The Cabbages of Doom

The Sydney Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) have Michael McFadden, the Unit Supervisor of the Herpetofauna division at Taronga Zoo, for 2^nd May’s Conservation Cafe. That’s reptiles and amphibians to the rest of us:

This May, Sydney-SCB welcomes Michael McFadden, the Unit Supervisor of the Herpetofauna division at Taronga Zoo. Michael began working at Taronga Zoo in January 2003 and now oversees the maintenance and husbandry of the Zoo’s collection of reptiles and amphibians. He works closely with the Zoo’s conservation projects which include captive breeding and release programs for the highly endangered Southern and Northern Corroboree Frogs. The current focus of Michael’s work is developing techniques to improve captive breeding and rearing success in threatened Australian frogs and reintroduction biology.

As before, it’s free: RSVP on Eventbrite.

Courtesy of the Molecular Biology and Evolution Facebook page comes this awesome cover art:

According to the MBE Editor:

The author and artist info: The cover image depicts representative squamate species (lizards and snakes) playing poker, with the card and chip colors representing the sex-determining system most prevalent in each clade. The tabletop shows results from a comparative genomic analysis of squamate sex-determining mechanisms by Gamble et al in this issue. This study discovered that changes between sex-determining mechanisms in one clade, geckos, account for a half to two-thirds of the total transitions known in lizards and snakes. This remarkable frequency of transition is reflected in the illustration by the heightened activity at the gecko side of the table: the three gecko species in the foreground are cheating, implying that when it comes to sex determination, geckos do not play by the rules. The image was created by University of Minnesota biologist and artist Anna Minkina and pays homage to the Cassius M. Coolidge painting, “A Friend in Need”, part of the artist’s “Dogs Playing Poker” series.

h/t: James McInereny

One of the great things about living in Sydney is that you do not need to venture far from the city to find little pockets of National Park and bush tracks, where you can take a stroll away from the hustle and bustle. One such pocket is the headland at Shelly Beach, in Manly.

Last Friday, I took advantage of a day off to pay Shelly Beach a visit, and stumbled across this guy (or gal) on the headland:

To be honest, I almost stumbled on him! He was good enough to hang around and pose for some close-ups. (A much larger one scared the bejaysus out of me when it bolted into the bush a little later!)

Judging from the signs up in the area, (s)he is an Eastern water dragon. I've never really noticed such prominent ear openings on lizards before.

The UK has only 6 native reptile species, so it’s always a treat to see them. (Until, I suspect, I stumble across a venomous snake!) Fantastic creatures!

A couple more photos here.