Thank you #WCH9 #WCH2020 for a week of excellent science! Great fun to meet herpetologist from all over the world, I learned a ton!

Thank you #Dunedin #NewZealand for the breathtaking landscapes, amazing animals and kind people!

Feeling super lucky to have seen the rarest species of #penguin of the world. The yellow-eyed penguins are at the brink of extinction 😔

This endemic sp to NZ has experienced significant decline in the last 20 years. #ReptilesWithFeathers #WCH9

The @Keogh_Lab, Moritz Lab, @MarcelCardillo Lab and @EcoEvo_ANU were well represented at the World Congress of Herpetology in New Zealand #WCH9!

What an impressive and inspirational keynote by @ana_bosslady to close #WCH9

Great science, fun and engaging speaker plus a model for #HERpers all around the world

While reptiles with feathers are not my favorite herps, little blue penguins melted my heart last night 😍

These little guys spend all day swimming and eating out at see and come back to the colony at night. It’s the smallest sp of penguin (~1kg, 33cm) 🐧

#WCH9 #WCH2020

Urban turtles 🐢 by Mark Mills - humans capturing, killing or moving turtles ...found one pond w/ highest number of turtles despite being small, it turns out it was behind the building of a conservation office

The cost of moving can be really high (see pict) #WCH9

Road avoidance by @jamesepaterson: Turtles are traveling longer distances to avoid roads but the extra cost is small compared to their investment on reproduction. Similar findings for snakes

Mortality is the biggest cost of roads for turtles & snakes #WCH9 #WCH2020

Surviving in the suburbs - @DKiernanSkelly talks about the Gibbs line and amphibian conservation.

Ponds in the suburbs: several gone with urbanization but a few are created; neat work on landscape dynamics and the effect on frogs #WCH9

#caecilian expert Mark Wilkinson @Atretochoana of @NHM_London talking about the much needed progress in #genome mapping of three species at #WCH9 #WCH2020

Dragons living in the city have diff microbiome than those from natural areas by Nicola Kent - they eat food higher in fats and similar to that of city mammals 🦎🍔🍟🍕 #WCH9 #WCH2020

Bold dragons in the city by @JamesBG_27 - Urbanization promotes an innate behavioral trait in a lizard #WCH9

Pygmy bluetongue lizards prefer to occupy burrows made by trapdoor spiders by @ClaytonJessa

A neat system where lizards eat spiders and the other way around + look at those cute faces she sees when peeking into burrows! #WCH9 #WCH2020

One of the talks I have been eagerly waiting for, @Tim_Cutajar talking about using awesome frog-biting midges for conservation assessment! 🐸🦟

These midges for iDNA surveys! #WCH9

What an engaging talk on bipedal locomotion and morphology in Australian agamid lizards! @NicholasWuNZ charmed the audience with great videos and data - bipedal movement is basically lizards doing wheelies! #WCH9

Spike thumb frogs call at streams from under rocks and fight for calling sites using spikes on their hands - cool work by @BioloComunista! #WCH9

Integrating captive-breeding and research for conservation of Panamanian #frogs at risk of extinction in the wild - @BrianGratwicke talks about the successes & challenges of trying to save Panamanian golden frogs.

Lots learned so far! @stri_panama #WCH9 #WCH2020

Promising findings for a wildlife vaccine against the chytrid fungus by Taegan McMahon - vaccines w/only the metabolites from Bd reduce infection load 🤯 #WCH9 #WCH2020

Fowler’s toads at Lake Erie, are they declining it are they coming back with the next increase in water levels at the lake? David Green questions how long-term is long term enough #WCH9

Diversification via paedomorphosis in #salamanders - Ronald Bonett talks about how some species lose the terrestrial stage and increase number of vertebrate getting eel-like shapes #WCH9 #WCH2020

Support for the compensatory enemy release hypothesis for the global spread of cane toads by Crystal Kelehear - native toads have more parasites, lower testis and larger spleens than invasive counterparts #WCH9

What is slowing down the south invasion front of cane toads in Australia? @aus_herp about the increased capacity to acclimation to cold temps, exploiting commercial apiaries in a tough environment and transportation stress

Neat research on awesome cane toads! #WCH9 #WCH2020

Lace monitors are recovering after the cane toads arrival while yellow-spotted monitors are not doing so well - Lachlan Pettit talking about how these lizards differ in their response to the toxic toads #WCH9

We can identify non-native spp that are getting established much faster when we work with the community - @PaulyGreg

Fun story by Greg: at LA, people hear non-native coqui frog calls, think are alarms and get annoyed at neighbors w/ these frogs creating social conflicts #WCH9

So sad...Frogs at La Planada Colombia 🇨🇴 declined in the last 33 years despite a forest that has recovered and looks perfect for them: few spp remain at low abundance - Patricia Burrowes #WCH9

Effects of wind turbines on frogs - Cory Trowbridge suggests lower spp diversity and evenness by wind turbines. Frogs with lower freq calls, like bullfrogs, are absent from wetlands by turbine areas

Need for more studies looking at how frogs respond to turbine farms #WCH9

Fantastic plenary by Alison Cree about the long and slow lives of tuatara, skins and geckos: the live for a long time, take a long time to breed and breed slowly 🦎

Plus how great to see a call for consideration of who and why we work as herpetologists! #WCH9

I would so love to see the Aurora Australis!! it does not look good but I've been checking the geomagnetic activity every day since arriving to Dunedin and it went from 0->1! I am begging the Aurora gods to smile upon me! other herpers at #WCH9 that want to join me on this plead?

I never thought being a scientist would allow me to travel the world!

Herps + New Zealand 😍 #WCH9

What an impressive #conservation project for two of NZ’s largest and most threatened skinks - predator control helping recovery of these critically endangered species