Some tree-dwelling salamanders have a remarkable ability to ‘sky-dive’, controlling their descent after leaping away from predators. New research tests the gliding ability of a number of different species, and finds that some are more adept than others. We follow up with a brand new frog species described from Kangaroo Island, Australia.

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Full reference list available here: http://www.herphighlights.podbean.com

Main Paper References:

Brown CE, Sathe EA, Dudley R, Deban SM. 2022. Aerial maneuvering by plethodontid salamanders spanning an arboreality gradient. Journal of Experimental Biology 225:jeb244598. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.244598.

Species of the Bi-Week:

Parkin T, Rowley JJL, Elliott-Tate J, Mahony MJ, Sumner J, Melville J, Donnellan SC. 2024. Systematic assessment of the brown tree frog (Anura: Pelodryadidae: Litoria ewingii) reveals two endemic species in South Australia. Zootaxa 5406:1–36. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5406.1.1.

Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:

Brown, C. E., Goldenberg, W. P., Hinds, O. M., O'Donnell, M. K., & Staub, N. L. (2025). Vascular and Osteological Morphology of Expanded Digit Tips Suggests Specialization in the Wandering Salamander (Aneides vagrans). Journal of Morphology, 286(1), e70026.

Other Links/Mentions:

Sounds of Northern Pacific Treefrog - Pseudacris regilla. Available at https://californiaherps.com/frogs/pages/p.regilla.sounds.html (accessed February 18, 2025).

Editing and Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

Species Bi-week theme – Michael Timothy

Other Music – The Passion HiFi, https://www.thepassionhifi.com

Intro visuals – Paul Snelling

We are talking about our own work this week, focusing on our latest research into Europe’s foremost colubrid, the Aesculapian snake. We chat about radio-tracking these beasts and dive into some of the media coverage this study has received. Finally, we touch on some good conservation news from the Zoological Society of London.

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Full reference list available here: http://www.herphighlights.podbean.com

Main Paper Reference:

Major T, Jeffrey L, Limia Russel G, Bracegirdle R, Gandini A, Morgan R, Marshall BM, Mulley JF, Wüster W. 2025. A reliance on human habitats is key to the success of an introduced predatory reptile. PLOS ONE 20:e0310352. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0310352.

Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:

Major, T., Bracegirdle, R., Gandini, A., Russell, G. L., Pozzi, A. V., Morgan, R., ... & Wüster, W. (2023). Mate today, gone tomorrow: male on female cannibalism in Zamenis longissimus (Laurenti, 1768) in North Wales. Herpetology Notes, 16, 51-54.

Other Links/Mentions:

BBC Radio 4 inside science (Tom at 20:35): https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0027txb

Conversation article about Aesculapian snakes: https://theconversation.com/britain-has-a-new-snake-species-should-climate-change-mean-it-is-allowed-to-stay-249043

Leap of Hope documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs1SIs0KRlk&ab_channel=ZSL-ZoologicalSocietyofLondon

Sample I. 2025. Endangered frogs born at London zoo after rescue mission in Chile. The Guardian.

Editing and Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

Species Bi-week theme – Michael Timothy

Other Music – The Passion HiFi, https://www.thepassionhifi.com

Intro visuals – Paul Snelling

Salamanders and frogs return to their home pools to breed, but removal of these pools is making life more difficult for them. New research discovers how artificial pools can affect the genetics and fates of both spotted salamanders and wood frogs.

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Full reference list available here: http://www.herphighlights.podbean.com

Main Paper References:

Winters DM, Wilson E, Coster SS, Rothenberger MB. 2024. Integrating Population Genetics With Long‐Term Environmental Monitoring to Evaluate and Guide Vernal Pool Creation for Amphibian Conservation. Ecology and Evolution 14. DOI: 10.1002/ece3.70431.

Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:

Davis CL, Muñoz DJ, Amburgey SM, Dinsmore CR, Teitsworth EW, Miller DAW. 2023. Multistate model to estimate sex‐specific dispersal rates and distances for a wetland‐breeding amphibian population. Ecosphere 14. DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.4345.

Other Links/Mentions:

Sabillo K. 2025.Bangladesh sees first ever rewilding of captive-bred elongated tortoises. Available at https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/01/bangladesh-sees-first-ever-rewilding-of-captive-bred-elongated-tortoises/ (accessed January 23, 2025).

