Dr Mark D. Scherz

New species 🚨, not one, not two, 13 new bush frogs from Northeast India!!!
One of the exciting revisions I've been involved in for a few years now is out today. It is led by @bitupan-herp.bsky.social, a PhD. student who will soon be a doctor.

An ikea welcome mat that looks either like a ghost with its hands up, or a temnospondyl (or Calyptocephalella) from above. If you had a screen reader read either of those two words, please tell me how it went.

Who’s up for a game of Temnospondyl or Ghost?

Best first line to a peer review I have ever received:
"I found this ms. surprisingly pleasant and interesting to review despite its monstrous length." 🤣🧪

🚨PhD position available!🚨🧪
I am seeking a talented PhD student to join my ERC StG project GEMINI, to explore the exciting world of vertebrate genomics and comparative genomics, seeking to understand the genomics of miniaturisation! 🦇🦎🦜🐸🐟🦈 🤏🧬
Deadline: 4 Jan 2026!
employment.ku.dk/phd?show=153...

Hooray for Turing patterns! These are often non-diagnostic because changing them involves such a very minor change in parameters!

He is truly a gift.

Reptile Database has a country search feature. It is janky and incomplete, but will maybe suffice for general numbers.

Introduce yourself with 5 concerts you’ve seen:

Salif Keita
Backstreet Boys
Celtic Woman
Pentatonix
Guitar Masters (Andy McKee, Preston Reed and Jon Gomm)

Turns out my music taste is all over the place. And I almost never go to concerts; I had a very hard time coming up with five!

Sixteen Weird Al concerts is deeply impressive.

Isn’t that roughly proportional to the surface area of the planet that is classified as an island?

The turtles will die at sea from cold shock in this season and this part of the world, so do not return them to the water! If you find a live turtle, contact your nearest aquarium or animal rescue service. If you find a dead one, contact your nearest natural history museum.
🧪🐢

PSA: Anyone living close to the coast in the northeast Atlantic should keep their eyes out for beached sea turtles as we head into the coldest months of the year. Countries across northwest Europe have quietly been documenting greatly elevated stranding rates for the last couple of years. 🧪🐢

Museomics and integrative taxonomy reveal three new species of glandular viviparous tree toads (Nectophrynoides) in Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains (Anura: Bufonidae) Abstract For the last century, herpetologists have referred to any Nectophrynoides Noble, 1926 toad characterized by a large, robust body, with large, distinct parotoid glands, as Nectophryno...

Read the full research paper published in 𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑏𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑍𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦, a Senckenberg journal hosted on the ARPHA Platform:

doi.org/10.3897/vz.7...

Three new toad species skip the tadpole phase and give birth to live toadlets Researchers have identified three new species of tree-dwelling toads from Africa, all of which skip the tadpole phase and give birth to live toadlets.

Three newly discovered toad species skip the tadpole phase entirely and give birth to live toadlets! 🐸

Learn more about these rare amphibians on our blog: blog.pensoft.net/2025/11/17/t...

Does anyone know where NCBI stands with the backlog of sequence submissions? I guess so many days of unprocessed submissions are not exactly going to resolve quickly, but I really need some GenBank numbers! 🧪

The Natural History Museum Denmark is seeking a new Head of Conservation Unit! The conservation team here works on a wide array of incredible specimens, and are hard at work preparing for the new museum opening in spring 2027! candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

The first digital anatomical atlases of the chameleon skull, nervous system & cranial & hyolingual muscles are published, including lesson plans to bridge a gap between theoretical knowledge & hands-on analysis in comparative anatomy
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The description of P. efatra also involved some #museomics and comparative osteology, to resolve the identity of the highly similar P. tetra. @alicepetzold.bsky.social managed to get DNA sequence from the holotype and a paratype, so we could place them in a mitochondrial tree—far from P. efatra! 🐸🧪

I count 12 species so far described mainly from that trip:
🐸
Platypelis efatra
Platypelis laetus
Rhombophryne longicrus
Rhombophryne diadema
Stumpffia sorata
Stumpffia miovaova
Boophis pikei
Gephyromantis grosjeani
Gephyromantis lomorina
🦎
Brookesia nana
Calumma uetzi
Uroplatus fivehy
🧪

Real credit for the discovery of Platypelis efatra goes to the field team led by Frank Glaw to the Sorata Massif in northern Madagascar, who collected the types. Their 2012 expedition was an incredibly fruitful one, yielding numerous reptile and amphibian species described over the last decade. 🐸🧪

A new microhylid frog species of the genus Platypelis from phytotelmata of Pandanus screw pines in the Sorata massif, northeastern Madagascar | Request PDF Request PDF | A new microhylid frog species of the genus Platypelis from phytotelmata of Pandanus screw pines in the Sorata massif, northeastern Madagascar | we revise the molecular variation and taxo...

Quietly, on the same day, my colleagues and I also described a #newspecies of microhylid frog from Madagascar, Platypelis efatra. No press coverage for this one, and regrettably behind a paywall at Zootaxa, but nonetheless a charming frog 🐸🧪 www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Our newly described live-bearing toads from Tanzania have now been covered in at least 20 languages, have made it to Danish national news, and will also be on several radio shows this week in Danish and German! 🐸🧪
www.markscherz.com/media

Yes, we CAM! First evidence of CAM photosynthesis in a carnivorous plant Evidence for weak, facultative CAM is reported for the first time in a carnivorous plant, i.e., in Mexican representatives of Pinguicula (Lentibulariaceae).

Former lab member @njorisfleck.bsky.social and colleagues just showed that some carnivorous plants do CAM photosynthesis! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
🌱☀️🧪

Possibly related to the massive cyberattack on the MNHN infrastructure some months back. Contacting the curator may get you the photos you need.

I guess it’s the main axis of weight distribution for the forelimbs? But there are some species of Arthroleptis that have obscenely long third fingers, and I have no idea why

@katie.hipopener.com they have more bones in that finger than the first two. Also it’s the first to form during development.

Three new live-bearing toads from Tanzania! This week we have published an exciting new paper describing three new species of bumpy, bright-coloured, live-bearing, tree-dwelling toads from the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania! You can read …

A new post about the three #newspecies of toad we have just described from Tanzania, feat @christianthrane.bsky.social, Simon Loader, @alicepetzold.bsky.social, John Lyakurwa, and Michele Menegon! 🧪🐸🇹🇿
www.markscherz.com/archives/6208

A fine black toad with bright white fingers, toes, and lips, and brown pustular blobs along its legs, resting on a dark green leaf.

A black and white toad on a green fern frond. The head and limbs are grey, and the body black.

A toad looking at the camera over a brown leaf, its black body splotched with yellow and white. It is very Halloween-core.

A black toad with huge yellow glands on its legs, head, arms, and parts of the back. Jack Skellington himself could hardly have painted a more Halloween-flavoured toad.

Today we described three new toad species that give birth to fully formed toadlets, from the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania! 🇹🇿🧪🐸

vertebrate-zoology.arphahub.com/article/1670...

New species of toads that give birth to live young discovered in Tanzania | Natural History Museum Museum specimens have helped scientists discover three new species of tree-dwelling toads.

Three new species of tree toads from Tanzania have been discovered. 🐸

These amphibians don’t lay frogspawn or have a tadpole phase like most other toads, but instead give birth to live young!

Find out how museum specimens helped scientists to discover these species. 👇
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

Watch this space for some news at 12:00 GMT tomorrow! Something new for me, and a really awesome collaboration. 🐸🧪