Science in Action and Object ID Day is an annual event sponsored by the Sam Noble Museum.  One Sunday a year, the museum is FREE to the public and all museum departments/collections, plus a wide variety of other OU or Oklahoma-based science entities have booths to educate people on their research or other items of importance. This year the Herpetology Department featured...

This is the first in a series featuring the recent OU graduates who are members of the Siler Lab.  In their own words, they will highlight the experiences they had with us as students, volunteers and/or employees. The second featurette is available here. I started volunteering in the herpetology department at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History during my junior year at...

Field work by the Siler Lab and sponsored by the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation continued in April 2015, with visits to the following sites (see photos here).  A summary of the animals collected at each site are visible below (Table 1). April 10-12: McGee Creek WMA, Stringtown WMA, Hugo WMA (Jessa Watters, Elyse Freitas, Rachel Flanagan, Dylan Lindauer, Matt DeRuyter) April 17-19: Cookson Hills WMA and vicinity of...

We have been extremely busy in SE Oklahoma this Spring!  So busy that we have fallen behind on updating our field blogs 🙂 Below are some highlights from the most recent trips.  We hope to get more info out to you all soon. April 10-12: McGee Creek WMA, Stringtown WMA (Jessa Watters, Elyse Freitas, Rachel Flanagan, Dylan Lindauer, Matt DeRuyter) April 24-26: Robbers Cave WMA,...

Siler Lab members (Jessa Watters, Nick Huron and Rachel Flanagan) were joined in the field in April 2015 by local  journalist Dan Bewley, creator of the blog Science is OK, through which he shares insights into scientific research occurring around Oklahoma.  While it was a little odd to be doing field work with a microphone stuck down the front of our waders...

The Siler Lab has completed two trips to Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) in SE Oklahoma in March, 2015; one with only 4 members of the Siler Lab and the second with members of Dr. Siler’s OU Herpetology course.  Check out the summary statistics below (Table 1) and the amazing compilation video created by a student in the Herpetology course.  The Siler Lab continues...

This past weekend, several members from the Herpetology Department went to SE Oklahoma. This was the first time a few of us had ever gone “herping.” On our first night out, we heard many Spring Peepers, Leopard frogs (Lithobates sphenocephalus), and Crawfish Frogs (Lithobates areolatus). Throughout the weekend, we caught numerous Bullfrog tadpoles (Lithobates catesbeianus), a Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer), a Brown Snake...

Last Friday, February 13, the Oklahoma weather was nice enough to allow us to take a scouting trip up to the Oklahoma City Zoo to check out the area we will be sampling as a part of our Conservation Action Now (CAN) grant. We met some of the herpetology staff and were brought behind-the-scenes to a wetland on the outskirts of zoo property where we...

In association with the recent Siler Lab grants from the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation and the Oklahoma City Zoo, an undergraduate researcher (Rachel Flanagan) has begun sampling for chytrid in historical museum specimens, dating as far back as the 1920’s. Museum specimens are being swabbed from all 23 Oklahoma counties that will be sampled during the next 3 years of funding.  Currently, Rachel...

It has been an exciting week in the Siler Lab, especially with today’s announcement that we have received a Conservation Action Now (CAN) grant from the Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Gardens.  This project involves working actively with the Oklahoma City Zoo to sample in central Oklahoma, including adjacent to zoo property.  A wonderful opportunity to develop new biodiversity conservation initiatives with such...

The Siler Lab is excited to announce a recent grant funded through the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC) entitled “Tracking the emergence of infectious disease among amphibian species of greatest conservation need—Amphibian surveys of Wildlife Management Areas in Oklahoma to determine current distribution, status, and health of native communities.” This research will become the very first comprehensive, statewide assessment of the...