The lab welcomes Isabel Diaz, a new PhD student in the program. Isabel has been collaborating with lab research since 2015, and coauthored the description of Bryophryne phuyuhampatu in 2017. She graduated from the  National University San Antonio Abad of Cusco, and she is also associated with the local Museo de la Biodiversidad (MUBI). For her undergraduate thesis, she investigated the importance of abiotic factors on the composition, species richness and relative abundance of leaf-litter frogs along an altitudinal gradient in the Amazonian Andes of Manu National Park, Cusco. Her research interests include the ecology, evolution and conservation of amphibians and reptiles. She has been involved with our NSF-funded project investigated fungal pathogen (chytrid) transmission among terrestrial-breeding frogs in the eastern slopes of the Andes since its beginning in May of 2021.

In a collaboration led by Dr. Edgar Lehr of Illinois Wesleyan University and colleagues at the Museo de Historia Natural de la Universidad Nacional de San Marcos in Lima, we described and named a species of high-elevation lizard as Proctoporus titans. ​Proctoporus are small to medium sized lizards that inhabit the montane forests and high-elevation grasslands of the tropical Andes, from central Peru to Bolivia. Their diversity is likely underestimated, and new species continue to be discovered every year. This is the second species described, in less than one year, from the poorly explored Otishi National Park in the steep mountains of the Cordillera de Vilcabamba. 

Citation: Lehr, E., J.C. Cusi, M.I. Fernandez, R.J. Vera, and A. Catenazzi. 2022. A new species of Proctoporus (Reptilia, Gymnophthalmidae, Cercosaurinae) from the puna of the Otishi National Park in Peru. Taxonomy 3: 10-28.