Maren Gaulke
Maren Birgit Gaulke is a German herpetologist whose research focus has been the biology of monitor lizards, snakes, and turtles. She is a consultant with national and international institutions and contributes to status classifications of endangered species and the establishment of protected areas.
Biography
A student of earth and life sciences, Gaulke received her doctorate from the University of Kiel in 1988. In the mid-1980s she began her field work in Southeast Asia and the Philippines, where her biological studies collected new insights into the ecology, ethology, and trophic dependencies of tropical animals. This led to the first description of several new reptile species, including Cyclemys pulchristriata ; Dendrelaphis flavescens ; Gekko ernstkelleri ; Luperosaurus corfieldi ; and Lycodon fausti.Her main interest is monitor lizards, close relatives of the Komodo dragon, which are the world's largest living lizards. She described the species Varanus mabitang ; Varanus palawanensis ; Varanus rasmusseni ; and Varanus samarensis. In 2017, she was part of the first team to describe the Philippine frog species Sanguirana acai from the islands of Negros, Masbate, and Panay.
Gaulke works as a consultant with national and international institutions on the status classification of endangered species and the establishment of protected areas. She is also an "extraordinary employee" at the Geobio Center at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich.