Curator of Herpetology & Associate Professor of Vertebrate Zoology at Natural History Museum of Denmark • ERC StG: GEMINI • Co-host of SquaMates Podcast and AnatomyInsights on Youtube • He/Him
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Turns out there are only so many things that it is easy to do with the anuran bauplan, but shifting among them happens with comparative ease. Generating something truly novel is comparatively rare and weird, but has happened quite a few times—and those instances are of course super interesting! 🐸🧪
I think this is such an elegant demonstration of the predictability with contingency that is so often associated with convergent evolution. Frogs in general are an awesome demonstration of this, because we see assemblage-scale morphotype repetition across land masses. 🧪🐸
Four generic frogs? No! These are members of four different FAMILIES from Europe, Borneo, Madagascar, and East Africa, convergently evolved on the generic brown frog morphotype! 🧪🐸
I. I read ‘trans-specific exit row’ and I was SO confused for a second. Like wow what airline company has one of those‽ how does that even work??¿? 🏳️⚧️✈️ 😅
This is why we cannot trust colour in frogs to help much with species identification. It can be extremely variable, and features that might look diagnostic in a small set of specimens often are absent in some portion of the population. This poses challenges for taxonomy and field ID 🧪🐸
Check out the remarkable variation in the Critically Endangered Anodonthyla theoi. It is restricted to a tiny area of littoral forest in SE Madagascar, and its habitat is extremely threatened by deforestation and fire. When the rains come, males emerge from tree holes and leaf axils to call. 🐸🧪
Yeah some photos were taken 😅
Just another day at the office! Today, we needed to get a specimen out of the freezer to be prepped as a skeleton, so we pulled out this nice big Paleosuchus trigonatus. 🐊🧪
Holy hell, it's beautiful!
Look at the fantastic variety of shape in these wonderful frogs I photographed in Gunung Mulu National Park on Borneo last year. Amazing how much frogs can do with so little. 🐸🧪
Having a diffuse research group means that I rarely get to spend any time with my group in 3D. It was a great delight therefore to be joined by @collinbos.bsky.social @alicepetzold.bsky.social @njorisfleck.bsky.social and @clarakeusgen.bsky.social together in Bonn for the #SEH2025! 🧪🐸🦎🐍🧬
Actual advertisement is here: utep.interviewexchange.com/jobofferdeta...
Just a small taste of some of the work we have going on behind the scenes right now. It feels like everything is painfully slow at the moment, but there are some very nice things on the way! These are skeletons of type specimens of Platypelis tetra, a little microhylid from NE Madagascar 🇲🇬 🧪🐸
Yup. Accurate. Applies to frogs, too.
Please share widely! The Natural History Museum Denmark @nhmdk.bsky.social is offering a PhD fellowship in collection-based Natural History Research, focused on dark taxa & unknown species, pref. including representatives of Danish flora, fauna or geology. candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...
A wonderful opportunity for a fully funded #PhD position in collections-based research at Natural History Musuem Denmark @nhmdk.bsky.social Reach out if interested in a PhD project in #peatland #sedges, #aquatic plants, or #ferns! 🌿🍂🌾 #globalchange #eco-evo employment.ku.dk/phd/?show=16...
congratulations on the new role, and on the success of the symposium! Sorry we didn't get a chance to chat properly!
Firstly, @alicepetzold.bsky.social and I organized our first symposium: Herp-omics: a #genomic perspective on earth’s herpetofaunal #diversity, with 27 participants and it was great fun. The variety of projects showed just how exciting this field of research is. #systematics #conservation #ecology
The @nhmdk.bsky.social is offering a #PhD position in collections-based taxonomic or similar research, ideally focused on 'dark taxa' occurring in Denmark. The call is a broad one. Get in touch with a relevant curator if you're interested! 🧪🐝🪰💐🪱 candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...
🧪🐍🐢🐸🦎🐊
I’m setting up a Discord server for young herpetologists, derived from an idea at #SEH2025. The goal is to create a space for quick help, collaboration, and networking. If you’d like to give input or get involved, let me know! #herpetology
I warmly invite you back to Copenhagen, where we currently still keep our collection at room temperature 😅
🧪🐍
The final plenary of #SEH2025 is Angele Martins, talking about descriptive anatomy of blindsnakes, worm snakes, and thread snakes. Fantastic animals, and wonderful work! 🐍🧪
I’d call it spry for its age 😂
By a little dated I mean it was published in 1889
If you'll settle for one of the best radio broadcasts ever, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is available on archive.org. archive.org/details/hhgt...
Three men in a boat by Jerome K Jerome, as read by Hugh Laurie. I wet myself laughing repeatedly. It is very British humour, and a little dated, but truly marvellous.
