o those of us that work in the field of herpetology or have a passion for herps, the ever looming high risk of extinction to our favourite groups of animals is a true horror story. Diseases such as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis which has already had a large impact on amphibian populations globally and Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans which has recently started to do the same, although currently limited to Belgium and the Netherlands, threaten amphibian species around the globe. With this in mind, there is considerable evidence that a mass extinction of amphibians is currently underway and with growing threats reptiles may also be slipping into a mass extinction. A new paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looks at the current extinction rates in both amphibians and reptiles. Leer más.

Como os comentamos en otra ocasión, durante este año hemos estado tomado muestras en poblaciones de sapo partero bético (Alytes dickhilleni) del Parque Natural de las Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y las Villas para comprobar la situación de la quitridiomicosis en la zona. Este espacio protegido es el segundo en extensión de toda Europa, y concentra el 90% de la población mundial de esta especie de anfibio endémica del sureste peninsular. Por lo tanto, cualquier problema de conservación en este maravilloso espacio natural tendría graves repercusiones para la supervivencia de la especie. Leer más.

For this week’s column, I have read an ingenious paper that uses clay models to investigate the mating behaviour of a Neotropical toad species. This isn’t the first time clay models have been used, over the past few years there have been several examples where they have been used to investigate the behaviour and interactions of a target species. Leer más.

Pseudocerastes urarachnoidesis a fascinating viper and as yet has been reported only in western Iran. An elaborated arachnid-like caudal structure is a unique feature of this viper, hence gives it the common name «Iranian spider-tailed viper». Leer más.

Conserving the planet’s biodiversity is greatly handicapped, in that only a small fraction of it (∼14–75%) has been described so far. Integrative taxonomy is making significant inroads in light of this challenge by incorporating multiple data sets across a wide range of disciplines that simultaneously elucidate phylogenetic structure and delimit species-level lineages within a unified species concept. Leer más.