Asiatic research

The department's Asiatic herpetological research is not limited by the geographical boundaries of the former USSR. Extensive field work has been done in Mongolia within the framework of the joint Soviet-Mongolian Biological Expedition in 1981-1988. It led to important results on the distribution, natural history, ecology, and taxonomy of amphibians and reptiles that are published in a number of papers and monographs on amphibians (1988) and reptiles (1997) through collaborations with herpetologists from various institutions in Moscow (Sergius Kuzmin, Valentina Orlova, Dmitry Semenov) and Mongolian colleagues (Khorlooghiyn Munkhbayar, Khayankhyarvagijn Terbish). They summarize more than 100 years' study of the Mongolian herpetofauna (from Przewalski, Kozlov, and other famous Russian explorers of Central Asia up to the present time) and can be used as a basis for the future herpetological research of this region.

During the last decades, special attention has been given to long-term research on the herpetofauna of tropical forests of Southeast Asia. More than 30 expeditions to Vietnam, beginning in 1982, were organized. As a result of this herpetological study of Vietnam, and also of Laos, Nepal, and Sikkim (India), a large number of difficult-to-access species endemic to mountain tropical forests and adjacent islands were collected.

A number of new species and subspecies of frogs, lizards, and snakes, and two new genera of scincid lizards, were described by Darevsky and Orlov. The phenomenon of cryptic speciation was noted.

Tropical research is one of the central programs of the Department of Herpetology today, and is conducted in concert with herpetologists from Vietnam (Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources), USA (Field Museum of Natural History and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California at Berkeley) and Canada (Royal Ontario Museum).