PAPUA NEW GUINEA SNAKEBITE PROJECT
RE-ESTABLISHING CONTACTS

It is some years since I have visited the two herpetological collections in Port Moresby and the people I knew have largely moved on.

The first collection if the National Museum of Papua New Guinea on Wards Strip, next to the National Parliament building. My contact at the museum had always been Ilaiah Bigilale. I knew Ilaiah since 1990 when I was affiliated to the museum as a researcher, but Ilaiah had moved on and his place as taken by the Senior Techincal Officer Bulisa Iova. I called Bulisa and arranged to visit to examined specimens of Toxicocalamus. He was happy to see me today so I dropped by and after a long chat with him and his colleagues, many of whom I knew from my previous visits, he told me it would be no problem for me to come back and examine specimens, even the very next day if I wished.

The attractive lead-up to the National Museum of Papua New Guinea

As I was leaving the museum I was stopped in the public gallery but one of the guides who was taking a school group around.
"Oh, Mark O'Shea" he exclaimed, "I heard you died of a cobra bite".
"Nope, I'm still here."
"I'm pleased" he said and then we had a short chat before I left. As I walked away I heard him telling the school party about me and some of the snakes I had brought into the museum for their live exhibits.

From the museum I headed to the Mapping Bureau to pick up some 100,000 PNG maps although sadly they did not have all the maps I wanted available.

Mapping Bureau, Port Moresby

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