Alejandro Arteaga

Alejandro Arteaga is an EcuadorianVenezuelan biologist, author, conservationist, and wildlife photographer. He is the president and research director of Tropical Herping, an institution he co-founded in 2009 to preserve tropical reptiles and amphibians through tourism, photography, education, and scientific research. He obtained his biology degree from Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. Alejandro is author of two books (Reptiles of the Galápagos and The Amphibians and Reptiles of Mindo) and 18 scientific articles. He has described 20 new species to science, saved 106 hectares of tropical forest in Ecuador, and his photographic work has been featured in National Geographic and the Discovery Channel. In 2015, he was awarded in the Big Picture Natural World Photography competition.

Alejandro's research is focused on systematics and biogeography of tropical amphibians and reptiles, but it also targets citizen-science projects for identifying species in the field, either visually using deep learning algorithms or genetically through real-time DNA barcoding. He is currently leading three long-term projects that straddle the line between research and conservation: Rapid-Response Discovery of Rainfrogs, Reptiles of Ecuador, and Guardians of the Pinocchio Lizard.