Alejandro Arteaga

Alejandro Arteaga shares the story about the extinctions of the harlequin toads (genus Atelopus) during the Global Exploration Summit (GLEX) in the Azores in 2023. Alejandro Arteaga (born September 16, 1991) is an Ecuadorian-Venezuelan herpetologist and explorer known as the author of several books on reptiles and amphibians of Ecuador and as the discoverer of 35 new species. He co-founded the Arteaga Species Discovery Fund in collaboration with former President of Ecuador Rosalía Arteaga. He is also known for his wildlife photography, and as a co-founder of Tropical Herping, a wildlife tourism agency.

Early life Arteaga was born on September 16, 1991, in Caracas, Venezuela, and later moved to Quito, Ecuador, where he obtained his BSc in biology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE).

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. After serving as president of Tropical Herping until 2022, he founded Khamai Foundation in 2023, where he is its CEO. As of early 2024, Arteaga was the author of 26 research articles, primarily on systematics 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.

While Arteaga has become a prominent figure in South American herpetology, he has repeatedly faced criticism of his methods. The Arteaga Species Discovery Fund has named several species in honor of its funding patrons, including the actor Leonardo DiCaprio and the businessman and spiritual leader Shah Rahim al-Husseini (a.k.a. Aga Khan V), which some have criticized as potentially compromising scientific rigor in favor of attracting attention and donations. At about age 20 he was banned from accessing the specimen collection of PUCE's zoology museum after searching through its collection without proper permission. In 2020, his Tropical Herping tour agency was banned from several ecological reserves for accessing them without authorization, and was reported for mistreatment of some of the captured animals used for photography. He acknowledged some of the problems with the tour agency, before founding the Khamai Foundation in 2023. But again in 2023 and 2025 there were more concerns raised about specimens collected without proper permits and with incorrectly reported provenance. Some of his reported discoveries of new species were concluded to be lacking in rigor and were characterized as exhibiting "taxonomic inflation". While acknowledging some problems, Arteaga responded that some of his critics have had selfish motives, including wanting to take credit for his discoveries, and says that the need to discover species is too urgent to justify moving more slowly and methodically.

Books

Arteaga, Alejandro; Bustamante, Lucas M.; and Guayasamin, Juan M. The Amphibians and Reptiles of Mindo: Life in the Cloudforest (2013) Ecco Bella Beauty. , a field guide with photographs of 48 species of Ecuador. Arteaga, Alejandro; Bustamante, Lucas M.; Vieira, Jose; Tapia, Washington ; and Guayasamin, Juan M. Reptiles of the Galápagos (2019) Tropical Herping. . Arteaga, Alejandro; Bustamante, Lucas; and Vieira, Jose. Reptiles of Ecuador (2024) Khamai Foundation & Tropical Herping. . DOI 10.47051/MNHT9360.