Abstract submissions for CROAK are now open! We welcome submissions for talks and posters on amphibians and reptiles from any sector and career stage 🦎🐸 Link & further details here: www.croakconference.org/abstract-sub... [ 📸: Malayodracon robinsonii, @saunakpal.bsky.social ]

We are very happy to announce that the second plenary speaker for CROAK 2026 will be Wolfgang Wüster, Professor of Zoology (Molecular Ecology) at Bangor University (www.bangor.ac.uk/.../sens/wol...). Follow this page to stay up to date with CROAK news!

We are very happy to announce that the first plenary speaker for CROAK 2026 will be Richard Griffiths, Emeritus Professor of Biological Conservation at Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent (www.kent.ac.uk/.../research...). Stay tuned for more information!

Save the date! We are very happy to announce the first CROAK - Conference on Reptile and Amphibian Knowledge - to be held at the Rigg and Furrow Brewery in Northumberland on 15 –16 September 2026. We welcome delegates from all backgrounds and will soon open abstract submissions and registration. +

How genus-splitting #taxonomy works in real life - an analogy. #systematics #classification #nomenclature 🐍😎

Workshop on #ConservationGenetics at #HWM2026 led by Axel Barlow and @simonmaddock.bsky.social of @bangoruniversity.bsky.social and Newcastle University -assessing participant knowledge and solving scenarios.

Herp Workers Meeting 2026 in Glasgow is on its way #HWM2026

Our new paper! Led by @miaryras.bsky.social with @wolfgangwuster.bsky.social and others 🦎

Journal of Experimental Biology@jexpbiol.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Winters are warming faster than summers, which could affect hibernating ectotherms, but it turns out that wall lizards cope well with warm winters & mini winter heatwaves, although they suffer more DNA damage, so the effects of warm winters may be concealed journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Accepted manuscript now online! The first paper from @miaryras.bsky.social's exciting PhD work on the consequences of warming winters for lizard physiology and behaviour, in collab w/ @wolfgangwuster.bsky.social, @arc-trust.bsky.social, & others: doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Sleeping beauty awakened: Experimental winter warming increases activity with signs of potential DNA damage in common wall lizards

Winter is warming faster than summer, posing substantial threat to hibernating ectotherms, whose physiology depends directly on environmental conditions. While the effects of active season warming are...

doi.org

How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities? Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation. 🧵(1/n) @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515

Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito

Understanding how life is adapting to urban environments represents an important challenge in evolutionary biology. In this work, we investigate a widely cited example of urban adaptation, Culex pipie...

science.org

An exciting new study now out in which I played a small part - Wood Frog Testicular Microstructure Correlates with Plasma Hormone Concentrations During Late-Stage Spermatogenesis www.herpconbio.org/Volume_20/Is... Excited to see this out, and to add a new taxonomic group to my pub list!! 🐸❤️

The GRC Venom Evolution, Function and Biomedical Applications is back for 2026! The conference and corresponding ECR seminar will be held in Barcelona in May 🐍🐜🐌🐝🦂🐡🪼🕷️🐞🇪🇸🌞

My kind of homecoming after an evening of roadcruising in Arizona!

I traveled to Guinea to find out what U.S. budget cuts mean for the fight against malaria. Here's my story in @science.org - with powerful photography by Marta Moreiras. www.science.org/content/arti...

In Guinea, the United States helped beat back malaria. Now, the disease is set to soar

Foreign aid cuts are expected to cause a rise in malaria cases and deaths across sub-Saharan Africa

science.org

reverse heist movie where a single snake has to chase all the priests back into ireland

Whenever I (or other shark conservation experts) say "Ocean Ramsey does not raise awareness, she says very wrong things about threats to sharks and their policy solutions," some people feel the need to say "but she taught me something" ...and what they say is always a very wrong thing!

What Ocean Ramsey does is not shark science or conservation: some brief thoughts on “the Shark Whisperer” documentary

Netflix has a new (sarcastic air quotes) “documentary” out about Ocean Ramsey, who longtime readers and followers know is a serial wildlife harasser who also coordinates massive online …

southernfriedscience.com

Feeding on crocodile tears… sounds like a staff meeting after the latest round of redundancies is announced…

c0nc0rdance@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · last yr.

This photograph series by Mark Cowan documents a phenomenon called 'lachryphagy' ("tear-feeding"). The caiman excretes salt in their tears & the butterflies need the precious minerals for their metabolism & reproduction. So, they're feeding on crocodilian tears. (📷: Mark Cowan, Curtin Uni.)

