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Naypyidaw: Pondaung fossils, pressed plants and stored rice seed
Three collections in and around Naypyidaw keep very different evidence. According to Myanmar’s 2018 Tentative List entry, the National Museum in Zabu Thiri township stores Pondaung primate fossils; at Yezin, Index Herbariorum counts about 25,000 specimens at the RAF herbarium; and the Myanmar Seed Bank, also at Yezin, keeps rice accessions, with safety duplicates of rice regenerated in 2009–2011 held at Svalbard.
At a glance
A place worth remembering
National Museum, Zabu Thiri: fossils from the Pondaung Formation
In a 2015 paper published by Japan’s National Museum of Ethnology, Aye Aye Thinn of the National Museum (Naypyitaw) places the building near the Kumudra Lotus Flower fountain circle in Zabu Thiri township and describes its planned first room, “Primate and Natural History”, meant to showcase primate fossils found in Myanmar. ASEF Culture360 reported in 2016 that a Primates and Fossils room had opened in July 2015. Myanmar’s 2018 Tentative List entry, published by UNESCO, says nearly 100 incomplete primate fossils from the Pondaung Formation, dated to about 40 million years ago, are stored at this museum and at three institutions in Yangon and Mandalay.[1][2][3]
Forest Research Institute, Yezin: the RAF herbarium
Index Herbariorum, the register of herbaria kept by the New York Botanical Garden, lists the RAF herbarium at the Forest Research Institute in Yezin, Nay Pyi Taw, and gives 1925 as its founding year. The entry, updated in September 2024, counts about 25,000 specimens, mostly seed plants (22,000) with 1,500 bryophytes and 1,500 fungi, and gives a separate figure of some 40,000 unaccessioned specimens. It names F. Kingdon-Ward among its important collectors and notes that the specimens were being moved to a new building. In PhytoKeys in 2012, Gowda, Kress and Htun listed RAF as holding isotypes of two newly described gingers, Globba sherwoodiana and Curcuma arracanensis.[5][6]
Myanmar Seed Bank, Yezin: rice kept as seed
A 2024 Breeding Science paper by Furuta and colleagues places the Seed Bank at the Department of Agricultural Research (DAR) in Yezin; it says the collection grew from 3,000 local rice varieties to around 7,000 rice accessions. From the collection the authors picked 610 accessions for genotyping and produced a genome assembly of Inn Ma Yebaw, a lowland variety they call elite. The abstract of a 2012 article in the Journal of the Korean Society of International Agriculture gives 1990 as the bank’s founding year. According to the Crop Trust, a project that lists DAR as its institute regenerated 470 cultivated and 185 wild rice accessions between June 2009 and March 2011; safety duplicates are held at Svalbard.[7][8][9]
Good to know
A few clear answers before you explore.
Which fossils are linked to the National Museum in Naypyidaw?
Myanmar’s 2018 Tentative List entry, published by UNESCO, says nearly 100 incomplete primate fossils from the Pondaung Formation are stored at the museum and at three institutions in Yangon and Mandalay. A 2023 Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution study reports that its authors sampled fossil teeth during a visit to the museum in February 2020.[3][4]
How large is the RAF herbarium in Yezin?
Its Index Herbariorum entry, updated in September 2024, gives about 25,000 specimens and, as a separate figure, some 40,000 unaccessioned specimens.[5]
How much rice does the Myanmar Seed Bank keep?
According to a 2024 Breeding Science paper, the Seed Bank keeps around 7,000 rice accessions, up from the 3,000 local varieties it started with.[7]
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