Wildlife Conservation Society - Galle

13/09/2026

A New Chapter for Hiyare’s Hiyare Ketala

After a year of patience, dedication and countless hours of work, a small but deeply meaningful conservation milestone has been reached.

The botanists of the Wildlife Conservation Society – Galle, with the generous support of MAS Holdings, have successfully established an ex situ population of Lagenandra limbusleviterapertae — the highly range-restricted Hiyare Ketala, endemic to Sri Lanka and assessed as Critically Endangered.

From a wild population of only around 175 mother plants, our nursery population has now grown to approximately 300 plants. Today, the first batch from this conservation population has been carefully introduced into suitable streamlet habitats in Hiyare and Kottawa Forest Reserve.

This is more than simply growing plants.

Lagenandra limbusleviterapertae is a semi-aquatic plant intimately connected with freshwater ecosystems. Protecting it means protecting the tiny streams, wetlands and clean-water habitats that sustain it — and the many other organisms that depend on them.

One species. One small population. One stream at a time.
Conservation begins by giving the rarest things a second chance.

10/09/2026

Rediscovery of Mugilogobius chulae (Smith, 1932) after 90 years and new goby records from northern Sri Lanka

Full Article: https://doi.org/10.59120/drj.v17i3.627
First published: 07 September 2026 (Online)
The story of this goby goes back to 1936, when the renowned Sri Lankan zoologist P. E. P. Deraniyagala described a new ‘freshwater’ goby from Sri Lanka as Vaimosa valigouva in his paper, “Two New Fishes from Ceylon,” published in The Ceylon Journal of Science. The species was described from Point Pedro, Jaffna, its type locality, and this remained its only known record from Sri Lanka.

For decades afterwards, the species disappeared from the scientific record. Civil conflict, restricted access to the northern region, the presence of landmines, and limited opportunities for field surveys severely constrained biodiversity research in northern Sri Lanka. With no subsequent confirmed records from elsewhere on the island, the species was eventually excluded from national fish inventories and became largely forgotten in the country’s ichthyological literature. Later, following taxonomic revisions, Vaimosa valigouva was synonymised with Mugilogobius chulae (Smith, 1932), which is currently the valid name.

During a recent expedition to northern Sri Lanka, we unexpectedly encountered an unidentified goby at Karainagar, Karaitivu Island, in close proximity to the Jaffna Peninsula and surrounding archipelago. Following detailed morphological examination, we confirmed the identity of the specimens!

Here, we report the rediscovery of the Yellow-stripe Goby, Mugilogobius chulae, in Sri Lanka after 90 years since its only historical record. This record also represents one of the westernmost known occurrences of the species in the Indian Ocean.
But this was not the only discovery. We also report the first verified northernmost record in Sri Lanka of the Black-spotted Snubnose Goby, Pseudogobius melanostictus (Day, 1876), a species with no recent, verified records from the island, with previous records restricted primarily to the western coast estuarine habitats of Sri Lanka.

Our findings extend the known distributions of both species, contribute important records to the national ichthyofaunal inventory, and underscore the potential for further discoveries in the still under-explored inland habitats of northern Sri Lanka. This rediscovery is also a reminder of how much remains to be discovered in regions where decades of limited access have left gaps in our understanding of Sri Lanka’s biodiversity.
Special thanks to Dr. Helen Larson, Rohan Pethiyagoda, Madura De Silva, Dr. Kasun Bandara, and Neluka Fernando for their generous support and assistance in various aspects of this study.

31/05/2026

Conservation begins with understanding, and understanding begins with data.

At the Leopard Valley Research Station Eastern sinharaja, we have successfully completed five continuous years of climate and weather monitoring in the eastern sector of the Sinharaja rainforest. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first long-term ecological and meteorological dataset collected from this region of Eastern Sinharaja. We are delighted to make this invaluable resource available to future scientists, conservationists, and researchers who will continue the work of understanding and protecting this globally important ecosystem.

Our efforts extend beyond climate monitoring. We are currently building a growing archive of ecological data, including vocalization recordings of point-endemic amphibians, as well as elusive and poorly studied mammals such as the Rakwana Slender Loris and other cryptic rainforest species. These records preserve not only scientific information but also the living voice of a forest whose biodiversity remains incompletely understood.

Long-term ecological datasets are the foundation of evidence-based conservation. They enable scientists to detect environmental change, understand species responses to shifting conditions, and develop more effective conservation strategies for the future. Through this work, we hope to contribute meaningful knowledge that will guide the protection of Sinharaja's unique biodiversity for generations to come.

Today, we collect data. Tomorrow, it may help safeguard an entire ecosystem.

24/01/2026