Editing and Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

Species Bi-week theme – Michael Timothy

Other Music – The Passion HiFi, https://www.thepassionhifi.com

Intro visuals – Paul Snelling

The Asian common toad (aka Asian black-spined toad, Asian toad, black-spectacled toad) is a remarkably successful species, living alongside humans and colonising new lands. A new study suggests there might be more than meets the eye, with the toads being more than one species. We finish with a newly described tiny species of chameleon from Madagascar.

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Full reference list available here: http://www.herphighlights.podbean.com

Main Paper References:

Dufresnes C, Jablonski D, Ambu J, Prasad VK, Bala Gautam K, Kamei RG, Mahony S, Hofmann S, Masroor R, Alard B, Crottini A, Edmonds D, Ohler A, Jiang J, Khatiwada JR, Gupta SK, Borzée A, Borkin LJ, Skorinov DV, Melnikov DA, Milto KD, Konstantinov EL, Künzel S, Suchan T, Arkhipov DV, Trofimets AV, Nguyen TV, Suwannapoom C, Litvinchuk SN, Poyarkov NA. 2025. Speciation and historical invasions of the Asian black-spined toad (Duttaphrynus melanostictus). Nature Communications 16. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54933-4.

Species of the Bi-Week:

Rakotoarison A, Hasiniaina AF, Glaw F, Vences M. 2024. A new miniaturized species of leaf chameleon, genus Brookesia, from a littoral forest fragment in eastern Madagascar. Zootaxa 5506:533–547. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5506.4.3.

Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:

Vázquez Torres S, Benard Valle M, Mackessy SP, Menzies SK, Casewell NR, Ahmadi S, Burlet NJ, Muratspahić E, Sappington I, Overath MD, Rivera-de-Torre E, Ledergerber J, Laustsen AH, Boddum K, Bera AK, Kang A, Brackenbrough E, Cardoso IA, Crittenden EP, Edge RJ, Decarreau J, Ragotte RJ, Pillai AS, Abedi M, Han HL, Gerben SR, Murray A, Skotheim R, Stuart L, Stewart L, Fryer TJA, Jenkins TP, Baker D. 2025. De novo designed proteins neutralize lethal snake venom toxins. Nature:1–7. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08393-x.

Other Links/Mentions:

Callaway E. 2025. AI-designed proteins tackle century-old problem — making snake antivenoms. Nature 637:776–776. DOI: 10.1038/d41586-025-00133-z.

Editing and Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

Species Bi-week theme – Michael Timothy

Other Music – The Passion HiFi, https://www.thepassionhifi.com

Intro visuals – Paul Snelling

Our understanding of the social lives of snakes is evolving at breakneck speed. This week we discuss a new study which has revealed that ball pythons have social behaviour. We also talk about sociality in rattlesnakes, before moving on to some news from the world of milk snake speciation - there may be fewer species than previously thought.

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Full reference list available here: http://www.herphighlights.podbean.com

Main Paper References:

Clark RW, Brown WS, Stechert R, Greene HW. 2012. Cryptic sociality in rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) detected by kinship analysis. Biology Letters 8:523–525. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.1217.

Skinner M, Kumpan T, Miller N. 2024. Intense sociability in a “non-social” snake (Python regius). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 78:113. DOI: 10.1007/s00265-024-03535-7.

Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:

Kornai D, Jiao X, Ji J, Flouri T, Yang Z. 2024. Hierarchical Heuristic Species Delimitation Under the Multispecies Coalescent Model with Migration. Systematic Biology 73:1015–1037. DOI: 10.1093/sysbio/syae050.

Other Links/Mentions:

Salamander call and video by Heidi Rockney and Gary Nafis from: https://amphibiaweb.org/cgi/amphib_query?where-genus=Dicamptodon&where-species=ensatus

Editing and Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

Species Bi-week theme – Michael Timothy

Other Music – The Passion HiFi, https://www.thepassionhifi.com

Intro visuals – Paul Snelling

A wildly ambitious new study manages to test how the personalities of sleepy skinks influence their success at finding food in the wild. Then we hit upon a beautiful new frog species from China.

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Full reference list available here: http://www.herphighlights.podbean.com

Main Paper References:

Spiegel O, Michelangeli M, Sinn DL, Payne E, Klein JV, Kirkpatrick J, Harbusch M, Sih A. 2024. Resource manipulation reveals interactive phenotype‐dependent foraging in free‐ranging lizards. Journal of Animal Ecology 93:1108–1122. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.14128.

