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Java’s frogman reflects on half-century dive into amphibian world

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BANDUNG, Indonesia — Nearly 50 years have passed since Djoko Tjahjono Iskandar began his early scientific expeditions to uncover new species hidden across Indonesia. In that time, Djoko has described several of the 400 species of frogs so far cataloged in the world’s largest archipelagic country. “Ever since I began my research in 1975, I have always been drawn to the conclusion that the universe was created as unique,” Djoko told Mongabay Indonesia at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), the university where he started teaching 45 years ago. Over the course of his career, Djoko has waded through marshes in Sumatra, hiked forests in Java, ascended peaks in Sulawesi, tracked rivers in Borneo, and led expeditions through Papua — covering a remarkable amount of ground across Indonesia’s 17,000 islands. “I usually start by tracing a river,” he said. Djoko counts several species descriptions made during his five-decade career for which he was named, from lizards such as Gekko iskandari in 2000 and Draco iskandari in 2007, to frogs like Fejervarya iskandari in 2001. Born in Bandung on the island of Java, Djoko published Amphibians of Java and Bali in 1998, widely seen as the successor to The Amphibia of the Indo-Australian Archipelago, published in 1923 by Dutch zoologist Pieter van Kampen. Djoko’s book featured 35 newly described frog species. To date, he has 163 publications and more than 20 books to his name. In Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, Djoko located Barbourula kalimantanensis, a frog without lungs that breathes through its…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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