Posts

This week on DEK ACT, we discuss the topic of food from the perspective of Thai students in Australia

Terms I’ve picked up from reading Geometric Morphometrics for Biologists

Say you are in a foreign place where people do not speak ‘your language,’ how would you feel if an awesome song (in your language) comes on the radio accompanied by friendly voices speaking your langauage?

I’m writing this from my house in Canberra. A several weeks ago, we started hearing reports of the novel corona virus outbreak in Hubei province of China. Today, the virus, now known as COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) has swept across the world and the number of infections have continued to go up.

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]

It was a pleasure to visit the Great Smokey National Park. Backpacked for 5 days and finished the trip visiting Clingman’s Dome where we found this guy! [caption id=“attachment_684” align=“alignnone” width=“1536”] Plethodon jordani[/caption]

I had a chance to explore a small pond around Aiken, South Carolina recently and found three species of frogs I can identify: [caption id=“attachment_679” align=“alignnone” width=“6000”] Pine woods tree frog (Hyla fomerolis)[/caption]

I graduated from Auburn at the end of 2018. Since, I’ve been spending time with my parents, visiting friends, and traveling. Currently, I’m in Kingston (Jamaica) helping James Stroud a postdoctoral fellow in the Losos Lab set up his project on this wonderful island.

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.