Herpetological Highlights

Bradykinin is a hormone that is released naturally in response to tissue damage, so if you hurt yourself, it makes it hurt. Quite a few animals from wildly different evolutionary histories have defensive toxins which...

Invasive species are well known to damage ecosystems by directly eating other animals and disrupting the food chain. But their impacts can go much deeper, as a new study about seed dispersal by pythons and tegus in the...

Pitvipers of the genus Bothrops are famed for their camouflage and for being deadly ambush predators. New insights from snake CCTV have revealed that these snakes can only really catch and eat animals who can't spot...

Mimic poison frogs are utterly amazing, famous for mimicking multiple different frog species, and like other dart frogs they demonstrate bi-parental care where both male and female frogs team up to look after the young...

Chinese conservationists have worked hard to protect the critically endangered Chinese alligator, creating new habitats for them after significant alterations made most of their Yangtze River home unsuitable. Thanks to...

Common knowledge suggests that albino animals are rare in the wild because they stick out like a sore thumb and get eaten by predators, but studies supporting this are relatively scarce. Now, researchers from Australia...

New methods in antivenom technology may yield a treatment that works on most of the cobras in Africa, thanks to the blood of alpacas and some very clever scientists. Then we follow up with two new species of sleepyhead...

Urban areas represent both opportunities and risks for animals, and they adapt their behaviour in many ways to cope with this fast-paced lifestyle. Now, a new study has detailed how urban wall lizards in Croatia have...

Research from Asian geckos generally suggests that sticky pads are used for smooth surfaces, while claws help grip onto rougher surfaces like wood and rocks. But a new study using Australian geckos is has turned that...

Toads continue to amaze us - this time they are using their sense of the Earth's magnetic field to find their way home. But how important this sense is for cane toads as they travel home from long journeys, and how much...

We recap some of our recent travels, and then chat about bearded dragons. A new study shows that these lizards are making decisions about how they maintain their body temperature, and this has a knock-on effect on how...

In this episode we are talking chameleons, one of nature's most famous colour changers. But despite their famous status, very few studies have actually demonstrated that they can change colour under controlled...

The minds of reptiles remain largely mysterious to us, and we often wonder what kind of emotions they are capable of feeling. In this episode we dig into a new study which tries to uncover some of the mysteries of...

A monumental new study has addressed the likely impacts of climate change on the activity of desert lizards in Africa and Australia. Hotter temperatures will likely ‘squeeze’ the activity window of some lizards...

Bats have famously good hearing, and fringe-lipped bats in Panama have tuned theirs to listen out for frogs calling out for mates. But these bats are quite particular about which amphibians they eat. New research has...