Research Projects

Since 2001, the Herpetology Department has regularly conducted expeditions to Malaysia and the island of Borneo. The herpetofauna of the Southeast Asian rainforests is still only incompletely studied. Repeated inventories, especially of national parks, are increasingly yielding complete species inventories ... [ more ]

The comparative, evolutionary-biologically motivated study of the body structure and its functioning in amphibians opens up countless research possibilities with today's innovative study techniques. In the case of larvae, the focus is on the connections between head structure and aquatic feeding patterns ... [ more ]

Blindworms, salamanders and frogs could not be more different, yet these amphibians living today are a monophyletic group (Lissamphibia). The reproductive strategies in the three groups are diverse. Our studies on the anatomy of the larval forms, with a focus on cranial morphology and ontogeny, show ... [ more ]

Research in the field of reptiles is carried out by Dr Hallermann. The current revision of the Lamprophis fuliginosus complex (African house snakes) involves comparative morphological analyses with material from various European museums ... [ more ]

In this project, we investigate the distribution, phylogenetic relationships, systematics and morphology of cascade frogs of the genus Huia mainly in Sumatra. Samples will be collected along Sumatra's longitudinal mountain range ... [ more ]