And now @collinbos.bsky.social is presenting on mitochondrial genome reorganisation in microhylid frogs from Madagascar, and how we can explore it using off-target sequencing from target capture sequencing reads. 🧪🐸 #SEH2025
Loving the Herp-Omics symposium at #SEH2025! Proud to see several members of my lab presenting here—my postdoc @alicepetzold.bsky.social presented and is one of the chairs! Up now, @clarakeusgen.bsky.social is presenting on the Bachelor’s thesis that she did with us.
It’s actually a big deal in all organisms! Amphibians are just a really cool system in which to show it off.
Yes!
A wonderful first day of the #SEH2025 meeting today here in Bonn! Seeing my students presenting is especially gratifying; @clarakeusgen.bsky.social brought this absolutely beautiful poster. 🧪🐸
Meet the newest species of Brazilian flea-toad 🐸 Brachycephalus nanicus! 🐸 B. nanicus is <1cm long & dwells under the leaf litter in the cloud forests of Serro do Mar, southeastern Brazil I CT scanned this specimen for the osteological description Out today in Zootaxa: mapress.com/zt/article/v...
Not fair.
Look I’m not being hyperbolic: this is the best thing on this whole website.
It’s Palleon nasus
On my way to Bonn for the #SEH2025 23rd European Congress of Herpetology! I’ll be giving a plenary on Wednesday about miniaturisation. Really looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones, and exchanging ideas across the field 🐢🐍🐸🧪
I think the secret to getting these things to breed in captivity will be setting their environment up correctly. And also having both sexes 😂 Have you read this? I was interested to hear someone had had so much success finding their nests! And that theyre under rocks! journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.1...
Come to beautiful Copenhagen for the SMBE conference next summer! Call for symposia is now OPEN! smbe2026.org 🧪
Today I had the great pleasure to be an invited speaker at the meeting of the Nordisk Herpetologisk Forening. A good opportunity to share the work my team and I have been doing at the @nhmdk.bsky.social for the last four years, as well as the history of our remarkable collection. 🧪🐸🐍🐢🦎🐊
Any chance someone can give us a confident ID on these two Phrynosoma models? @somuchpingle.bsky.social @afroherper.bsky.social @ethankocak.com @emilytaylorscience.com
Worker ant, bronze, finished at last. Got her to sit for a proper portrait.
Great to be at Copenhagen Pride today! Appreciated this sign in particular!
It's #worldlizardday and the newest @squamatespod.bsky.social episode it out now! Go give it a listen 🦎 youtube.com/watch?v=OePk...
Celebrate #WorldLizardDay with us! Episode 36 is live now on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify! You can join us in the live chat on the YouTube Premiere! 🦎🧪 youtu.be/OePkLM5DTgc
Actually a Boophis, probably albilabris? Not exactly sure. It’s a juvenile. We’ve found these in Ranomafana as well.
For the curious out there, Redbubble's 'Small' size (59.4 cm) is the closest to life-size (true life-size would be 61.1 cm).
Yeah, there aren't a lot of temperate areas that can come close to competing with the real hotspots!
Awesome!
Thanks! :) It was a *lot* of work 😅
Thank you!
Thrilled to announce version 2.0 of my poster featuring some of Madagascar's endemic frog species, to scale! This version features 176 species—40 more than version 1.1 (now retired)! Check it out! 🐸🧪 www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Som...
Petition to rename it non-genuine intelligence.
reverse heist movie where a single snake has to chase all the priests back into ireland
Fantastic. How do you do the scales? Are they in the original hand-made model, or do you sculpt them digitally?
Beautiful work. Where did you get the file to print this from? It’s a gorgeous model
Truly obscene
I think taxonomy would be important. I recommend my colleague Thomas Pape, curator of flies at the NHMD and current chair of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, as a good candidate. Although if you want to talk herpetological taxonomy, I could also volunteer myself as tribute.
The Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG) is seeking ten taxonomic specialists in Collembola or any of the following insect orders - Blattodea, Ephemeroptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Orthoptera, Trichoptera! graduatestudies.uoguelph.ca/postdoctoral...
Cryptozoology is in the theme song but hasn’t been done. @tetzoo.bsky.social would be an excellent candidate.
There are frogs that have the metatarsals separated by webbing and not bound together with flesh 🙃
My son calls me Mark and his mother mama and it’s… very challenging.
This week I learned about braconid parasitoid wasps that infect aphids and make a little disc underneath them. I found several of these on a plant for sale at my local supermarket. Thought at first that this was a fungus! Super cool. 🧪🐝
Reminder that today is your last day to submit an abstract for the European Congress of Herpetology on 8–12 September in Bonn, Germany! I'll be giving a plenary on miniaturisation in reptiles and amphibians! 🧪🦎🐢🐊🐍🐸 sehcongress.org
OMG I just got the heads up that later this week a really COOL paper will come out about an AMAZING NEW SPECIES I did an illustration for it and I am SUPER excited for you to see it!
Cut to me using my masking tool of choice
Are there good tutorials for this?
