Discussions of the reptiles of Christmas Island(s) abound in episode 42. We kick off with a paper about juvenile snake sizes and follow up with some info about reptiles crossing oceans. The Species of the Bi-Week is a brand new reptile which takes it's name from a fluffy mammal.

FULL REFERENCE LIST AVAILABLE AT: herphighlights.podbean.com

Main Paper References:

Aubret, F. (2015). Island colonisation and the evolutionary rates of body size in insular neonate snakes. Heredity, 115(4), 349–356. https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.2014.65

Oliver, P. M., Blom, M. P. K., Cogger, H. G., Fisher, R. N., Richmond, J. Q., & Woinarski, J. C. Z. (2018). Insular biogeographic origins and high phylogenetic distinctiveness for a recently depleted lizard fauna from Christmas Island, Australia. Biology Letters, 14(6), 20170696. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0696

Species of the Bi-Week:

Wostl, E., Hamidy, A., Kurniawan, N., & Smith, E. N. (2017). A new species of Wolf Snake of the genus Lycodon H. Boie in Fitzinger (Squamata: Colubridae) from the Aceh Province of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. Zootaxa, 4276(4), 539. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4276.4.6

Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:

Andrew, P., Cogger, H., Driscoll, D., Flakus, S., Harlow, P., Maple, D., ... & Tiernan, B. (2018). Somewhat saved: a captive breeding programme for two endemic Christmas Island lizard species, now extinct in the wild. Oryx, 52(1), 171-174.

Aubret, F., & Shine, R. (2009). Genetic Assimilation and the Postcolonization Erosion of Phenotypic Plasticity in Island Tiger Snakes. Current Biology, 19(22), 1932–1936. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2009.09.061

Holt, B. G., Lessard, J.-P., Borregaard, M. K., Fritz, S. A., Araujo, M. B., Dimitrov, D., … Rahbek, C. (2013). An Update of Wallace’s Zoogeographic Regions of the World. Science, 339(6115), 74–78. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1228282

Herrel, A., Huyghe, K., Vanhooydonck, B., Backeljau, T., Breugelmans, K., Grbac, I., ... & Irschick, D. J. (2008). Rapid large-scale evolutionary divergence in morphology and performance associated with exploitation of a different dietary resource. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(12), 4792-4795.

Rocha, S., Carretero, M. A., Vences, M., Glaw, F., & James Harris, D. (2006). Deciphering patterns of transoceanic dispersal: the evolutionary origin and biogeography of coastal lizards (Cryptoblepharus) in the Western Indian Ocean region. Journal of Biogeography, 33(1), 13–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2005.01375.x

Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

Other Music – The Passion HiFi, www.thepassionhifi.com