Website Under Construction
Please be aware that due to hosting problems, I have had to re-build this website from the top. It will be a few days before everything is working again. Thanks for your understanding, Mark D. Scherz
Blog
Burrowers playing leapfrog? An extraordinary new diamond frog from Madagascar
With over 4% of the planet’s named frog species, Madagascar is one of the hottest amphibian hotspots in the world. That number is rising rapidly; earlier this year Madagascar surpassed its 300th described frog. With estimated species numbers above 500, this climb is not expected to end in the near […]
Swimming through substrate costs an arm and/or a leg
Last week, a paper was published in the Open Access journal PLoS ONE, entitled ‘Distinct Patterns of Desynchronized Limb Regression in Malagasy Scincine Lizards (Squamata, Scincidae)‘, by Aurélien Miralles and colleagues. This paper dealt with a fascinating case of convergent evolution, and I thought I would share my thoughts on […]
Biodiversity Day 2015: Madagascar in Focus
For Biodiversity Day 2015, I wanted to shine a spotlight on Madagascar. I don’t have time for a long post, so here are some short points about the biodiversity of Madagascar: First of all, Madagascar is the world’s fourth largest island, and stretches 1000 km from northern to southern tip. […]
Data Deficiency and the Plight of the Unknown
This week saw the publication of a paper by Javier Nori and Rafael Loyola in the Open Access journal PLoS One, entitled “On the Worrying Fate of Data Deficient Amphibians” (read the article here). The goal of the paper was to discuss the precarious position of amphibians assessed as Data […]
Digging to Diamonds: common names in taxonomy and outreach
In November of last year (2014), I spent a week in a rainforest in eastern Madagascar with the leading experts on Madagascar’s amphibians, chytrid, captive breeding, and conservation; ACSAM2 it was called, the second meeting to form an updated conservation scheme for the amphibians of Madagascar. As part of this […]
The Newest of the New
Madagascar has a very high rate of new species descriptions. In the last ten years, more than sixty new species of frogs have been described, and many more are still set to come; an estimated three fifths of Madagascar’s frog species have been described so far (Perl et al. 2014), […]
Frogs in the fronds
In South America, bromeliads are famous for playing host to the tadpoles and adults of beautiful, brightly coloured dart frogs. The frogs, in many cases, are totally specialised to particular bromeliad species, and carefully select their choice of nest. The relationship is a close one, and exists across several species […]
Welcome to the new website!
The new and improved www.markscherz.com! After almost a year of sitting idle, I have finally managed to completely overhaul this website. The new site has been re-purposed! This is no longer going to be a dedicated photography blog. Instead, it is the joint home of my research and my photography. […]
Clicks: Village Life
This is a heavily cropped and somewhat edited shot from Madagascar in 2012. I shot almost continuously out of the window of our car as we drove from Andasibe back into Antananarivo to catch the flight home. Some of the resulting shots were salvageable. I particularly like all the things […]
Clicks: Phelsuma mutabilis
This website has been dead for too long. I hope to revive it in the near future, coupled with a change of domain and a shift in focus. That is to say, there is a great deal of change coming up. In the meantime, I plan to upload a few […]
The Philip L. Wright Zoological Museum 3
This is a post in a series. To see the previous posts, click the following links: The Great American Outdoors Emily (external link) Montanoramas – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – So I went to Montana to visit […]
Montanoramas
Montana really deserves its title as “The Big Sky State”. It is truly the promised land for the panoramic photographer. As I didn’t bring my tripod with me on my trip, I shot only two panoramas on my D800 (the first two below). The rest were shot with the native […]
The Great American Outdoors
It has been some time since last I posted any content on this website. I warned that this would happen, but it does not make me fell any less bad about it. This is by the by, however. What matters is that I am, for at least a brief while, […]
Andasibe-Mantadia National Park
I have finally gotten around to it! I bring you now my final installment from Madagascar 2012; Rainforest. After my work for Operation Wallacea had come to a close, and I had recovered from some mystery illness that befell me the day all the volunteers left, Brandon Semel (my lemur-loving […]
