A rare fossil from eastern North America of a dog-sized horned dinosaur has been identified by a scientist. The fossil provides evidence of an east-west divide in North American dinosaur evolution. Leer más.

Of the more than 1500 species of geckos found across six continents, few remain as unfamiliar as the pygopodids – Family Pygopodidae (Gray, 1845). These gekkotans are limited to Australia (44 species) and New Guinea (2 species), but have diverged extensively into the most ecologically diverse limbless radiation save Serpentes. Current phylogenetic understanding of the family has relied almost exclusively on two works, which have produced and synthesized an immense amount of morphological, geographical, and molecular data. Leer más.

The Persian dwarf snake Eirenis (Pseudocyclophis) persicus (Anderson, 1872) has a wide distribution range in south-western Asia. This species group was comprehensively studied here using traditional biometry, geometric morphometrics, ecological niche modelling, and genetics. Our analyses revealed that E. persicus is split into two clades. Leer más.

The second in our series of posts highlighting frontline conservation work brings us to Côte d’Ivoire. Project Mecistops team leader, Dr Matthew Shirley of the Rare Species Conservatory Foundation, goes in search of Critically Endangered West African slender-snouted crocodiles (Mecistops cataphractus) on the Bandama River in Azagny National Park. Leer más.