Herps

In Ecuador’s Jama-Coaque Reserve (JCR), nearly every surface is encased with life: moss, ferns,  epiphytes and orchids — a color wheel of green in three dimensions. Amid the green, chestnut-headed oropendola nests hang like woven teardrops from towering trees, troops of howler monkeys shout their boundaries and hummingbirds dive-bomb from branch to blossom. JCR protects […]

Remember Indiana Jones’ famous line “Snakes! Why’d it have to be snakes?” in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark? That iconic moment has taken on a new twist as the actor behind the adventurous archaeologist, Harrison Ford, has become the namesake of a newly described snake species. In the forests of Otishi National […]

A photo of an odd-looking amphibian drew attention on Twitter last week, where it was described as a “smooth lil fella”, compared to a melted tootsie roll candy, and likened to the chocolate frogs from Harry Potter. “I’m quite surprised at how fast the popularity of this frog is rising up,” Germán Chávez, a researcher […]

With humans sending probes to explore Mars and the sun, one might think we’ve already explored the full extent of our own planet. But scientists say we’ve only begun to find and describe the riches here on Earth. “I think most people believe that we know most species on Earth … but in the best-case […]

Researchers have found a snake species never before described by science — on Instagram! During the COVID-19 lockdowns in India, Virendar Bhardwaj, a master’s student at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, was home in Chamba, a six-hour drive away at the foot of the Himalayas. While exploring his own backyard, Bhardwaj began photographing the snakes, […]