The Philippine archipelago is an exceptionally biodiverse region that includes at least 112 species of land snakes from 41 genera and 12 families. Recently, Cyclocoridae (formerly Lamprophiidae: Cyclocorinae) was proposed as a distinct, Philippine-endemic family, containing four genera: Cyclocorus, Hologerrhum, Myersophis, and Oxyrhabdium. Here, we describe an additional cyclocorid genus and species, Levitonius mirus, new genus and species, from Samar and Leyte...

Although recent studies have made considerable progresses on the taxonomy of the genus Diploderma, there are still many questionable records of Diploderma species in China. Among these are suspicious sympatric distributions of congeners, locality records that fall well outside the recognized range of a given species, and records that are in zoogeographic regions distinct from those of the type localities. Combining both...

This Spring, the Siler Lab has been busy participating in local conferences. In February, Jessa Watters attended the Oklahoma Natural Resources Conference in Tulsa, OK, where she networked worked with state wildlife officials, and presented the following talk: Oklahoma Amphibian Infectious Disease Sampling: Preliminary Results and Future Recommendations.  In early April, undergraduates Liza Marhanka and Shelby McMillin presented posters at OU’s Undergraduate Research...

...

The Siler Lab participated in the annual Oklahoma Biological Survey‘s BioBlitz!  This year the event was held in Osage Hills State Park, near Bartlesville in northeast Oklahoma.  Our lab was joined by previous students from the spring Herpetology course taught by Cameron Siler as well as colleague John Phillips from the University of Tulsa. We had a great time, with 31 total...

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 fifth 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.  Begin the series here with Rachel Flanagan. My year in the herpetology lab was an incredible experience, full of learning and experiencing new things.  I had the...

This is the fourth 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.  Begin the series here with Rachel Flanagan. I joined the Siler Lab in the fall of 2014 as a senior at OU. Before I started volunteering at Sam...

This is the third 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.  Begin the series here with Rachel Flanagan. I started working in Dr. Cameron Siler’s herpetology lab as my honors thesis project my senior year.  While I had...

This is the second 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 first entry, by Rachel Flanagan, is available here and the third in the series, by Matt De Ruyter is available here. In January 2015, I began volunteering in...

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...