Illustrations from the Varanus and Spadefoot papers. Click image for full size

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Forty Two!  It's good to be back after a bit of a vacation, I was off in Mexico for a few weeks, chasing some herps in various locations.  But as always, I am not idle while on the road, and I captured some recordings for future episodes because that's how this show rolls.

SMP Patrons!  I want to thank our latest Patreon member, Moses Michelsohn!  Thank you so much for supporting the show, Moses!  And thanks as always to all of the folks who help keep the show going. To others in the listening audience, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to [email protected]).

This episode comes out of the mind of Dr. Alex Krohn and some fortunate happenstance.  I've been looking for a way to talk about herp science in general, without boring everyone to tears, and Alex suggested that we have an informal chat (that's just my game) about some of the recently published herp papers that we think are cool, and that our listening audience would think are cool as well.  So this episode is our Herp Science Sunday kickoff, and we plan to do this once a month or so. I hope you all enjoy it as much as Alex and I did!  This episode features two papers, and here they are:

"Ecosystem engineering by deep-nesting monitor lizards" published in Ecology and full PDF available here.

"Confirmation Bias Perpetuates Century-Old Ecological Misconception: Evidence Against ‘Secretive’ Behavior of Eastern Spadefoots" published in the Journal of Herpetology

Now as I mentioned after the show, it's not always easy to get access to recent scientific papers, so if you would like a copy of one or both of the papers we discussed, send me a note to [email protected] and I will get them to you.

Extra Credit:  To go along with the Varanus spiral burrow paper, here's a link to the Wikipedia page on Palaeocastor, a genus of extinct beavers who, like the monitors, excavated spiral burrows in early Miocene Nebraska - really cool with some interesting photos.  Check it out!

One More Thing:  If you like Herp Science Sunday, please let us know!  Thanks for listening everyone!  And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is [email protected], and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, corkscrew techniques for the left-handed, tips for herping better, etc.

Cheers!  Mike