While conducting ground-level herpetofauna surveys at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in Ecuador’s Yasuní Biosphere Reserve, I was lured to the canopy by the cacophony of what had to be undiscovered species coming from the bromeliad, orchid and epiphyte microhabitats. Leer más.

Marga L. Rivas, Carlos Fernández and Adolfo Marco. Oryx. Long-term monitoring has also facilitated estimation of relevant demographic parameters of the population, such as nesting success (mean 69.8 ± SD 7.3%), clutch size (which is positively correlated with female size), hatching success (mean 55.2 ± SD 6.0%), remigration interval (2.5 years), and growth rate of remigrant females (mean 0.3 ± SD 1.0 cm per year), which is slightly faster than growth rates reported for Pacific leatherback turtles. Leer más.

Marga L. Rivas, Pilar Santidrián Tomillo, Javier Diéguez Uribeondo, Adolfo Marco. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, Volume 463, February 2015, Pages 143-149. Over the last decades, growing human populations have led to the rising occupation of coastal areas over the globe causing light pollution. For this reason, it is important to assess how this impact threatens endangered wildlife. Leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) face many threats of anthropogenic origin including light pollution on nesting beaches. However, little is known about the specific effects. In this study we studied the effect of different light wavelengths (orange, red, blue, green, yellow and white lights) on hatchling orientation under the presence and absence of moonlight by analyzing: (i) the mean angle of orientation, (ii) crawling duration, and (iii) track patterns. Leer más.