Caught in the Act - Some News Coverage

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Photo by Ricardo B. Brazziell. © Austin American-Statesman 

A week or so ago, students working with Dr. Ben Pierce, including myself, conducted a monthly visual encounter survey at the Twin Springs Preserve in Williamson County, TX. We do these surveys at two sites every month, and we look for a local species near and dear to our hearts: the Georgetown salamander (Eurycea naufragia).

The survey I just mentioned was special in that we had a reporter and photographer from the Austin American-Statesman newspaper take some photos and write an article for this week's paper. I was flattered to be included in the article - as it was primarily focused on opening up this preserve to county-trained, permit-carrying individuals.

Here is the article: 'Georgetown-area preserve open for visitors -- but only after some training'. I'm the guy in the stylish blue Animal Behavior Society shirt I designed.

Also - take note that in the right-hand sidebar on this blog, I have some links for my most current CV and press such as this article.

Eurycea naufragia. Photo by Alex Hall.

Article - Huge Monitor Lizard Species New to Science

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What a find!

Ethnobiologists in the Philippines recently discovered a whopper of a lizard. Now introducing the Northern Sierra Madre Forest Monitor Lizard (Varanus bitatawa)! This large (~10 kg) lizard is apparently one of only three known fruit-eating species in the world.

To learn more, check out this article from ScienceDaily.

According to this article, the fruit-eating lizard lives in the trees on the northern Philippines island of Luzon. The species was probably so difficult to find because the lizard has actually been hunted by humans (their main predator) for so long that the behavior of the species has become highly secretive and skittish.

Nowadays, discovering large vertebrate animal species is a fairly rare event (when one omits genetic testing, I suppose). That the lizard is fruit eating and quite brightly colored makes the find even more remarkable.

That's what you get for being observant :)


EDIT: Fixed broken link. Sorry for the confusion.

Bird-From-Dinosaur Theory of Evolution Challenged: Was It The Other Way Around?

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You remember being an inocent kid, right? You were told by mom and dad that dinosaurs are extinct and perhaps even that dinosaurs were reptiles. As a young adult, you might have learned that birds evolved from dinosaurs. It seems believable: feathers could be highly evolved scales, and dinosaurs (which could have been endotherms, rather than ectotherms). These topics of thermoregulation in dinosaurs and the question of whether or not birds evolved from dinosaurs have been topics of heated debates amongst paleontologists and scientists for at least the last three decades.

Now read this ScienceDaily.com article: Bird-from-dinosaur theory of evolution challenged: Was it the other way around?

Pretty cool, huh? If you read it, you should consider the findings exciting! There is now more convincing evidence that birds did NOT evolve from theropods (i.e., dinosaurs). This has spurred some debate even among my close friends, and I would be interested in hearing what others have to say on the topic. Leave some comments below and subscribe to the comments to hear replies.


You can read more about feathered dinosaurs here and here.

Lizards Pull A Wheelie

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I've recently discovered an incredible website, Science Daily. The incredible thing about this website is that the cumbersome task of finding interesting science news is changed to being an explorable adventure with new information always just around the corner. This has led me to find a bevy of fascinating articles I will be sharing over many of my next few posts.

One such article, Lizards Pull A Wheelie, piqued my inner cravings for understanding reptilian locomotion (we all  get them once and a while, trust me). I'll be brief, as this article is already a summarization of the research paper "Why go bipedal? Locomotion and morphology in Australian agamid lizards." Essentially, several studies performed by Christofer Clemente indicate that bipedalism (locomoting/moving on two limbs, like humans) has taken shape in many dragon lizard species because they are essentially pulling a wheelie - going so fast that they rear up on their hind limbs (!!!). Their ruling out of other explanations (e.g., evolved behavior, efficient energetics) was impressive, which is what I found most interesting about this article. Go give it a read and let us know what you think.

New Species Found Every Day

Posted by Alex H. |3 comments

Scientists often ask the question "How many species are there currently living on Earth?" How many do you think there are? 50, ooo? 100,000? 1 million? Estimates vary from study to study, but conservative estimates point to 7-10 million species, and other studies claim up to 100 million species. That's a lot!

Certainly, the ability to understand just how many species are currently on our planet is crucial to understanding what changes affect living things. Without baseline information, detecting trends is near-to if not impossible. (For related topics, see my posts on biodiversity here and here).

