I am overjoyed to announce that my European Research Commission (ERC) Starting Grant (StG) on the genomics of miniaturisation in vertebrates has been funded! This means 1.5 million euros for my lab over the next five years, to explore how the evolution of reduced body size is driven, shaped, and […]
In the 15th of August issue of the journal Salamandra, my colleagues and I published a new species of leaf-tailed gecko from northern Madagascar, Uroplatus garamaso! You can get the PDF of the description here. In 2009, I was on a voluntourism trip to northern Madagascar. I was there to study […]
How does an ecological gradient, like the slope of a mountain, affect the evolution of organisms that interact with it? Does it promote ecological speciation? And does it act the same way in different organisms? These questions are largely still unanswered. Today, my colleagues and I have published a study […]
When you walk along streams in Madagascar, you frequently hear sounds like doors creaking and stomachs gurgling. These are the calls of little muddy-brown frogs in the Mantidactylus frog subgenus Brygoomantis. Today, my colleagues and I have published our magnum opus on these charming but secretive little frogs, describing 20 new […]
Open access (OA) is increasingly demanded by funders, and of course is desired by researchers and readers alike. Yet some journals charge incredibly high fees for you to publish your research open access. This has led to a lot of researchers being resigned to either publish behind a paywall, or […]
Today, my colleagues and I have published a monograph on part of the gecko genus Lygodactylus, describing eight new species from Madagascar in the journal Zootaxa. Lygodactylus are diurnal geckos, but most species are not as flashy as their cousins, the Phelsuma day geckos. They come mostly in mottled greys […]
I am thrilled to announce that I will taking up the post of Curator of Herpetology at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, and Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of Copenhagen on the 1st of September, 2021! Having just started a PostDoc at the University of […]
The herpetofauna of the EU is relatively well studied, and it is rare that species new to science are discovered. Today, my colleagues and I have described a new species of blindsnake from the island of Mayotte—an island that lies in the western Indian Ocean between Madagascar and Mozambique, but […]
We have just published the discovery of a new species of chameleon, Brookesia nana, which is a new contender for the smallest reptile—and therefore the smallest amniote vertebrate—in the world! Our new paper is published in the Open Access journal Scientific Reports. Nine years ago, my colleagues reported on a few […]
Today, my colleagues David Prötzel, Martin Heß, Frank Glaw, Martina Schwager, and I, have published our discovery of neon-green fluorescence in the web-footed gecko, Pachydactylus rangei from Namibia in the open access journal Scientific Reports (PDF direct download here). Just after we discovered that so many chameleons fluoresce (three years […]
2020 is over at last. What a year. If you will indulge me, I will do as I always do, and look back on my year from an academic perspective. What a year it was. I more or less started off my 2020 on a plane to New Zealand, heading […]
We’re officially in the 2020s! It’s the time of year when I look back on the academic events of my last year! My 2019 started with fondue and raclette, surrounded by friends. But on the 2nd of January I was back at it already, working hard on what would take […]
As a result of their highly permeable skin, frogs are not exactly great at crossing oceans. A few species are able to reproduce in brackish water, but for the most part, salt water is a pretty strong barrier to frogs. Yet, curiously, there are a few islands across the world […]
Hot off the press today in PLoS ONE, my colleagues and I have published a paper describing five new species of frogs, including a new genus, Mini, containing three species that we have dubbed with punning names: Mini mum, Mini scule, and Mini ature. The largest of these is 14 mm long, the […]
The culmination of three and a half years is finally here. Tomorrow as I write this, the 21st of March, 2019, I will submit my PhD thesis, entitled ‘On the value of systematics for the study of evolution: insights from the reptiles and amphibians of Madagascar’*. It has been a […]