Species of the Bi-Week:

Tang S, Sun T, Liu S, Luo S, Yu G, Du L. 2023. A new species of cascade frog (Anura: Ranidae: Amolops) from central Yunnan, China. Zoological Letters 9:15. DOI: 10.1186/s40851-023-00214-9.

Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:

Marshall BM, Alamshah AL, Cardoso P, Cassey P, Chekunov S, Eskew EA, Fukushima CS, García-Díaz P, Gore ML, Lockwood JL, Rhyne AL, Sinclair JS, Thomas Strine C, Stringham OC, Tlusty MF, Valdez JW, Watters F, Hughes AC. 2025. The magnitude of legal wildlife trade and implications for species survival. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 122. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2410774121.

Editing and Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

Species Bi-week theme – Michael Timothy

Other Music – The Passion HiFi, https://www.thepassionhifi.com

Intro visuals – Paul Snelling

Blindsnakes have taken over the continent of Australia at rapid speed. We chat about their different body types and finish with some listener-submitted wild observations of unusual reptile behaviour.

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Merch: https://www.redbubble.com/people/herphighlights/shop

Full reference list available here: http://www.herphighlights.podbean.com

Main Paper References:

Tiatragul S, Skeels A, Keogh JS. 2024. Morphological evolution and niche conservatism across a continental radiation of Australian blindsnakes. Evolution 78:1854–1868. DOI: 10.1093/evolut/qpae132.

Other Links/Mentions:

Robles-Gil A. 2024.After the Death of Cassius, the World’s Largest Captive Crocodile, Scientists Are Trying to Solve the Mystery of His Age. Available at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/after-the-death-of-cassius-the-worlds-largest-captive-crocodile-scientists-are-trying-to-solve-the-mystery-of-his-age-180985422/ (accessed December 5, 2024).

Editing and Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

Species Bi-week theme – Michael Timothy

Other Music – The Passion HiFi, https://www.thepassionhifi.com

Intro visuals – Paul Snelling

A clever new experiment has shown that bearded dragons can learn skills by copying other dragons. Then we have a brand new orange and black newt species.

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Merch: https://www.redbubble.com/people/herphighlights/shop

Full reference list available here: http://www.herphighlights.podbean.com

Main Paper References:

Kis A, Huber L, Wilkinson A. 2015. Social learning by imitation in a reptile (Pogona vitticeps). Animal Cognition 18:325–331. DOI: 10.1007/s10071-014-0803-7.

Species of the Bi-Week:

Pomchote P, Peerachidacho P, Khonsue W, Sapewisut P, Hernandez A, Phalaraksh C, Siriput P, Nishikawa K. 2024. The seventh species of the newt genus Tylototriton in Thailand: a new species (Urodela, Salamandridae) from Tak Province, northwestern Thailand. ZooKeys 1215:185–208. DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1215.116624.

Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:

Folt B, Marshall M, Emanuel JA, Dziadzio M, Cooke J, Mena L, Hinderliter M, Hoffmann S, Rankin N, Tupy J, McGowan C. 2022. Using predictions from multiple anthropogenic threats to estimate future population persistence of an imperiled species. Global Ecology and Conservation 36:e02143. DOI: 10.1016/j.gecco.2022.e02143.

Loope KJ, Akçakaya HR, Shoemaker KT. 2024. Inflated predictions from a flawed model influenced the decision to deny federal protection for the gopher tortoise. Global Ecology and Conservation 54:e03089. DOI: 10.1016/j.gecco.2024.e03089.

Folt B, Marshall M, Emanuel JA, Dziadzio M, Cooke J, Mena L, Hinderliter M, Hoffmann S, Rankin N, Tupy J, McGowan C. 2024. Strengths and opportunities in gopher tortoise population modeling: Reply to Loope et al. Global Ecology and Conservation 54:e03093. DOI: 10.1016/j.gecco.2024.e03093.

Other Links/Mentions:

Learn JR. 2024.Research challenges gopher tortoise listing decision. Available at https://wildlife.org/research-challenges-gopher-tortoise-listing-decision/ (accessed December 5, 2024).

Editing and Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

Species Bi-week theme – Michael Timothy

Other Music – The Passion HiFi, https://www.thepassionhifi.com

Intro visuals – Paul Snelling