Although the estimates of the number of species varies so widely (93 million is a huge number, last time I checked), there seems to be a consensus that large and charismatic species are described more completely than, say bacteria or lichens. That is why you may find it surprising to hear that scientists find new vertebrate species all the time. Yep. A recent news article (with beautiful photos) describes species of frogs, geckos, snakes, birds, and even a flowering plant that are all new to science. If that piques your interest, here's another article (again, with great photography)

I have previously commented that taxonomy (the science of naming species) is a dying science and art. This is especially unfortunate in an era when our estimates of the number of undiscovered species on our planet are so massive! In my naive mind, a solution to this problem would be a grassroots effort in the sciences to support taxonomists and the work they do. Fellowships, labs, and doctoral positions should be competitively awarded to taxonomists in academic institutions, not just at Harvard or Oxford, but around the world. This network, coupled with online diversity indices (such as Encyclopedia of Life and GeckoWeb), will aid in conservation and education efforts destined for governmental policy. I feel declines in worldwide biological diversity are worse than eminent global warming (regardless of cause) and the only way to effectively combat those declines is via workable, worldwide diversity indices.

If you're interested in following new species discoveries, try ScienceDaily's New Species News.

Now for some animal photos. We all like those:

Article: Now Hiring Governmental Fact Checker on Python Populations

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I recently read this fascinating article posted on Tampa Bay Online.

If I told you it was an article about reptiles in the Florida Everglades, I'll give you three guesses as to what the article is about. Due to grossly over-inflated media attention, you probably guessed it's an article on invasive Burmese pythons.

From what I've gathered by reading the article, U.S. government agencies are estimating the number of burmese pythons in the Florida everglades to be between ~1,000 and ~200,000 (two degrees of magnitude apart!).

Seriously?

What I hope to draw to your attention in this post is not that burmese pythons are good or bad in the Florida everglades, but that governmental biologists need some fact checkers before pulling on the "statistic crank."

Given the amount of media attention and governmental recognition the issue has received, an accurate (and hopefully conservative) estimate of the number of Burmese pythons and their ability to reproduce is necessary to maintain a non-nuisance level of this species.

A final word: always ensure you can be a responsible, long-term exotic pet owner before making a purchase or taking your neighbor's pet alligator off their hands. It's good for the environment!

Some Hope for Hunted Sea Turtles

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According to an Associated Press article by David McFadden, the Bahamas recently banned the sale or catch of any species of marine turtle.

Culturally popular for human consumption, sea turtles have required this sort of legal protection for too long. The five species of sea turtle inhabiting the waters of the Bahamian waters are listed as either endangered or threatened species. Previous to the bill, only the Hawksbill was afforded any legal protection from harvesting or hunting.

According to an ecoworldy article by Derek Markham:

The new regulations prohibit the harvesting, possession, purchase and sale of turtles, their parts and eggs, as well as the molestation of marine turtle nests, effective September 1st, 2009.

To get to this landmark legislation, several conservation groups played active roles, including: Oceana, The Bahamas Sea Turtle Conservation Group, and The Bahamas Marine Resources Department

According to the AP article, this legislation is unpopular with some proponents of preserving Bahamian culture. Fortunately, according to Jane Mather, co-chairwoman of The Bahamas Sea Turtle Conservation Group, ninety percent of Bahamians do not want sea turtles killed.

The penalties for breaking the ban are not currently determined.

Beautiful Anuran Photos From Vietnam

Posted by Alex H. |0 comments

Wildlife photographers' challenges are many: know a species, be there, avoid disturbing the species, use the right equipment, and prepare for failure. In my case, failure is simply avoided by taking several photos, but you can't always use such a low-effort solution.

Sometimes you have to go to great lengths to get the right photograph - like going to Vietnam.

I encourage you to experience beautiful frog photos by clicking here.

Additionally, if you have any wildlife photos you feel the whole world needs to see, send them to me at halla(at)southwestern.edu and I'll see what I can do for you.

1800s-Style Wild Goose Chase

Posted by Alex H. |1 comments

I recently read this neat article by Craig Lemoult via NPR and got to thinking about fanatical naturalists.

After much creative thinking about what it would be like to search for invisible animals, mythical beings, and possibly-extinct species, my ending stance reads: Go get 'em!