Steve's Herpetological Blog

An insight into the life of Steve, his research and the many books he reads

Zoology

#StevesLibrary: A Sting in the Tale

Only I could accidentally read a series of books on the wonderful lives of insects in the wrong order. I’ve recently finished A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson, after reading one of his more recent books A Buzz…

#StevesLibrary:Witness to Extinction

Now, this is a book that I’ve been wanting to read for quite some time. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to secure a copy of my own due to copies being prohibitively expensive (I’m not sure why). Thankfully however, my…

#SteveReviews: Attenborough’s Life in Colour

In recent years, it seems that Sir David Attenborough has been working around the clock to narrate a number of spectacularly produced wildlife documentaries. These such as A Perfect Planet and Seven Worlds, One Planet in my mind omit the…

#SteveLibrary: The Butterfly Isles

One of my earliest memories of being immersed in nature (other than chasing lizards or frogs), is running round a field with a butterfly net trying to catch butterflies. It’s not nearly as easy as it looks, most of the…

#SciFri: Why we need to accept that extinction is forever

Recently, news broke that stunned the scientific community. Members of the Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia revealed that they had irrefutable proof of the existence of thylacines, an extinct marsupial wolf-like creature that was once native to most of Australasia….

#StevesLibrary: Shark

If I wasn’t spending my days studying amphibian and reptiles, I would have probably have chosen sharks instead. They too, like snakes and spiders, have an image problem – although once you understand them, they’re not all that scary. Sharks…

#StevesLibrary: Shell Life on the Seashore

I ended 2020 by finishing Shell Life on the Seashore by Philip Street. I admit that this isn’t the most traditional end to a year but despite everything that went on during those painful 12 months, it was the 25th…

#SteveReviews: Alien Worlds

Anyone who is a fan of Dougal Dixon’s After Man must have been as excited a child on Christmas morning when Netflix dropped the trailer for Alien Worlds. I know I was! To my mind, it is the first speculative…

#StevesLibrary: Blowfish’s Oceanopedia

If there is one thing I like about a book when I pick it up, it is that I can’t put it down unless I pass out or something comes up that necessitates the need for me to put the…

#SciFri: Do reptiles and amphibians hibernate?

We all know that mammals such as squirrels and hedgehogs hibernate for the winter and in the wider landscape of the Northern Hemisphere, other species such as bears are also another group of animals that often come to mind when…