THAI Pham Hong, Vietnam
Abstract (as taken from the original project)
Cicadas or insects of the hemipteran family Cicadidae show the most significant in species diversity and abundant in the tropics and subtropics. Because their nymph spends long period under the ground, cicadas are insects of poor dispersal ability and thus could be model organisms for studies of bio-indicator, speciation and biogeography. The fauna of Vietnam, one of the biodiversity hotspots, is also expected to be rich in cicadas. Faunal studies on cicadas in Vietnam would also contribute to our understanding of general mechanisms that have generated high biodiversity in the region. The insect fauna of cicada have some previous studies from Oriental region: Distant, (1889a, b, 1890a, b, 1891, and 1892), Duffels (1983, 2002, and 2007), Lee, Y. J. & M. Hayashi. (2003, 2004) and Lee, Y. J. (2008)), Japan (Kato, M. (1961)), Korea (Lee, Y.J (1999), China (Chou et al. (1997)). However, cicadas in the eastern part of Vietnam have still been poorly studied taxonomically, preventing us from assessing cicada diversity in the region.
The building of identification capacities and of properly curated reference collections would be of both national and regional importance.
Training location: Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels.
Top: left: Mr Pham Hong Thai collecting in Truong Son forest (Quang Tri province, Vietnam) - right: Mr Thai working in the Dept. of Entomology, at the RBINS.
Middle: left: Mr Thai with his Belgian supervisor Jérôme Constant - right: Visiting the collections in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels.
Bottom: Pham flanked by Dr P. Grootaert from the RBINS
Browse through a powerpoint presentation of Pham to learn more about his research.
In 2009, Mr Thai, together with his advisor Dr Yang, described a new cicada species (Pomponia backanensis Thai & Yang, 2009), and documented 21 new records of cicada species from his home country. The abstract to his paper can be found here.
Pomponia backanensis Thai & Yang, 2009. a, dorsal view of male; b, ventral view of male;
In 2010, Mr Thai and colleagues described another new cicada species (Euterpnosia cucphuongensis Thai et al, 2010) from his home country, again in the journal Zootaxa. The abstract to his paper can be found here.
Euterpnosia cucphuongensis Thai et al, 2010. A. Dorsal view of male; B. Ventral view of male.
In 2010, Pham and his advisor Dr Yang, while reviewing the genus Lemuriana from Vietnam, publish yet another new cicada species; this time based on material found in the Cicadidae collections at the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources in Hanoi, and in the collection of the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. The abstract to his paper can be found here.
Lemuriana vinhcuuensis Thai & Yang, 2010. A. Dorsal view of male; B. Ventral view of male.
In 2011, Constant (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels) and Pham continued describing new species resulting from an intensive survey in Vietnam
Hemisphaerus cattienensis Constant & Pham, 2011.
In 2012, Mr Thai and his Taiwanese colleague, Mr Yang, document the first Vietnamese record of the cicadid genus Karenia and describe the new species K. hoangliensis. A dorsal view of the male and a ventral view of the female can be found below.
The abstract can be read here
