I think it's been a while since I promoted this Starter Pack! Are you involved with Urban Ecology and Conservation? 🏙️🌃 Maybe you are a researcher or a conservation practitioner! If so, comment or DM me, and I will add you to the Starter Pack! It's a small community but we are steadily growing! 😄

Can caecilians pass the smell test? Prakash et al. (2026) tested whether a terrestrial Indian caecilian (Gegeneophis sp.) can recognize its own scent using a Y-maze experiment. Read a summary of their findings at AmphibiaWeb.org #AWNews

🐸 A comprehensive taxonomic review of the horned frog species Proceratophrys boiei has been conducted across its entire geographic range in the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado regions of Brazil. ➡️ Read the full review: doi.org/10.3897/herpetozoa.39.e186246 #frogspecies #frogdiversity

#NewSpecies! New #spider from #ecuador just jumped in: Taczanowskia waska Treatment: treatment.plazi.org/id/E0648788-... Publication: doi.org/10.11646/zoo... #Zootaxa #TaczanowskiaWaska #FAIRdata #science #OA #biology #taxonomy #ecology #biodiversity #wildlife #animals #arachnology #arachnids

Read our summary of April 2026 #C3S Climate Bulletin. Discover the data behind the joint 3rd-warmest April globally, with the 2nd-highest average sea surface temperature on record. Arctic sea ice extent was 2nd-lowest for April & Europe saw marked contrasts in precipitation. Read more ⬇️

I post a sunrise photo each morning I'm in the field. But this is the reality.

This #PlantHealthDay, a reminder: plant health depends on biodiversity. Biodiversity loss reduces water availability, increases pathogen emergence and exacerbates some forms of water pollution, undermining human, plant and animal health.

The Frog of the Week is the Kokoe Poison Dart Frog 🐸 (Phyllobates aurotaenia) from Colombia. It's one of the most poisonous frogs in the world and is one of the only frogs that are known to be used to make poison darts. 📸 inaturalist user: cmmteixeira learn more at buff.ly/Itd3Zc0

Wrapping up #AmphibiaWeek with a Fire Salamander (Salamandra salamandra), observed late at night on a dirt road somewhere in SE Belgium last year. #herps #salamanders #NaturePhotography 🌿

THAT'S RIGHT, MOTHERFUCKERS, I WON A WEBBY AWARD. Here's my 5-word speech. #webbys

On LinkedIn, we like to dress up our job titles. But when it comes to nature, that professional polish is actually scientific facts. 🧪 The IPBES #PollinationAssessment found that 75% of our food crops and nearly 90% of wild flowering plants depend at least to some extent on animal pollination.

A big study that was cited as evidence that text generators are good for students has been retracted: www.linkedin.com/posts/ben-wi... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🌍 The second @ipbes.net Global Assessment is entering external review. This is where evidence is challenged, sharpened and strengthened. 📆 15 June to 8 August Save the date. Details coming soon! 🍃

A new phD position in my lab about amphibian, infection diseases in a global changing world. Check it out! And spread the word ;)

Grad school mentee asked me “what motivates scientists to right books”. Took a moment to reply even though I’m in the process of writing my 2nd book. Eventually replied that I enjoy the greater editorial freedom compared to writing a scientific article. Then added that each discussion I have about….

What a joy to finally share the cover of The Organism–Environment Pairing (@mitpress.bsky.social)! The 📗 will be out on May 12 📆! I look forward to the conversations it sparks among scientists, philosophers & historians! mitpress.mit.edu/978026205282... #evosky #histsci #philsci #philsky #booksky 🌱🐋

🐸🌍🧪 Great paper that revisits a site in the Colombian Andes & finds massive losses of amphibian biodiversity: Shifting baselines in amphibian conservation: Historic survey uncovers disease-driven collapse of a once mega-diverse community link.springer.com/article/10.1... #ForensicEcology 🐸

Give hyenas some luv on #InternationalHyenaDay

#EarthDay A Saddled Leaf-nosed Snake (Phyllorhynchus browni) from northern Sonora, Mexico. These are sand and loose soil specialists - note the enlarged, thickened scale on the nose, useful for pushing thru soil in search of small lizards and their eggs. #herps #snakes #NaturePhotography 🌿

Since y'all liked the 290 million years old fossilized butthole from last month, here's a Messapicetus (Miocene beaked whale) that got fossilized in its own puke. Gross, really. Also incredible, but mostly gross.

Frogs are no doubt awesome study animals. Your main study area being such a dreamy place is an absolute bonus. #Herping #SouthAfrica

I'm willing to support a MSCA application to host a postdoc in Vilnius, Lithuania on all things animal movement, habitat selection and connectivity - if you're interested, let's discuss Theme & rules: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/hosting... More on my research and supervision: fattebert.weebly.com

Frogs are no doubt awesome study animals. Your main study area being such a dreamy place is an absolute bonus. #Herping #SouthAfrica

Frogs are no doubt awesome study animals. Your main study area being such a dreamy place is an absolute bonus. #Herping #SouthAfrica

Sometimes our frog surveys have weird finds. I do hope this was just an odd ploy to keep people out of this green patch in the middle of a city. #herpetology #limpopo #SouthAfrica

Calling for applicants in Africa who want to make an impact on the future of biosecurity! The @pandemiccenter.bsky.social, supported by the @carnegie.org, is launching a Biological Threat Reduction Training Policy Program and a 12-month Fellowship for rising African biosecurity leaders.

