Alejandro Arteaga is an Ecuadorian-Venezuelan biologist and explorer best known for being the author of the "Reptiles of Ecuador", and the discoverer of 35 new species. He co-founded the Arteaga Species Discovery Fund in collaboration with former President of Ecuador Rosalía Arteaga.

Early life

Arteaga was born on September 16, 1991, in

Caracas Caracas ( , ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas (CCS), is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the northern p ...

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

, and later moved to

Quito Quito (; ), officially San Francisco de Quito, is the capital city, capital and second-largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its metropolitan area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha Province, P ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

, where he obtained his BSc in biology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. He published his first species new to science, Pristimantis bambu, at age 19.

Career

While still a student in 2009, Arteaga co-founded Tropical Herping, a tour agency offering nature photography trips and herpetological tours throughout the world's

tropics The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

. After serving as president of Tropical Herping until 2022, he founded Khamai Foundation, where he now serves at CEO. Arteaga is the author of 26 research articles, primarily on systematic and biogeography of amphibians and reptiles. In 2023, in collaboration with former president of Ecuador Rosalía Arteaga, he created the world's first fund devoted exclusively towards the discovery of new species.

Books

* ''The Amphibians and Reptiles of Mindo'' (2011) Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica. ISBN 978-9942-13-496-7. * ''Reptiles of the Galápagos'' (2019) Tropical Herping. ISBN 978-9942-36-547-7. * ''Reptiles of Ecuador'' (2024) Khamai Foundation & Tropical Herping. . DOI 10.47051/MNHT9360.

Honors and awards

Arteaga was awarded with the Big Picture Natural World Photography Award in 2015.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arteaga, Alejandro 1991 births Ecuadorian biologists 21st-century Venezuelan biologists Living people