Scott Schaefer's research is focused on the systematics, biogeography, and evolutionary morphology of the tropical freshwater fishes of Africa and South America. This research principally seeks to resolve problems in the taxonomy, classification, and nomenclature at multiple hierarchic levels in those fishes that dominate the ecology of tropical riverine systems, notably catfishes and characoids.
Recent fieldwork in
Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela has resulted in
the addition to the Museum of several new and
important collections of fishes, which have provided
the raw material for several of his ongoing and
future research projects. In particular, his recent
high-elevation collections in the ecuadorian and
peruvian Andes have provided substantial new
collections of astroblepids for his
NSF-supported revision of the family.
Fieldwork in the Neotropics has been an on-going
component of Scott's research on the systematics of
freshwater fishes since 1989. Sine 1989, he has
conducted ichthyological surveys of poorly known
regions of Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and
Venezuela. This work, done in collaboration with
in-country colleagues, has resulted in reference
collections deposited in museum in the United States
and several Latin American countries, representing
more than 32,000 specimens documents from more than
200 field sites. He has authored over 40 publications
and has described several new genera and more than
two dozen species. He is a PI and co-founder of
the NEODAT project, and
international, multi-institutional effort to build
distributed informatices resources for neotropical
ichthyology.
The linked pages provide a searchable database of all
collecting localities from these expeditions. Field
numbers (e.g., SAS91-12) are unique identifiers of
collections made at a given place and time. Each
expedition like will provide a distribution map of
collection localities and links to a searchable
database of locality data and a few images.
For a detailed search in specific fields of both the
localities and taxon databases using boolean search
terms, click here.
Professional Page
Research Page
Publication Page
Expeditions
SAS89 - Venezuela 1989
ANSP/MBUCV - Orinoco drainage basin.
SAS91 - Venezuela 1991
ANSP/MBUCV - Cuyuní and Essequibo drainage basins.
SAS93 - Brazil 1993
ANSP/MCP - São Francisco drainage basin.
SAS95 Brazil 1995
ANSP/MCP - Atlantic coast.
SAS98 - Bolivia 1998
Parque Nacional Noel Kempff Mercado - Itenéz, Marmoré, and Amazon drainage basins.
SAS99 - Venezuela 1999
AMNH/MBUCV - Cuao, Sipapo, and Orinoco drainage basins.
SAS01 - Venezuela 2001
AMNH/MBUCV - Cuao drainage basin.
SAS04 - Peru 2004
AMNH/MUSM - Andean altiplano of Apurimac and Urubamba drainage basins.
SAS05 - Ecuador 2005
AMNH/MEPN - Andean slopes of Napo, Pastaza, Santiago, Zamora, Catamayo, Jubonés, and Cañar drainage basins.