Reptiles add socioeconomic value but when it comes to accessing detailed reference information about them, students and naturalists can face serious challenges.
Biologists have a centuries-old tradition of publishing on rare and endangered species. But poachers are using open-access information to target valuable and fragile new species.
Bearded dragons can be genetically male but look like and function as females.
Arthur Georges, Institute for Applied Ecology, University of Canberra
Keeping non-native reptiles as pets is against the law – with good reason. Alien species traded on the black market can potentially establish themselves in the wild if they are released or escape.
The fossilised skull of an Odontocyclops displays its pineal foramen.
Nkansahrexford (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons
Mammals’ ancestors had a third eye and the fossil record of its disappearance tells us the story of the evolution of one of our most important features: warm blood.
It sounds weird, but releasing small cane toads ahead of the main invasion front can help predators learn to avoid the biggest, most toxic ones. Here’s exactly how it works.
Hey, is there something on my back?
Nathan J. Robinson
Tiny animals along for the ride, called epibionts, could be used as living data-loggers. Researchers can glean info from them that could help inform turtle-friendly fisheries management decisions.
An anaconda peers above and below the water. Did snakes evolve on land or underwater?
Michael Lee (Flinders University & South Australian Museum)
One of the enduring controversies in evolution is why snakes evolved their long, limbless bodies. A new study suggests snakes may have lost their legs at sea, before crawling ashore.
There’s a battle for resources going on in there.
Christian Glatz
Each year rangers in the Australian Capital Territory cull kangaroos as part of the territory’s Kangaroo Management Plan. This year they killed a few over 1,500 kangaroos. Even though millions of kangaroos…
No, it’s nothing to do with a reptilian existential crisis – just a name game.
melanie cook/Flickr
You have likely been to a zoo at some point and visited their reptile house. A building where the climate control dial is stuck on the “wet sauna” setting, and filled with maniacal children competing to…
Some 220m years ago, the Triassic Period marked the beginning of the age of dinosaurs. But by the time the earliest dinosaurs were just starting to appear in the fossil record, it was distant relatives…