Lanka’s ‘spider man’ gets pat on the back from across the seas
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By the time the package reached him, the heavily-padded big yellow envelope was quite dirty. It had been shipped all the way from New York, United States of America (USA).
What was inside was a red-and-yellow book with a pink-slip pasted on the cover. The message on that pink-slip warmed his heart and made all the toil and trouble and sleepless nightS engaging in research in the remote corners of Sri Lanka — which of course he enjoyed thoroughly — fully worth.
“Thank you for providing us with the photo of the tiger spider! You can find the use of the image on page 81,” the note stated.
The book is the ‘Week-by-Week Homework: Reading Comprehension’ for Grade 6 children in the USA which is among a series published by Scholastic Inc., and the message was by Cynthia Carris, Scholastic’s Visual Resource Group Photo Editor
Page 81 is all about ‘Poecilotheria rajaei – The Tiger Spider of Sri Lanka’ and the photograph had been provided by none other than researcher Ranil P. Nanayakkara who along with his team of researchers also described this species in 2012.
This is also not the first publication which has used information and photographs which have come forth from Ranil’s research. Among them is the popular ‘Ranger Rick’, a magazine put out by the National Wildlife Federation which has taken the Tiger Spider through its pages into the homes of children in far-away America.
For Ranil, the Principal Scientist and Co-Founder of Biodiversity Education and Research (BEAR) along with Nilantha Vishvanath, this is a tiny pat on the back from across the seas for the arduous work which yields much research in Sri Lanka.
Not for Ranil the lure of the charismatic species such as the elephant and the leopard though he is passionate about them and has in recent times been on the trail of the pug-marks of the elusive sloth bear at the Wilpattu National Park.
Much before the call of the wild, Ranil was heavily into computers and their technology, securing numerous diplomas in Sri Lanka as well as England where he also armed himself with a degree. But he haS never worked in that field.
Ranil: At home in the wilds
While he is dabbling in German currently, learning to speak, read and write this language considered quite difficult, he is a an open-water diver who is also no mean rugby player and boxer, as his stature denotes and also a skilled rifle and pistol-shot.
Now, of course, he has ‘succumbed’ to his interests of mammalian biology, animal behaviour, palaeontology, archaeology, marine fauna and Mygalomorph spiders. This has guided him in the direction of a Doctorate in Zoology for which he is reading at the University of Kelaniya.
It is, however, not a case of burying his nose in books or spending long hours in libraries, but spending as much time as possible in the field,both land and sea, roughing it out. Even while responding to the call of the giants of the sea, cetaceans such as whales and dolphins and sirenians such as dugongs, Ranil who is into ecology, biology and systematics (taxonomy) has also been intently peering into the domains of other less charismatic creatures such as spiders and bats which only a handful follow even across the world.
Such forays have brought in their wake, the discovery of three new species of Poecilotheria (tarantula) and several new species of small mammals in Sri Lanka and also the re-discovery of the Pouch-bearing sheath-tail bat (Saccolaimus saccolaimus) after 76 years.
Meticulous work in the field has brought Ranil a string of accolades including international publicity for outstanding research from media networks such as Wired magazine, BBC News, Fox News, Yahoo, MSN, New York Daily News, ABC, CNN etc., consultancies and also speaking assignments. A 12-episode awareness documentary on the ‘Fauna and Flora of Sri Lanka’ that he has produced is awaiting telecast.
Ranil’s technical expertise has been sought by various organisations and he is the Regional Representative – Indian Ocean in the Sirenian Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) while he has also been an expert reviewer for the National Red List 2012.
Ranil has more than 40 publications to his credit with numerous citations.
| Tarantula bite not fatal The magnificent obsession of research-scientist Ranil Nanayakkara who ‘goes after’ the smaller and less charismatic creatures is the tarantula coming from “an ancient lineage”. Not content with engaging in research only, Ranil and his team of five have taken up the cause of educating people on the harmlessness of spiders. Explaining that through misplaced fear of the bite and the venom of the spider, people kill Poecilotheria (P. smithi) on sight if they come across it in the forest or in their homes, the BEAR team has undertaken the task of educating people. “We have made people aware that the bites of tarantula (P. smithi and other mygalomorphs) are not fatal and there is no need to kill. Co-habitation is important as these creatures are ‘pest-controllers’ of cockroaches etc. They are an environment-friendly ‘bio-control’ asset,” he says. |
(KH)