Swamp milkweed in the yard is getting attention!
I spent a lovely morning joining a local bird group out at Bayou Sauvage Urban National Wildlife Refuge. I introduced them to the calls of three species of frogs, which had been causing much confusion because they were not birds.
As an herpetologist and very professional scientist, I obviously have no idea what an “inch” is or “foot” is, but otherwise this post checks out.
February 24th. The Coral Honeysuckle that I planted in late summer 2024 shows the first signs of flowering. Hummingbirds of the Irish Channel, prepare to feast!
As we’re starting fieldwork this week for our endangered Dusky Gopher Frog project, I’m excited to have this website to share some basics about the project.
Didn’t they just finish a ~3-year project there where they replaced water mains then repaved the street???
Also, too, there should be community signups to modpodge glitter and glue gun feathers and beads onto that police vehicle, and all other federal troop vehicles in New Orleans.
Hopefully the newly-designed security outfits would have enough glitter to also kill the toxic masculinity/military cosplay of the security presence, and would make people feel safer - not more scared.
At the least, someone needs to design better “camouflage” for Mardi Gras. Swap out camo for Mardi Gras colors. Swap out fatigues for tutus and a wig. Swap out assault rifles for bubble guns. Local artists should be in charge of design 💜💛💚
I never knew that floats are so crowded with throws that there’s barely standing room for the riders to stand. This much space is only after 2 hours of organizing. #tucks
Everything about Muses tonight was phenomenal
Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin
Whenever I see babies on the parade route I imagine they just emerged from a giant king cake that day.
These turtles will be released where they were collected this spring, but until then you can check them out in the Bayou exhibit at the Audubon Aquarium.
This fall, Audubon started to collaborate with LDWF and USFWS on a program to headstart hatchling turtles to improve first-year survival.
Ringed Map Turtles are among the coolest turtles in North America. They only live in the Pearl and Bogue Falaya River systems of Louisiana and Mississippi, and are a threatened species impacted by habitat modifications to the rivers.
It’s time! 💜💛💚
Our results also show that flamingos in human care in zoos are genetically fit to serve as a source for reintroduction programs to Florida, which is a very exciting find - especially as there is increasing interest in active recovery programs for American Flamingos in Florida.
Our results from this study confirm that American Flamingos across the Caribbean are a single well-mixed population, with lots of mixing across nesting sites.
As we reached out to collaborators around the Caribbean, this grew into a multi-country project, with the Bahamas, Mexico, Cuba, and Bonaire all providing samples. Natural history museums around the US contributed samples from flamingos collected over nearly 200 years.
I started working on this project almost a decade ago, when the question was centered on whether flamingos were native to Florida or not. Based on other research we've done, that now seems like a dated (and well-answered) question.
I'm very excited to share this new paper on conservation genomics of American Flamingos, led by Jessica Folsom at UCF.
Unfortunate to hear that NSF is changing the way grants are reviewed - less emphasis on external reviewers and less detailed summaries from reviews. I’ve been enormously impressed by the way panels are run, and detailed reviews have helped me improve grant applications considerably.
An ellipsis with four dots might be an ellipslip
Good story covering the basics of how folks can help monarchs, and the concerns with planting non-native Tropical Milkweed.
This workshop brought together zoo veterinarians, conservation biologists, and collections managers from natural history museums (among others) to join forces for conservation science.
Just wrapped up a phenomenal ZooMu workshop at the Oklahoma City Zoo with folks from zoos and natural history collections across the US. I’m very excited about where this project is going!
Hell yeah, Halloween Season! 🎃👻🧛🏻🕷️
🚨Important herpetology information ⬇️🐸🐸
