Great wildlife photography

Some fantastic wildlife snaps from the winners of the GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year (the humingbird is my favourite)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2010/nov/17/gdt-wildlife-photography#/?picture=368699851&index=0

Tuatara tuesday – sex determination in a warming world

Seeing as reptile reproduction seems to be a bit of a hot topic right now, I thought it was time to talk about sex determination in tuatara.

Tuatara do things a little differently to other reptiles when it comes to sex determination – not because they have temperature-dependent sex determination (thats common to lots of reptiles), but because their pattern of temperature-dependent sex determination (or TSD) is different from most other reptiles.  For tuatara, incubating eggs at higher temperatures (over 22°C) produces males, while lower temperatures (under 21°C) produce females.  In other reptiles with TSD, you generally either get a pattern of females being produced at high temperatures and males at low temperatures, or females being produced at both high and low temperatures, and males produced at intermediate temperatures.

Tuatara hatchling

The weird ways of reptile reproduction

Two studies on reproduction in reptiles have made me go “wow, thats cool” this week.