Category Archives: Reptiles
MORE FOSSIL REPTILES
October 2007 A 32m-long dinosaur has been unearthed in Argentina. Or rather, a few vertebrae have been found. But they are absolutely huge. So’s the name of the new species – Futalognkosaurus dukei. The “dukei” bit comes from the Duke oil company, which … Continue reading
THAT CHAMELEON TONGUE THING
October 2007 Could you pick up a 10-kilo piece of steak with your tongue? A chameleon can do just that (or the equivalent thereof). Their tongue appears to create a suction cup just as it blobs onto the hapless victim. Video of chameleon … Continue reading
FANTASTIC COLLECTION OF PHOTOS
October 2007 Andrew Johnson (First Year) has a website which includes some amazing photos of amphibians and reptiles, taken both on his travels (in particular in Bali) and at home – including one of a minxy gecko that escaped and appears to have … Continue reading
Filed under Amphibians, Images, Reptiles
HOMING CROCS!
September 2007 Crocodiles are a problem for people in Australia, so they are regularly moved to less-densely populated areas. Trouble is, they seem to be coming back. This study in PLoS ONE (open access) used satellite tracking to show that some of them … Continue reading
Filed under Reptiles
MARINE IGUANA
September 2007 One of those cool marine iguanas from the Galapagos, photographed underwater.
GO HERBIVORES
September 2007 This YouTube video was sent in by Robbie Price (2nd Year). It’s from the Kruger National Park (where the First Year Animal Behaviour Field Course goes) and starts off as your traditional scene of lions hunting wildebeest. But then something unusual … Continue reading
WEIRD TURTLE SPOTTED IN CAMBODIA
May 2007 A rare soft-shelled turtle – one of the largest turtles in the world – has been observed in Cambodia. I’ve never seen anything like it….. And – completely unrelated – this piece about turtle navigation from Current Biology (open … Continue reading
Filed under Conservation, Oceans, Reptiles
NOT SO LONELY GEORGE
May 2007 The world’s last surviving member of a particular Galapagos tortoise species - “Lonely George” – turns out to be not so alone, as an interspecific hybrid has been found on a nearby island, as reported in Current Biology and summarised … Continue reading
Filed under Conservation, Reptiles
MORE ON THE DECLINE OF AMPHIBIA
April 2007 Various hypotheses have been put forward to explain the catastrophic collapse in the number of frogs to be found in the tropics, from hormonal effects due to pollution, to a lethal fungus linked to global warming. Another factor has now been … Continue reading
Filed under Amphibians, Diseases, Reptiles
