Let’s talk insects So I found myself in an incredible forest at the foot of Mt. Huraw in northern Samar Island (eastern Philippines). The price of beauty for this rarely seen primary and secondary growth forest in the country was definitely the climate and insects. It was either about 100 degrees with 99% humidity, or about 90 degrees with torrential, down-pouring rain...

This is one of the eastern Philippine island populations of crested lizards in the genus Gonocephalus.  Members of the genus in the Philippines are forest obligate species, with three, relatively widespread species currently recognized in the archipelago.  Males develop quite beautiful crests on their heads and backs, and you can’t beat the eye color....

A former undergraduate professor said those words to my classmates and I while we talked about being a student, and our “anxieties” after graduation. He said to us “Well, you are all unique in your own ways, some get high grades, some don’t, but it doesn’t really matter anyway. When you leave from this university, you will need to find yourself on...

Biodiversity Survey in the Philippines This summer, I was fortunate enough to join a team of international biologists and participate in a four-week biodiversity study on the island of Samar in the southeastern Philippines. This expedition was funded by an NSF RAPID grant and lead by the University of Kansas (KU; my alma mater), and the University of Oklahoma (OU), both of...

A beautiful new species of Pseudogekko (sp. nov.) from the Philippines.  Look for the species description later this year in Herpetological Monographs!...

We describe two new species of morphologically cryptic monitor lizards (genus Varanus) from the Philippine Archipelago: Varanus dalubhasa sp. nov. and V. bangonorum sp. nov. These two distinct evolutionary lineages are members of the V. salvator species complex, and historically have been considered conspecific with the widespread, northern Philippine V. marmoratus. However, the new species each share closer phylogenetic affinities with V....

Introduction A large array of species can accumulate on islands because the organisms that end up colonizing (establishing a new population in) these new habitats are physically separated from the original population they branched off from and thus proceed on their own evolutionary course. Successful colonization is affected by many factors, including ocean currents, competition between organisms, and the reproductive, behavioral, and...

We provide the first report on the diversity of amphibians and reptiles of the northern Sierra Madre Mountain Range, northeast Luzon Island, Philippines. Based on new data from extensive previously unpublished surveys, fieldwork, and museum records we can tell that this region is quite diverse. At least 101 herp species are present and now well documented in this region (29 amphibians, 30...

This is one of my favorite photographs of Gekko gigantes, a species of Philippine gecko known only from the tiny islands of North and South Gigantes.  I must have spent nearly an hour trying to catch this fellow licking his eye for a photo....

Some of Southeast Asia’s most enigmatic reptile species include the arboreal (tree-dwelling), frugivorous (fruit-eating) monitor lizards of the central and northern Philippines. Comprised of just three known species, this distinct group has even been assigned to its own subgenus, Philippinosaurus on the basis on cranial features and dentition (characteristics of the teeth). Knowledge on the biology of Philippine frugivorous monitor lizards has...

The Philippines represent an ideal region for examining the effects of geologic and climatic influences on evolutionary processes and the accumulation of new species. Though the monitor lizard is the target of conservation efforts, little research has looked at the geological processes which have shaped the evolution and distribution of this group. Asian water monitors (Varanus salvator Complex) are distributed throughout a...