News

A group of researchers from the Botany Department of University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka has freshly discovered three Thalloid Liverworts (Marchantiopsida) to the existing liverworts plant community. Plagiochasma appendiculatum Lehm. & Lindenb., Riccia crispatula Mitt., and Fossombronia cristula…

A group of researchers from Sri Lanka has delighted with a new Balsaminaceae species (Impatiens jacobdevlasii) from Knuckles (Dumbara) massif of Sri Lanka. With the new species named from the locality, the number of Balsam species belonging to Sri Lanka has increased to 25. The new species has been…

Dr. Rohan Pethiyagoda was this week awarded the Linnean Medal which is considered as the Nobel Prize for naturalists, at a ceremony in London. He is the first Sri Lanka to win the annual medal bestowed since 1888 to a botanist or a zoologist, or to one of each, in the same year. Dr. Pethiyagoda is…

Anisogomphus ceylonicus (Hagen in Selys, 1878) is one of the rarest of the Sri Lankan Odonata. It was first discovered from Ramboda over 140 years ago based on a female specimen, which was originally described as Gomphus ceylonicus and later assigned to the genus Heliogomphus by F. C. Fraser. Almost…

Macromia flinti Lieftinck, 1977, is an endemic dragonfly in Sri Lanka and one of the rarest known odonates in the country. Originally described based on a single specimen collected in 1970, it had not been reported in the past 50 years and thus was considered a globally Critically Endangered Species…

Sri Lanka has a rich snake diversity, but the island’s scolecophidians (‘blindsnakes’) are poorly understood due to the cryptic, burrowing habits of these inconspicuous animals and lack of systematic field surveys and morphological and molecular analyses. Here a research team report findings from a…

The Ministry has established the National Expert Committee on Mangrove conservation sustainable use’ whose responsibility would be coordinate and steer the activities related to the conservation and sustainable use of mangrove ecosystems. One of the major activity is to prepare National Policy on…

Sri Lanka became a signatory to Convention on Biological Diversity on 1992 and the Convention was ratified in 1994. In 1994 Sri Lanka formulated a Strategy for the Conservation and Sustainable use of Biological Diversity and, in 1996, prepared a Biodiversity Conservation Action Plan (BCAP) under the…

The expert and key stakeholder workshop was conducted on the 19 th of February 2016 from 8.30 a.m. to 5.30 at the “Plant Genetic Resources Centre” Gannoruwa” Peradeniya. It was conducted successfully “achieving its goals of development of new project proposals to be facilitated and coordinated…

Taking Action for Biodiversity The world is now on a path to building a future of living in harmony with nature. In October 2010, in Japan, governments agreed to the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and the Aichi Targets as the basis for halting and eventually reversing the loss of…