David C. Cannatella

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David C. Cannatella (born December 25, 1954 ) is an American herpetologist, systematist, zoologist, and professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2023 he was named department chair of the Integrative Biology department.

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Cannatella earned a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1976. He then studied systematics and ecology at the University of Kansas, receiving his Ph.D. under the supervision of Linda Trueb in 1985. His dissertation was on the phylogeny of primitive frogs (archaeobatrachians).

From 1986 to 1988, he completed postdoctoral studies under the supervision of David B. Wake and Marvalee H. Wake at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1988 to 1990 he was an assistant professor and curator at the Museum of Natural Science and the Department of Zoology and Physiology at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. In 1990, he became curator at the Texas Memorial Museum at the University of Texas at Austin. From 1995 to 2000 he was a senior lecturer in the Department of Zoology at the University of Texas at Austin, and from 2001 to 2004 in the renamed Department of Integrative Biology. He was associate professor from 2005 to 2007, and since 2007, he has been a full professor in the department. In 2023 he became chair of the department. [1] [2]

Cannatella was president of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in 2002-2003 and president of the Society of Systematic Biologists in 2004–2005. In 2011–2012, he did research in Brazil on a Fulbright grant.

Cannatella is a contributor to the Tree of Life Web Project, where he writes about the superorder Salientia. [3]

Research interests

Cannatella's lab studies a wide range of topics, but all linked by a model-clade perspective of amphibians. Topics include [4]

First descriptions of taxa by Cannatella

Cannatella is credited with the first descriptions of the following taxa:

Honors

In 2012, the frog species Aromobates cannatellai and Osteocephalus cannatellai were named after Cannatella. The species Hypotdactylus lucida and Osornophryne talipes, described by Cannatella in 1984 and 1986 respectively have the trivial names "Cannatella's Andes Frog" and "Cannatella's Plump Toad".

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