Rick Speare

Professor Rick Speare (BVSc, MBBS, PhD) is an active member of the frog research group and an Honorary Professor in Zoology at Otago.  Although being based at James Cook University (Townsville, Australia), Rick spends a fair amount of time in New Zealand working on chytridiomycosis and helping to supervise many student projects. He is a world expert on diseases of amphibians, particularly free-ranging populations. He has been involved in research on amphibian diseases for 20 years.



In New Zealand his interests are:

• Understanding the diseases of Leiopelma, particularly the blistering syndrome in Leiopelma archeyi.
• Researching the epidemiology of chytridiomycosis in introduced Litoria spp. and in Leiopelma spp.
• Developing effective treatment for chytridiomycosis in individual amphibians.
• Exploring effective intervention strategies for chytridiomycosis in free-ranging amphibians using antifungal agents.
• Including New Zealand amphibian disease specialists and researchers in the Amphibian Disease Diagnostic Network to allow integration with Australia and training opportunities. 

These activities have been carried out in collaboration with many New Zealand researchers, institutions and organisations. Rick looks after the Amphibian Diseases web site that contains all the information you could possibly need (including articles) on diseases of amphibians.