A Penangite's Scientific Voyage to Antartica

Zulfigar Yasin is one of the nation’s most illustrious marine biologists and marine environment ecologists. In his extensive career, he had contributed to the establishment of many of Malaysia’s marine parks, led national expeditions to catalogue the marine biodiversity in the region and had a new species of sea cucumber, Euthyonidiella zulfigaris, named after him in 2022, in recognition of his long-standing work at Penang’s Middle Bank since 1990. In 2002, he headed a team of Malaysian scientists on a 10-week marine expedition to Antarctica. This is his exclusive account of the once-in-a-lifetime expedition.