Painted turtles - cute, and brightly coloured, but are they harbouring a dark secret? We first discuss identifying their gender, followed by talk of some unusual behaviour. Our Species of the Bi-Week is an Angolan lizard.

Main Paper References:

Moldowan, P. D., Brooks, R. J., & Litzgus, J. D. (2017). Assessing head morphology dimorphism in the Midland Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta marginata) using a photographic questionnaire. Chelonian Conservation and Biology, 16(1), 76-82.

Moldowan, P. D., Brooks, R. J., & Litzgus, J. (2020). Demographics of injuries indicate sexual coercion in a population of Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta). Canadian Journal of Zoology, (ja).

Species of the Bi-Week:

Branch, W. R., Conradie, W., & Vaz Pinto, P. (2020). Another Angolan Namib endemic species: a new Nucras Gray, 1838 (Squamata: Lacertidae) from south-western Angola. Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, 13(2), 82–95 (e199).

Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:

Hawkshaw, D. M., Moldowan, P. D., Litzgus, J. D., Brooks, R. J., & Rollinson, N. (2019). Discovery and description of a novel sexual weapon in the world’s most widely-studied freshwater turtle. Evolutionary Ecology, 33(6), 889-900.

Silva, I., Crane, M., Marshall, B. M., & Strine, C. T. (2020). Revisiting reptile home ranges: moving beyond traditional estimators with dynamic Brownian Bridge Movement Models. BioRxiv, 23. doi:10.1101/2020.02.10.941278

Other Links/Mentions:

Sexing dolphins by their fins: https://www.nature.com/news/2008/081013/full/news.2008.1166.html

Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

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