Tropical House Gecko with bifurcated tail. When tail autotomy glitches the tail meant to be shed in self defence stays attached and new tail grows with the old. In enthoherpetology contexts, lore around an already feared species having “2 tails” could get interesting. 🦎 #herpetology #lizards

NEW: Wikipedia has banned AI-generated content.

🦎 The rare, legless lizard 𝘋𝘰𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘢 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴 has recently been recognised as a unique evolutionary lineage in Taiwan, distinct from its relatives in mainland China. Check out our latest blog post to find out more: blog.pensoft.net/2026/03/25/i... Full study: doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1270.173752

Free science (a giant book I coauthored & edited-my name appears way too many times for what I did). I worked w/ 108 coauthors over many years to produce this third-iteration of the Amphibian Conservation Action Plan. Have it for free. Enjoy!🐸Download it here: portals.iucn.org/library/node... Enjoy!

I’ll never get tired of finding natural springs while surveying frogs. Locals say this one sadly turned murky when sand mining moved into rural northern Limpopo.

Here's why we should not (only) study global change drivers in isolation! Check our new preprint showing how a fungal pathogen interacts with habitat disturbance to shape the skin bacterial communities of an Amazonian frog: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v... @klivvvienna.bsky.social

Enjoyed this little meditation on the unsung ecosystem engineering of kangaroo rats. Keystone species everywhere! www.biographic.com/the-rodent-w...

Size matters when you’re a Long Reed Frog (Hyperolius nasutus) with a max adult size of 2.5 cm. Being tiny means wetland reeds and sedges are an ideal home where the weight of larger frogs is not supported. #herpetology #amphibians #herping

Ugly frog appreciation 🐸💚🧪🧵 #WorldFrogDay My first uggo is Breviceps fuscus, the black rain frog which got internet famous for looking like a sad avocado. These burrowing orbs don't have a tadpole stage and hatch as froglets. Close relative B. macrops went viral for cuteness.

Happy #worldfrogday! Here have some more free small poison frogs. Enjoy!🐸

Happy World Frog Day! Today is the day we all pay our respects to the World Frog. Ignore this warning at your peril

Most burrowing frogs use their back feet to burrow, but the appropriately named shovel-nosed frogs use their heads. Despite the large number of burrowing frogs, none have evolved an elongate body, which is a common strategy for burrowers in other vertebrate groups.

Not that I’ll ever need a reason to post frogs, but it’s World Frog Day. Here’s a pig-esque frog that is really good at digging, Guinea Shovel-nosed Frog. #Herpetology #Amphibians #Frogs

#NewSpecies New stag beetle from #china just came in: Prismognathus zhihongi Treatment: treatment.plazi.org/id/03ABD470-... Publication: doi.org/10.11646/zoo... #Zootaxa #PrismognathusZhihongi #FAIRdata #taxonomy #biodiversity #nature #conservation #insects #coleoptera #beetles #bugs #stagbeetles

Graduating high school before ChatGPT is like having a brain made of recovered steel from warships old enough to not have been weakened by atomic bomb isotopes.

I’m something of an IT technician myself. At least that’s how I feel when servicing our automated 🐸 monitoring equipment, a job where the only IT skill required is fine motor skills. #WeOutside #Herpetology #Amphibians #Frogs #SouthAfrica

"All the big birds are now gone." This observation from a Kenyan elder reflects a global pattern. A new study shows that Indigenous ecological memories across three continents align with scientific data: Large, slow-breeding species are being lost to habitat change and hunting. By Bobby Bascomb.

Frogging season ending on a high note.

When it’s the end of frogging season.

#NewSpecies! New #gecko from #malaysia just climbed in: Hemiphyllodactylus puncak Treatment: treatment.plazi.org/id/FB56AC08-... Publication: doi.org/10.3897/vz.7... #VertebrateZoology #HemiphyllodactylusPuncak #FAIRdata #OA #biodiversity #nature #wildlife #animals #herpetology #herps #reptiles

I’m glad NPR included skeptical voices - because de-extinction is a dangerous fantasy - but we’ve seen this before. Colossal dangles a story/access, journalists take it and say other researchers have criticisms, and nothing changes save for an update to the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Mammoth! timeline

Made it to Friday but at what cost

Flat-backed Toad chonk from Divundu, Namibia. #Frog #Herpetology 🐸

the humiliation of going on a hot date then finding out she wasn't even in the same PHYLUM (then someone writes a whole paper about it, with photos of your wiener)