Dr Paul Oliver ‘Biologists in the mist: discovery in New Guinea’s Foja Mountains.’

Paul Oliver is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australian National University. He is broadly interested in understanding the diversity and evolutionary history of the Australasian region, but tends to spend most of his time working on reptiles and frogs, including describing lots of new species.

The Foja Mountains of northern New Guinea are a poorly explored, uninhabited mountain range, in one of the least explored tropical rainforest regions in the world. In 2009 he was lucky enough to participate in a multinational biodiversity research expedition to explore this remote region. He will discuss some of the trials and experiences of this expedition, in addition to recent and ongoing scientific discoveries stemming from this work that are helping to shed light into the processes shaping biodiversity in New Guinea.