Published today in the open access journal Vertebrate Zoology, Andolalao Rakotoarison and a team of 17 other authors, including yours truly, have described 26 new species of Stumpffia, a genus of small narrow-mouthed frogs endemic to Madagascar! You can access the PDF of this paper here at high resolution (72 MB), […]
Two years ago, I travelled with a team of international and Malagasy researchers to a remote forest in the north of Madagascar, on ‘Expedition Angano.’ The goal of the expedition was to study forest fragmentation and its impact on reptile and amphibian biodiversity and distribution, as well as to identify […]
Appearing today (30th October 2017) in the Open Access journal Salamandra, my colleagues Andolalao Rakotoarison, Miguel Vences, Frank Glaw, and I have a paper published detailing the rediscovery of the enigmatic genus Madecassophryne in the Anosy Mountain chain in southeastern Madagascar; you can get the paper here! In December 2016, we […]
The time has come for a new adventure. Over the last year and a half, I have been preparing for an expedition to the Montagne d’Ambre (English: Amber Mountain) in northern Madagascar. The aim of the project: to conduct the field research that will be central in my PhD research, […]
I am pleased to announce that my colleagues and I have just described a new species of chameleon, Calumma gehringi, from northern Madagascar, published today (13 October 2017) in the Open Access journal Vertebrate Zoology! A PDF of the paper can be downloaded by clicking here. This latest paper is an important […]
Today (6 June 2017), my colleagues and I have published a new paper in the journal Zootaxa, entitled ‘A review of the taxonomy and osteology of the Rhombophryne serratopalpebrosa species group (Anura: Microhylidae) from Madagascar, with comments on the value of volume rendering of micro-CT data to taxonomists.’ This is […]
Today (24 February, 2017) Shea M. Lambert, Carl Hutter, and I have published a new species of diamond frog, genus Rhombophryne, in the Open Access journal Zoosystematics and Evolution: meet Rhombophryne nilevina Lambert, Hutter & Scherz, 2017. The story of the discovery of this frog is quite a thrilling one, […]
The Madagascar-endemic genus Gephyromantis Methuen, 1920 contains an ecologically diverse radiation of frogs, from totally terrestrial species found far from water, to species only ever found a couple of metres from it; from large, robust frogs to dainty, fragile ones. Their calls range from loud, rasping croaks, to high pitched […]
A paper by my colleagues and me appears today (7 February 2017) in PeerJ, describing a new species of gecko from northern Madagascar with large scales that come off with extreme ease. This is actually a characteristic of the whole genus Geckolepis, to which the new species belongs, and has […]
December 2016 was quite a month for Madagascar-related publications. Hawlitschek et al. published (in early access) a paper on the biogeography of geckos of the genus Ebenavia (paywalled); Schulze et al. described the ‘remarkably dull’ tadpole of Mantidactylus grandidieri (PDF); and Prötzel et al. reported two cases of potential hibernation […]
Marojejy is a rainforest-clad mountain massif in northeastern Madagascar. The park was established in 1952 as a strict nature reserve, but was changed to a national park in 1998[1]. Several notable biological research expeditions have been led to this mountain, the most significant of which was the Goodman expedition in […]
After two weeks of packing, planning, and other prpre-expedition normalcies, finally I am off to Madagascar – I in fact just got on the S-Bahn to the airport, helped in no small amount by my partner Ella. The expedition ahead promises to be a very interesting one. Together with […]
With the rebirth of this website, I wanted to give a little progress report for the last year, and what I am working on at the moment. In October of 2015 I completed my MSc in Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and almost immediately […]
From December 2015 to January 2016, I travelled with a team of researchers from the UK and Madagascar to a remote forest in Northern Madagascar. Our goal was to characterise the reptile and amphibian fauna of this forest, and to study a phenomenon called the ‘edge effect’ and how it influences […]
With over 4% of the planet’s named frog species, Madagascar is one of the hottest amphibian hotspots in the world. That number is rising rapidly; earlier this year Madagascar surpassed its 300th described frog. With estimated species numbers above 500, this climb is not expected to end in the near […]
