notes

It’s been two months since I started my PhD here at the Australian National University! I’ve been reading quite a lot about Australian reptiles, especially elapid snakes (front-fanged venomous snakes). There are 107 terrestrial elapid snakes in Australia (according to AROD), which is a huge diversity, not to mention that many of the sea snakes are also elapids as well!

Arrived in Australia about three weeks ago (it’s winter) and here are some animals I managed to photograph… Kioloa, NSW [caption id=“attachment_692” align=“alignnone” width=“6000”] Tawny frogmouth (Podargus strigoides)[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_693” align=“alignnone” width=“6000”] Haswell’s frog_ (Paracrinia haswelli) _pair in amplexus[/caption]

November is one of my favorite months. The first week of November, one week before my thesis defense seminar, I went with my lab mate Josh back down to Miami to revisit my field site.

[caption id=“attachment_651” align=“alignnone” width=“1281”] Phil, Jenna, I, and Josh representing the Warner Lab at the Anolis Symposium (PC: Jessica Pita)[/caption] We just got back from hot and tropical Miami this week with heaps of lizards!

Since our university was on Thanksgiving Break (3rd week of November). I had the honour of visiting Josh Hall’s family in West Tennessee. Josh and I collaborate on a series of projects to study how invasive lizards might be adapted to urban adaptation so we’ve gone down to Miami, FL together a couple times.

[caption id=“attachment_476” align=“alignright” width=“408”] Necturus loadingi from the creek named “dog hole”![/caption] Recently the Auburn University Herpetology class took a field trip to the The Solon Dixon Forestry Education Center and bordering Conecuh National Forest.

Snapping a photo of A. carolinensis (photo by Renata B) ~Welcome to the city where the heat is on…. This past weekend, I was very fortunate to have a chance to spend time looking for herps in Miami (Florida, USA) with my colleagues Josh, Tim, and Renata.

Last weekend I had a chance to go out to Halawakee Creek’s 1st order stream again with the good people from the Warner Lab. We did about an hour of searching on an overcast day and found 22 P.

[caption id=“attachment_314” align=“alignnone” width=“3064”] P. websteri[/caption] It’s the second week of February and what can be more romantic that the sweet sounds of frogs calling for a mate at night? The rain we got here (Auburn, AL, USA) the last couple days only seems to encourage all the peeps and wonk wonks among other sounds.

[caption id=“attachment_228” align=“alignnone” width=“2000”] Ambystoma opacum[/caption] This weekend I had a chance to go search for some lizards and salamander in Tuskegee National Forest. Given that Alabama is one of the biological hotspots for reptiles and amphibians in the US, I was hoping to see some animals I’ve never seen before.