Regular readers will be aware of my intermittent, occasional articles on the zoos and other animal-based visitor centres of the world, published as and when I remember to do them... Caption: a montage of carnivorans kept at the New Forest Wildlife Park. Images: Darren Naish. Over the weekend I visited the New Forest Wildlife Park, a visitor attraction not more than an hour’s drive from where I live, and in an effort to take advantage of what’s still live and active in my short-term memory, now is a good time to write a review. Caption: the entrance sign as it looked in 2016 (at left) and as ..read more

It’s been said that the present is a Golden Age for cryptozoology books, cryptozoology being the ostensible study of creatures known from legend, account or anecdote but not accepted as valid by science... But while it might be that a great many new cryptozoology-themed books have appeared in print over recent years, it doesn’t follow that their existence makes this a ‘Golden Age’… I mean, some might say exactly the opposite, since many of the books concerned are neither good nor useful. Matt Bille’s Of Books and Beasts: A Cryptozoologist’s Library (Bille 2022) is unusual, potentially valuabl ..read more

Now would be a good time to publish a massive and comprehensive overview of where we’re at in our understanding of colubrid snake diversity and phylogenetic history. But that’s not happening today. Instead… Caption: a garter snake in the water, on show at The Deep in Hull, UK. The Deep is a big aquarium located on the edge of the Humber, and it’s home to tropical amphibians and reptiles as well as numerous marine species. Image: Darren Naish. …. I here provide thoughts on a colubrid I recently got to see in captivity: the Lake Zacapu garter snake Thamnophis eques insperatus, several specimens ..read more

Over 200 modern lizard species possess slits, apertures and folds in the skin that lead to epidermal structures termed mite pockets… Caption: a mite pocket montage, showing a mite pocket in a scrub lizard (at left), the mite-filled nuchal pockets of a tropidurid (at upper right), and (at lower right) all the locations where pockets can be present. Images: McCoy et al. (2012); Carvalho et al. (2018); Arnold (1986). Variously located on the sides of the neck, armpit region, and in front of and behind the top of the thigh, these are often inhabited by parasitic mites, specifically chigger mites ..read more

Among the proudest of my achievements is the publication of Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved, DHTLE for short, co-authored with Professor Paul Barrett and published by the Natural History Museum, London. I think it’s fair to say that it’s the flagship ‘dinosaur book’ of the museum. It’s also one of only a handful of dinosaur-themed books written at ‘adult level’. “Finally, a modern, intelligent, trade book on dinosaurs for thoughtful readers”, to quote a reviewer at Quarterly Journal of Biology. Caption: first edition at left, second edition at right, third edition in the middle. Image ..read more

Regular readers here, and those who follow me on social media (@TetZoo on Twitter/X and Instagram; I’m on Facebook too), will know that I’m heavily invested in the Common frog Rana temporaria population that lives in and around the scruffy ‘garden’ areas that surround my house…. Caption: the shallow end of pond 2 as of February 5th. When spawn is fresh, it’s tight, compact and rubbery, but as it matures its jelly absorbs water, expands and becomes much less firm. It’s possible to age the spawn by days and even hours (approximately) on the basis of its look. Image: Darren Naish. Well, RIGHT NO ..read more

Giant tortoises are among the most remarkable of reptiles to have ever evolved…. Caption: I’m not lucky enough to have ever seen any giant tortoises in the wild. In fact, I’ve never seen any tortoises, of any sort, in the wild, ever. But here are some captive and museum giant tortoises I have seen. Images: Darren Naish. I don’t know how I’m going to justify that statement but I’ll leave it there as it is, so let’s just live with it. I like giant tortoises enough that I’ve had reason to write about them a few times here in the past (see links below). But while the living species are very nice ..read more

Long-time readers of Tetrapod Zoology will know of my long-term plans to complete a series of articles that cover the TOADS OF THE WORLD, the first part of which was published in 2009…. Caption: a montage of animals relevant to this article. (A) a typical Bufo toad, purely for scale-related reasons; (B) Merten's smalltongue toad Werneria mertensiana, one of the species discussed in this article; (C) tadpole of a red-back toad (Schismaderma); (D) even stranger tadpole of Werneria. Images: Darren Naish. Various complications require that this series has never been finished, and that long gaps i ..read more

Welcome to 2024! And we kick things off with frogs. What, I hear you ask, is a strabomantid? Caption: a hyloid montage. What is that small creature in the red circle? It’s a terraranan, and it’s here to shake things up… Strabomantids are a group of terrestrial South and Central American frogs, sometimes termed terrestrial-breeding frogs, landfrogs or cloud forest landfrogs. Just about all are small (20-50 mm SVL*), direct-developing animals associated with forests. They’re mostly animals of the forest floor, but some are arboreal. Some strabomantids (like the pristimantine Serranobatrachus) a ..read more

The tenth TetZooCon – that’s the Tetrapod Zoology Convention – happened between Friday December 1st and Monday December 4th, and I think I’ve just about recovered. Hosted once again at Bush House, King’s College London (KCL), it was the biggest, busiest and most successful of our events so far, as is fitting for the tenth one… Caption: the TetZooCon 2023 banner, composed of Mesozoic marine reptiles but a good number of additional animals too. Image: George Lathouris, used with permission. Getting Bush House as a venue is big deal and we owe massive thanks to Chris Manias of KCL for helping to ..read more