~ Reptiles and Amphibians of Southern Africa ~

– Randy Babb –

Monday, November 30th | 7pm MST

Recorded Presentation Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoNKJD3Ovi0

Randy Babb started his wildlife career with the Forest Service on grazing impact studies in the southwest but soon transitioned to the Arizona Game and Fish Department. He retired in 2018 after working for 34 years as a biologist.  His chief interests are reptiles and amphibians, small mammals, invertebrates, and botany.  He has had the good fortune to work on projects in the American tropics, Southeast Asia, and Africa with friends and other biological professionals.

Randy’s program will discuss research which explored the high incidence of endemic species in Southern Africa. In the early 2000’s Dr. Aaron Bauer and Dr. Trip (A.C.) Lamb received an NSF grant for research in southern Africa.  The grant was to explore the reason behind the high incidence of endemic species found in Southern Africa.  Several of us assisted with the field work including the late Dr. Bill Branch, Paul Moler, Johan Marais, various students and myself. This endemism is displayed among many species found in the subcontienent such as small adders (Bitis sp.), tortoises, fossorial skinks (Acontias, Typlacontias, Typhlosaurs, ect.), and particularly in Pachydactylus geckos.  This later group was the focus of the project though other herptile species were sampled as well.  The project focused its work in South Africa and Namibia and entailed several trips to these countries. Many papers were produced from these sampling efforts beyond the endemism questions including discovery of new species, redisovery of lost species, new regional distribution records, and taxonomic reviews of the genus Pachydactylus, Gerrhosaurus and Cordylus.