Arboreal Alligator Lizards of Mesoamerica... and Beyond!

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…

Ikaheka and Other ‘Palatine Draggers’, Cryptozoic Elapid Snakes of Melanesia

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?

Live Spawnwatch Action From Pond 2 at Tet Zoo Towers

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….

New Species Round-up for 2023, Part 2

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)….

The Remarkable Basilisks

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…

The Amazing Caecilians

I have elected to republish my articles on caecilians. (1) Because TetZoo always needs more amphibian coverage. (2) Because caecilians are awesome. The text you’re about to read - assuming you choose to continue - first appeared in 2008 (original here); I haven’t much updated it. Here we go…