It’s 2025, not 2024. But, as per last year, I still aim to rescue and republish the squamate-themed articles originally published at Tet Zoo ver 2 and 3, and today mostly ruined, paywalled, or removed by their hosters….
It is once more than time of year when the lone amphibian species here – the Common frog Rana temporaria – gathers to breed in ponds and pools. How are things going this year?
Chameleons* are among the most distinctive and charismatic of lizards, and a long list of anatomical features make them very unusual...
I like iguanian lizards…. who doesn’t? But among this enormous group are a great many lineages and species that you hardly ever hear anything about…
It's time once again to look at squamates…
You’ll recall that my aim for 2024 is to rescue and revamp a good deal of old squamate-themed material from the Tet Zoo archives….
Ever keen to cover more of squamate diversity – Squamata = snakes and lizards – we here look at a really interesting group of mostly Mexican lizards. They’ve led us on a merry chase with respect to their diversity, taxonomy, phylogeny and historical biogeography…
It’s time once more to visit the amazing world of squamates, and again we’re looking at snakes. Today: the extremely obscure Small-eyed or Ikaheka snake of New Guinea and some of the surrounding islands. What’s the deal with this unusual animal?
It’s time once again to look at a very interesting bunch of snakes…
An updated look at a very special group of remarkable burrowing snakes…
Among the most poorly known of all squamate groups are the dibamids…
For some years now, a prolific amateur herpetologist has published an absolutely extraordinary number of new taxonomic names for snakes, lizards and other reptiles…
Now would be a good time to publish a massive and comprehensive overview of where we’re at in our understanding of colubrid snake diversity and phylogenetic history. But that’s not happening today. Instead…
Over 200 modern lizard species possess slits, apertures and folds in the skin that lead to epidermal structures often termed mite pockets…
Regular readers here, and those who follow me on social media (@TetZoo on Twitter/X and Instagram; I’m on Facebook too), will know that I’m now fairly heavily invested in the Common frog Rana temporaria population that live in the scruffy ‘garden’ areas that surround my house….
Giant tortoises are among the most remarkable reptiles that have ever evolved….
Long-time readers of Tetrapod Zoology will know of my long-term plans to complete a series of articles that cover the TOADS OF THE WORLD, the first part of which was published in 2009….
Welcome to 2024! And we kick things off with frogs. What, I hear you ask, is a strabomantid?
In the previous article we looked briefly at those new amphibian and mammal species named during 2023. This time we skip ahead to reptiles… including birds because – yes – birds are reptiles in the phylogenetic sense)….
Way back in 2009 (the ScienceBlogs years) I published a Tetrapod Zoology article titled ‘Tell me something new about basilisks, puh-lease’ wherein I lamented the fact that people only ever say the same one thing about basilisks. Aware that there’s all too little squamate content here at Tetrapod Zoology ver 4, I here present a much augmented and updated version of that article…
