Exciting news: Our next paper on the effects of hurricanes on Anoles has just been published in PNAS! Here’s a link to the paper. This study has been on my mind since our first paper about the lizards on Turks and Caicos before and after Hurricane Irma back in 2017. You can see some terrific … More Hurricane effects on Anoles
In other exciting news this week, after a thorough re-survey of Redonda the conservation organizations have determined that Redonda is officially rat and goat free. This is terrific news because even a small pocket of rats that were missed in last year’s eradication could quickly explode into a huge population, negating all of the conservation … More Redonda is officially rat free!
Nature put together a terrific video explaining the findings of the Nature paper yesterday. I want to spread it far and wide: If you look closely, you’ll see that the video was produced by the extremely talented Jackie Turner who was actually one of the undergrads that came to Mpala with me almost 10 years … More A great video explaining the Nature Paper
This is a re-post of an entry I wrote on the Nature Ecology and Evolution blog. Serendipity in science is often celebrated as the lightning flash of insight from a chance event – Newton’s apple encounter or Fleming’s moldy petri dishes. Our recent paper, Hurricane-induced selection on the morphology of an island lizard, resulted from … More Behind the paper: Hurricane-induced selection on the morphology of an island lizard
Alright, yesterday’s pictures were a bit gross, I apologize. Today’s will be a little nicer. Here’s just a quick photo dump and some captions of a few more scenes around the island, plus lizards! Here’s the helicopter coming in for a landing. Notice all the beautiful grass! Here’s a male on a perch checking out … More Some prettier pictures from Redonda
Revisiting Redonda one year after the goats were helicoptered off and the vermin e-rat-icated was every bit as exciting and gratifying as I could have hoped last year. I’d guessed we might see some grasses fighting their way up through the dust and rocks, maybe a few extra lizards happy to not have to watch … More Revisiting Redonda
It’s been a hurried couple of weeks in Paris with lots of work on writing and slowly getting acquainted with working and living in a new country. Just as I was starting to find my way around the neighborhood though it’s time to head back into the field. This time last year I was on … More Next Stop, Redonda
Geoffrey Giller is a recurring character on the blog and while people are usually most impressed by his terrific science journalism, or maybe his stunning nature photography, I’m very proud to share that he’s on his way to becoming a champion lizard catcher! Geoffrey has helped out on trips to Redonda and to the Bahamas … More My lizards are on Atlas Obscura!
I haven’t posted all that many photos from our time in Turks and Caicos, in part because I was worried about my friends on the islands as Hurricanes Irma and then Maria rolled through. Luckily the team stayed safe through both storms. Unfortunately, the damage and time delay from the storms means that the eradication … More A video from Pine Cay, Turks and Caicos
I’m back from Turks and Caicos, and not a moment too soon. For those of you watching the weather they’re buckling down for a pretty hard hit from Hurricane Irma. I’ll update you all with more information about the trip – it was fantastic – but for now just wanted to post a few pictures … More I’m back from Turks and Caicos
Colin Donihue 