Exploring India, finding new species: Interview with biologist Zeeshan Mirza

Exploring India, finding new species: Interview with biologist Zeeshan Mirza

A green pit viper named after Salazar Slytherin from Harry Potter, an unfamiliar snake found in an Instagram post, and twelve new species of day geckos from a single mountain range are few of the more than 60 new-to-science species found, identified and/or named by Indian biologist Zeeshan Mirza over the past decade. “I work on multiple taxa, but by far, snakes fascinate me more than any other group of organisms,” Mirza, who is pursuing a PhD at…