Download the original photo
Rafe Brown
Curator in Charge
Herpetology
Biodiversity Institute

Associate Professor
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Kansas

Contact Information

Office Phone: 
785.864.3403
Email: 
rafe@ku.edu
Building: 
Lippincott Annex

Aside from our individual research, we are currently involved in a number of collaborative projects focusing on phylogenetic systematics, biogeography, and conservation of amphibians and reptiles of SE Asia. See “Current Projects” for details and individual student webpages for descriptions of ongoing projects. Shown above: Barbourula busuangensis, Hemibungarus calligaster, Cyrtodactylus annulatus, and Draco bimaculatus, all from the Philippines.

Research Projects

Active Projects

Philippine flat-headed frog
Comprehensive Biotic Survey of Philippine Land Vertebrates and their Parasites
This project represents an integrated team effort to comprehensively survey, review, and summarize the biodiversity of terrestrial vertebrates and parasites from the megadiverse, global conservation hotspot, the Philippines.    ...
Active
Web site

Completed Projects

KU staff, students, and volunteers are inventorying, cataloging, labeling, and assimilating the the Bobby Witcher Memorial Collection of reptiles and amphibians into the KU Herpetology Collections. So far, 6,133 specimens have been added, making the...
Completed
Dyche Hall
General Project
Primarily because of its unusual appearance and enigmatic behavior, the Philippine tarsier is now one of the country’s primary flagship species for conservation. Nevertheless, very little is known about its taxonomic diversity and conservation...
Completed
Philippines
Web site
The genus Brachymeles consists of 18 recognized, burrowing species.  All but one is endemic to the Philippines.  This group of skinks is unusual in being one of only four genera that possess both fully limbed and limbless species (...
Completed
Philippines and Borneo
Phylogenetic and Coalescent Analyses of Diversification in Frogs, Lizards, and Monkeys
We will investigate species diversification and biogeography of Sulawesi fauna by applying phylogenetic and biogeographic methodologies, along with recently developed coalescent-based population genetic approaches.  The taxonomic focus will be...
Completed
Sulawesi
Web site
This project explores correlations between heterochrony and morphological differences among species in relation to body miniaturization. Miniaturization of body form has been associated with the evolution of novel features, reduction and loss of...
Completed
Web site

2010

2009

Brown, RM, Diesmos AC.  2009.  Philippines, Biology. Encyclopedia of Islands..
 

Publications

2010

2009

Brown, RM, Diesmos AC.  2009.  Philippines, Biology. Encyclopedia of Islands..
January 1, 2010

Today we took a walk through old Manila and visited the National Museum. I've included a photo, below, of Jeepney. They're one of the most interesting things I see around Manila. They are a converted jeep that's heavily decorated and used for public transportation. -Rafe

 

At the museum

Jeepneys

 

0 comments
December 31, 2009
A major Midwest snowstorm during the Christmas holiday delayed the 36-hour journey for our intrepid herpetology team,...

From the Biodiversity Insitute blog

May 10, 2012
After a fast paced semester, Stop Day is an exclamation point between formal classes and exams. In spring, exam week is followed by another exclamation point: Graduation weekend. This is a...
April 27, 2012
The end of the semester is approaching fast, with finals just around the corner. Everyone in the lab has made significant strides this semester. Choru passed his comprehensive exams and is now ABD....
March 27, 2012
KU Entomology has enjoyed a long tradition of weekly lunch talks given by resident entomologists and visiting colleagues. This spring, I am handling the speaker schedule, which has been a piece of...
March 20, 2012
What an exciting day to participate in the installation of specimens and other objects in the upcoming exhibition, "39 Trails: Research in the Peruvian Amazon", curated by Dr. Stephen...
March 5, 2012
A few days ago, I arrived in Suriname for my second expedition of the year. I am working with some of the good folks at the National Zoological Collection of Suriname, including mentoring a student...
March 1, 2012
A skull of a Smilodon californicus exhibited at the KU Natural History Museum, one of largest such skulls ever found, caught the eye of Lawrence residents George and Mary Ann Brenner. The Brenners...
January 28, 2012
 Greetings from San Carlos del Zulia, Venezuela. I'm a bit over a week into my first expedition of the year--this one to continue our aquatic insect survey efforts in Venezuela. We've spent he...
January 16, 2012
It is the day before classes begin, and I start teaching Intro Systematics (with Dr. Mark Holder and TA Taro Eldredge). Quite exciting to see the 45+ names of enrolled students, review my lecture,...
January 3, 2012
2011 featured pernicious political posturing over what we know and how we discover it. Florida Gov. Rick Scott told the state’s universities that they should be educating students in areas...
December 19, 2011
Snowy owls - known to Harry Potter fans and birders alike - are making an appearance in Kansas and Missouri this fall and winter. The owls, which reside most of the year in Canadian tundra and arctic...
August 18, 2011

An international team of researchers has completed the first major survey in Asia of a deadly fungus that has wiped out more than 200 species of amphibians worldwide. The massive survey could help scientists zero in on why the fungus has been unusually devastating in many parts of the globe-and why Asian amphibians have so far been spared the same dramatic declines.

November 19, 2010

A new legless species of lizard has been discovered from the Philippines by an international team of biologists, including Biodiversity Institute scientists, working together with the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources.   Although the new species looks and lives like a snake, it is technically a lizard.

November 2, 2010

KU Biodiversity Institute scientists recently announced the results of an extensive study of the genetics of the tree frogs in the Philippines. Their surprising results suggest that the Asian Tree Frog (known to biologists as Polypedates leucomystax and many Filipinos as Banana Frogs, or “Palakang Saging”) has spread throughout the Philippine islands in few centuries.

Galleries