Mongolian Vertebrate Parasite Project AKA Mongolian Charismatic Microfauna Project

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	Welcome to the home page of the Mongolian Vertebrate Parasite Project (MVPP).   Charismatic megafauna, like lions, gorillas, and whales, draw the attention of people the world over. The microfauna including birds, herps (ie. salamanders, frogs, lizards, and kin) and small mammals such as mice, rabbits, squirrels, and even their parasites face some of the same risks of extinction as their larger and more famous counterparts. They can also be just as charismatic, cute, and fascinating once you get to know them. Even their parasites, in their own way, are interesting and can tell us things about how these animals live, where they spend their time, or what they eat that we may not know. The MVPP web-site focuses on our work to understand the biodiversity of small mammals, birds, the herptiles and their parasites in the historically ancient and culturally rich country of Mongolia. For this part of the project in Mongolia, we focussed on the Gobi and SW Altai mountain region of the country. Before our work, this area was little-known biologically as survey work in the desert areas on mammals was last conducted by Roy Chapman Andrews who coordinated the Central Asiatic Expeditions for the American Museum of Natural History in northern China and Mongolia from 1922-1930. In 2012, the MVPP completed its last field expedition-survey of the vertebrates and their parasite faunas of the south-southwestern part of the country of Mongolia. This work was funded by the United States National Science Foundation under the Surveys and Inventories program of the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB-0717214).

This page was last modified on 14 May, 2010 - David S. Tinnin