Herpetological Highlights

This episode is all about how hard it is to find herpetofauna, and the difficulty that causes when you try to understand their populations. We finish with a handsome web-footed new species. FULL REFERENCE LIST AVAILABLE AT: herphighlights.podbean.com Main Paper References: Barata, I. M., Griffiths, R. A., & Ridout, M. S. (2017). The power of monitoring: optimizing survey designs to detect occupancy changes in a rare amphibian population. Scientific Reports, 7(1), 16491. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-16534-8 Barata, I. M., Silva, E. P., & Griffiths, R. A. (2018). Predictors of Abundance of a Rare Bromeliad-Dwelling Frog ( Crossodactylodes itambe ) in the Espinhaço Mountain Range of Brazil. Journal of Herpetology, 52(3), 321–326. https://doi.org/10.1670/17-183 Ward, R. J., Griffiths, R. A., Wilkinson, J. W., & Cornish, N. (2017). Optimising monitoring efforts for secretive snakes: a comparison of occupancy and N-mixture models for assessment of population status. Scientific Reports, 7(1),

This fortnight is a real mix of papers. We cover Komodo dragon dispersal, newts crossing (or not) roads, and a paper looking at reptilian brains. FULL REFERENCE LIST AVAILABLE AT: herphighlights.podbean.com Main Paper References: De Meester, G., Huyghe, K., & Van Damme, R. (2019). Brain size, ecology and sociality: a reptilian perspective. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 1–11. Jessop, T. S., Ariefiandy, A., Purwandana, D., Ciofi, C., Imansyah, J., Benu, Y. J., … Phillips, B. L. (2018). Exploring mechanisms and origins of reduced dispersal in island Komodo dragons. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 285(1891), 20181829. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.1829 Matos, C., Petrovan, S. O., Wheeler, P. M., & Ward, A. I. (2018). Short‐term movements and behaviour govern the use of road mitigation measures by a protected amphibian. Animal Conservation. Other Mentioned Papers/Studies: Ciofi, C., Puswati, J., Dewa, W., de Boer, M. E., Chelazzi, G., & Sastrawan, P. (2

Discussions of the reptiles of Christmas Island(s) abound in episode 42. We kick off with a paper about juvenile snake sizes and follow up with some info about reptiles crossing oceans. The Species of the Bi-Week is a brand new reptile which takes it's name from a fluffy mammal. FULL REFERENCE LIST AVAILABLE AT: herphighlights.podbean.com Main Paper References: Aubret, F. (2015). Island colonisation and the evolutionary rates of body size in insular neonate snakes. Heredity, 115(4), 349–356. https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.2014.65 Oliver, P. M., Blom, M. P. K., Cogger, H. G., Fisher, R. N., Richmond, J. Q., & Woinarski, J. C. Z. (2018). Insular biogeographic origins and high phylogenetic distinctiveness for a recently depleted lizard fauna from Christmas Island, Australia. Biology Letters, 14(6), 20170696. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0696 Species of the Bi-Week: Wostl, E., Hamidy, A., Kurniawan, N., & Smith, E. N. (2017). A new species of Wolf Snake of the genus Lycodon H. Boie in Fitzinger