Happy #WorldSnakeDay Here’s my favourite lifer of the year so far: four-lined snake, Elaphe quatuorlineata, from Krk Island, Croatia, earlier this year. Why not post yours? 🐍 #herp #herpetology #herper

How many mamba species are there? Find out from our new paper: Phylogeny and species delimitation in an iconic snake genus: the African mambas (Serpentes: Elapidae: Dendroaspis) academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...

Phylogeny and species delimitation in an iconic snake genus: the African mambas (Serpentes: Elapidae: Dendroaspis)

Abstract. The African mambas (Dendroaspis) comprise an iconic genus of four large-bodied, highly venomous elapid snakes: the black mamba (D. polylepis) fro

academic.oup.com

Join our @naturambyth.bsky.social #AdderAction team for Celebration of Nature at St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff on 12th July. Project Officer Matt will be running an info stall and talking about adder awareness, conservation & attitudes. More info 👇 www.arc-trust.org/Event/celebr...

Thank you to everyone who has shared & responded to our Call for Support thus far. Our Call proposes a more distributed & sustainable future where BHL is shared across multiple hosts supported by multiple funding sources. Find out more: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2025/06/tran... 🌱 📖 🧪 🌏 #ILoveBHL

BHL Transition Update #2

Help us shape the future of the Biodiversity Heritage Library The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is at a turning point. After nearly two decades of calling the Smithsonian Institution home, BH…

blog.biodiversitylibrary.org

Many congratulations to Molly Allum! She studied the crop foraging behaviour of the Zanzibar red colobus here in Jozani last year for her third year dissertation at @bangoruniversity.bsky.social @beps-bangor.bsky.social ! Great dissertation - currently working on making it into a journal article!

@primatesocietygb.bsky.social · last yr.

We're delighted to announce the winner of our most recent Undergraduate Primatology Recognition Award: Molly Alum. 🎉

1. It’s good to see this scandal being called out at last. My thanks and congratulations go to Lee Schofield, Karen Lloyd and Ian Convery. But it’s also absolutely infuriating that it has come to this point, as I explain in this thread. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Conservationists call for Lake District to lose Unesco world heritage status

Campaigners say designation promotes unsustainable sheep farming at expense of nature recovery and local communities

theguardian.com

www.nature.com/articles/s44... New review paper on the large Middle Eastern vipers of the genus Macrovipera, led by Ignazio Avella. For those interested in #nomenclature, check out out little act of rebellion against changes to established names imposed by nomenclatural historians! #ICZN #taxonomy

The biology and toxinology of blunt-nosed vipers - npj Biodiversity

npj Biodiversity - The biology and toxinology of blunt-nosed vipers

nature.com

Over the course of taxonomic history, a small but nefarious band of researchers have taken to publishing taxonomic names that their colleagues have regarded as poorly founded, poorly supported by good data, or unneeded and contradicting existing work... 1/n

CW: Another baby rattlesnake is taken by a magpie! This footage is from "after hours" when we do not operate the cam, but live observers watched as a magpie boldly strode right into the den opening and snagged a baby. youtu.be/c4d2Cu6vkCg

Magpie goes inside rattlesnake den to eat baby snake!

YouTube video by Project RattleCam

youtu.be

NEW GUEST BLOG 🐍 In this Guest Blog, the adder author Nicholas Milton discusses sensationalist stories and recommends reporting them to the Independent press regulator. Read more 👇 www.arc-trust.org/ne...

Announcing our Vanishing Viper 2025 conference to be held in September at Chester This special two-day event focused on our native adder, Viper berus, seeks to unlock the drivers behind adder declines & determine how research & landscape-level projects can meet the challenges #vanishingviper2025

Divergent selection and plasticity increases reproductive isolation early during incipient speciation. Find our new meta-analysis on experimental speciation studies here: rdcu.be/ek019 🧪 @EvolOdonata.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy @pipdowning.bsky.social

Meta-analysis reveals that phenotypic plasticity and divergent selection promote reproductive isolation during incipient speciation

Nature Ecology & Evolution - The authors examine factors affecting reproductive isolation in the early stages of speciation by collating data from 34 experimental speciation studies in 15...

rdcu.be

Scientists have experimentally recreated the speciation process in several species. They split one population of the same species into two, let them adapt to environment A or B, and then bring them back together. Our meta-analysis of these experiments may surprise you: www.nature.com/articles/s41...