250 Invasion of the Swimming Snakes

The big 250! We celebrate with a listener-favourite quiz, with a twist (thanks to Tom's wife Maya for being such a good sport). Then we delve into a paper about snakes swimming across the ocean to make lizards extinct, before discussing four brand new forest-dwelling chameleon species coming out of Mozambique.

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Main Paper References:

Casbas G, Vez‐Garzón M, Sanglas A, Colomar V, Cardona E, Montes E, Pleguezuelos J, Lapiedra O. 2026. Swimming snakes wipe out endemic lizards from Mediterranean islets. Ecology 107:e70373. DOI: 10.1002/ecy.70373.

Species of the Bi-Week:

Tolley K, Conradie W. 2026. Sky Islands of Mozambique harbour cryptic species of chameleons: Description of four new species of sylvan chameleons (Squamata: Chamaeleonidae: Nadzikambia Tilbury, Tolley & Branch, 2006). Vertebrate Zoology 76:207–246. DOI: 10.3897/vz.76.e178403.

Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:

Silva-Rocha I, Salvi D, Sillero N, Mateo JA, Carretero MA. 2015. Snakes on the Balearic Islands: An Invasion Tale with Implications for Native Biodiversity Conservation. PLOS ONE 10:e0121026. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0121026.

Editing and Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

Species Bi-week theme – Michael Timothy

Other Music – The Passion HiFi, https://www.thepassionhifi.com