Meet the Authors
Joseph K H Koh
JOSEPH K H KOH has been researching on spiders for more than 55 years. He has authored several spider photographic guides and many scientific papers describing new Singapore and Borneo species. Joseph previously served as the President of the Asian Society of Arachnology, and was Chairman of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Singapore. He is a retired public service officer, having held various key appointments in the Singapore government, including positions helming Singapore’s official missions in Taiwan, Australia, and Brunei Darussalam. Joseph was conferred the prestigious President’s Award for the Environment in 2021.
David J Court
DAVID J COURT was born in Australia. He attended the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and gained a Diploma of Teaching at Auckland Teachers College, teaching Science subjects in both New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. From 1991 to 2006, he taught Biology at Raffles Institution, Singapore. He was a coordinator for the Science Mentorship Programme driven by the Ministry of Education, linking pupils to tertiary institutions. He is an Honorary Research Affiliate studying spiders at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum of the National University of Singapore and has contributed to an encyclopaedia on Singapore biodiversity. He is married to Annie, a Singaporean.
Chris S P Ang
CHRIS S P ANG is an accomplished nature photographer whose works earned him an award through NParks’ Singapore Garden Photographer of the Year 2017, and have been exhibited at places such as Gardens by the Bay and the Singapore Botanic Gardens. His photographs have also been featured in a 2019 guidebook on Borneo spiders and some of NParks’ coffee-table books. Chris was also the first to discover the leaf insect Cryptophyllium chrisangi that was subsequently named after him. As a laboratory manager engaged by the NTU (Nanyang Technological University) Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Chris was instrumental in staging the successful exhibition by the world-renowned spider-web artist Tomas Saraceno in 2015 in Singapore.
Paul Y C Ng
PAUL Y C NG is a recent graduate of James Cook University Singapore, majoring in Environmental Science & Business. He is a well-rounded naturalist with a passion for creatures ranging from spiders and crustaceans to freshwater fishes. His interest in natural history began when he spent long hours as a boy combing for aquatic life in intertidal zones and freshwater streams and ponds. This soon led to his outstanding photographs of aquatic life being published in scientific journals. He has since blossomed as a consummate crustacean and spider taxonomist, whose determined approach and intense intellectual curiosity underpin his contributions to the research for this book, and an earlier guidebook on Borneo spiders.