A professor of vertebrate zoology
I presented a poster on long-term changes in salamander body size at the annual Ohio Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (OHPARC) meeting yesterday in Columbus. This was part of the thesis of Sarah Longville (’22) – got lots of good feedback!
Since 2005, I have been formally cataloguing the amphibians and reptiles of Wooster Memorial Park (Wayne Co., Ohio). As of the spring of 2022, I was aware of seven species of salamanders, five species of frogs, six snakes and two turtles that occur at the park. In the last ten years, I have only added one or two to that list and figured I had probably found most of what was out there. Then came 2022, which was a banner year for amphibian discoveries. In early October, I found not one, but two new salamanders in the park: (the four-toed salamander, Hemidactylium scutatum) and the smallmouth salamander (Ambystoma texanum, thanks to Caileigh Briggs for finding and photographing this one!). I was still basking in the glow of those discoveries when in late October, I found a pickerel frog (Lithobates palustris) in one of the narrow ravines found throughout the park.
So, a new frog was added to the park to the park list as well. So that puts the official list at: nine salamanders, six frogs, six snakes and two turtles (23 species of amphibians and reptiles total). Not bad! Who knows what else is out there? I guess you just have to keep looking!
David Raines (’15) and I co-authored a poster entitled “Does past reproductive success influence subsequent reproductive performance?” at the recent Evolution conference in Cleveland, Ohio. This poster summarizes our work on female mate choice in the Tobago glass frog. For a digital copy of the poster, see here.
Congrats to Alexa Rojas (’18), Haley Hartman (’18) and Blake Marlowe (’17) on the recent publication of their (combined) undergraduate thesis research in the Journal of Herpetology!
This morning a new strawberry poison dart frog metamorph made its first appearance. Brightened what had been a bit of a gloomy day. Welcome to this thing called life, little one.
