Enrique La Marca


Francisco Enrique La Marca Gutiérrez is a Venezuelan herpetologist and tropical ecologist.

Biography

He is the son of Vincenzo La Marca Zirini and María Eduvina Gutiérrez. He was a disciple of Hobart M. Smith and John D. Lynch.
He has worked in teaching and in research, at the University of the Andes, in Mérida, Venezuela.
He is a retired full professor at the University of the Andes, dedicated for more than 40 years to the study of Venezuelan herpetofauna. He is the taxonomic author of species in the class Amphibia and in the class Reptilia. He has described 42 new species of amphibians and reptiles.
His scientific output includes six books and more than 200 articles, most of them published in specialized journals. He has traveled to twenty-three countries with field explorations in fifteen of them, in South, Central, and North America, as well as Europe and Africa. He studied biology at ULA and at the University of Colorado ; earned a master's degree in Systematics and Biogeography at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln ; and later obtained a doctorate in Tropical Ecology at ULA.
He has been assistant curator at the Museum of Zoology of the University of Colorado, Boulder; president of the Biogeos Foundation for the Study of Biological Diversity; Chief Coordinator of the ULABG Biogeography Laboratory; founding editor-in-chief of the journal Herpetotropicos; head of the Department of Physical Geography and acting director of the School of Geography in the Faculty of Forest and Environmental Sciences at ULA. He currently directs the REVA Conservation Center. He is a member of the Amphibian Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Honors

He has received various recognitions in different programs for research and teaching promotion by Venezuelan institutions such as the Fondo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas and the University of the Andes, Mérida: Programa de Promoción del Investigador, Programa de Estímulo al Investigador, Comisión Nacional para el Beneficio Académico, and the Comisión Nacional de Desarrollo de la Educación Superior.

Eponymous taxa

Mannophryne lamarcai Mijares-Urrutia & Arends, 1999

Taxa described

Anadia pariaensis Anomaloglossus ayarzaguenaiAnomaloglossus guanayensisAnomaloglossus murisipanensisAnomaloglossus parimaeAnomaloglossus praderioiAnomaloglossus roraimaAnomaloglossus tepuyensisAromobates molinariiAtelopus chrysocorallusAtelopus sorianoiAtelopus tamaenseAtractus erikiAtractus meridensisAtractus micheleaeAtractus mijaresiAtractus ochrosetrusAtractus tamaensisLiophis dorsocorallinus MannophryneMannophryne cordillerianaMannophryne yustiziNephelobatesPristimantis colostichosPristimantis culatensisPristimantis flabellidiscusPristimantis jabonensisPristimantis kareliaePristimantis pedimontanusPristimantis rhigophilusPristimantis riveroiPristimantis telefericusPristimantis thyellusPristimantis vanadiseRiolama luridiventris Scinax flavidus