Alejandro Arteaga

Research Director

Alejandro Arteaga is an Ecuadorian–Venezuelan biologist and conservationist. He serves as President and researcher at Khamai Foundation, a non-governmental organization (NGO) created in 2022 to prevent loss of tropical biodiversity, promote new species discovery, and help mitigate the effects of global warming. In 2009, Alejandro co-founded Tropical Herping, a tour agency that offers nature photography trips and herpetological tours throughout the World’s tropics. He is author of three books (Reptiles of Ecuador, Reptiles of the Galápagos, and The Amphibians and Reptiles of Mindo) and 23 scientific articles. He has discovered and described 29 new species to science and raised funds to save 106 hectares of Chocó rainforest in Ecuador. He is also a nature photographer. In 2015, he was awarded in the Big Picture Natural World Photography competition. Since 2021, Discovery and The Explorers Club became sponsors of Alejandro’s expeditions in search for new or “lost” species in remote areas of the tropics.

Alejandro’s research is focused primarily on systematics and discovery of new species of tropical amphibians and reptiles, but 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: Reptiles of Ecuador, Eyelash Viper Systematics Project, and Save the Amazon rainforest from gold mining.

Behind the scenes

Alejandro spends most of his time exploring tropical forests around the world, photographing amphibians and reptiles, and searching for new species. At the office, he likes to write herpetological field guides or scientific papers on new species, systematics, and biogeography.