This is how baby Five-lined Skinks (Plestiodon fasciatus) try to lure predators away from their bodies and focus on their bright blue tails #lizards #reptiles #skinks
This might lend itself better to ecology class comparing community composition and diversity? To me, pasta shapes or pastries are perhaps the ultimate consumable phylogenetics lesson.
Musings on the theme of Brown, as performed by a selection of amphibians from southeastern Madagascar 🐸
Ah yes, the herky-jerky
At the end of my #JMIH25 presentation, I thanked the Carl Gans Travelling Fellowship for funding my attendance. The auto-generated caption software heard something VERY different ☠️🏳️🌈
It’s #WorldSnakeDay and I’m here to say they’re not that special, they’re just long lizards! Snakes are just another group of legless lizard and there are like 40+ of those. Plus some snakes aren’t even legless!
Happy #worldsnakeday and to celebrate we have a BRAND new episode of @squamatespod.bsky.social about Snake-Human interactions, among other things! We also have some hot takes about Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin, and certain youtube… eeerr…personalities. youtu.be/BPbEbePoxlE?... #podcast #herpetology
Today of #WorldSnakeDay I found this cute Rough Greensnake (Opheodrys aestivus). This is such a CUTE species #snakes
Madagascar is home to a beautiful, totally endemic snake fauna. Here are some from my most recent fieldtrip for you to appreciate for #WorldSnakeDay 🐍🧪
Teaching members of the general public about snakes is essential to overcoming religious and other prejudices against them that result in needless persecution. Most frequent response: ‘I thought they’d be slimy!’ We talk about this in our new #WorldSnakeDay episode of @squamatespod.bsky.social 🐍🧪
Happy #WorldSnakeDay from your mates over at @squamatespod.bsky.social! 🐍🧪
Our ability to detect instances of miniaturisation is significantly affected by the fact that miniature phenotypes are often very similar to juvenile phenotypes of close relatives. So I feel valid in my headcanon of whole species of tiny flapflaps
“Surfacing” 38”x14” oil on canvas #turtle #pond #oilpainting #artistsonbluesky #SciArt #art #reptile #herps
Happy #SnakeWeek! Tune in to youtube.com/@squamatespod on #WorldSnakeDay, 16 July at 16h CEST/10h EDT/7h PDT, for Episode 35 of the pod! We will be talking about snake ecosystem services, human-snake conflicts, and getting into the reeds in a discussion of televised snake-related outreach 🐍
Our August issue is now out! anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/19328494... The cover article discusses skink systematics, comparative cranial osteology of the New World Mabuyinae by Julio Ferreira-Junior et al.: doi.org/10.1002/ar.2...
this one looks like something worth1000 used to be full of; there's a good chance this is actually photoshop, not AI
It has always been bizarre to me, travelling to places with a similar climate (much of the Midwest of the US) where air con is ubiquitous. There are really significant differences in cultural norms around AC. Many places seem overly reliant on it. Some that could really use it just don’t.
I spent most of my youth in Switzerland, where installation of AC units in most cantons requires a special permit; even our schools and some hospitals don’t have AC. Nowadays, summers are above 30°C for weeks at a time. I am wondering if they will relax these laws. But I doubt it.
Doesn’t AC also significantly increase local outside air temperature, making it even more of a class/wealth problem that directly worsens conditions for anyone who is unhoused or unable to afford AC?
Studying single-cell biodiversity feels like going back in time 200 years. No one has any idea what's going on (in the best possible way). BASICS about life are still being discovered. If you'd like to learn more, & see more videos, check out the study here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Apologies for jumping into a message not aimed at me, but Derek I think you can just put it up on wikimedia. You could then embed it on a relevant Wikipedia page if it was relevant.
Episode title idea for @squamatespod.bsky.social
The Newt Testament
Nice job at Aarhus University @au.dk: we need more professorship in genetic biodiversity! tech.au.dk/en/about-the...
Huge News Coartem® Baby—1st malaria drug approved for newborns <5 kg It's a cherry-flavored mix of artemether (rapid parasite clearance) & lumefantrine (long-acting, prevents recrudescence)—dissolves in breast milk and optimized PK/PD for infant metabolism Not-for-profit launch planned in Africa
This is a good time to remember that Moas, Emus, and the other ratites diverged so long ago, they FLEW to different continents, and then lost the ability to fly and became giants independently. You can't just sprinkle a few variants to make one into the other. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Also, tinamous are much more closely related to moa than emus are
Yeah, as others have said, this is Dryophytes (formerly Hyla) versicolor :)
ooh new podcast for me to follow, and this episode has info about my love of the herp world, bearded dragons!
A new episode of my #herpetology podcast with @hiralnaik.bsky.social @serpenillus.bsky.social and @ethankocak.com is dropping in just a few hours! We talk about bearded dragons, their origins in the trade, and predictors of amenability to herpetocultural trade success 🧪🐸
In gratitude, here is a thumbs up, feat. Palleon nasus
