonomy needed by non-academic 'users' (including
deadlines). He has 29 years of extensive field research, especially
in Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, Mongolia and Greece. Besides
scientific publications on the material obtained as by-product
of his consultancies, Maurice's interest is in the taxonomy
of Southeast Asian fishes (especially the fauna of very swift
water habitats like hill streams, rapids and waterfalls), cave
fishes, history of ichthyology, bibliography. His taxonomic
groups of primary interest are loaches (Balitoridae, Nemacheilidae,
etc.), Cyprinidae, Sisoridae.
Summary of Research
and Education:
Maurice is born in 1957 in Delémont, Switzerland. After
early studies in Switzerland, he received his Dr Sc in 1990 from
the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). He was awarded
a Dr Sc Honoris Causa by the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland)
in 2006 for his work on aquatic biodiversity. Since 1994, he
is Honorary Research Associate at the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity
Research, Singapore. He is founding and current editor of the
journal Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters (since
1989). He has been president of the European Ichthyological Society
from 1997 to 2007. He is author of 280 scientific publications,
including the books Freshwater fishes of Western Indonesia
and Sulawesi (bilingual English and Indonesian), Fishes
of Laos (English and Lao editions), Freshwater fishes
of Northern Vietnam, Fishes of Mongolia, Handbook
of European freshwater fishes and a forthcoming Checklist
of the Freshwater fishes of Southeast Asia
Contact details
Route de la Baroche 12
CH-2952 Cornol, Switzerland
Tel. +41 32 462 3175
Fax +41 32 462 2259
E-mail: mkottelat (at) dplanet
(dot) ch
