Members of the Davis Herpetology Lab attended a release event for head-started Rio Grande Cooters (Pseudemys gorzugi). Three juvenile individuals, hatched and raised at the ABQ BioPark were released back into the Black River. I was able to attend the event alongside current M.S. student, Spencer Duffendack, and a past DHL undergraduate student, Joshua Gonzalez, who is currently the Director of Development/Promotion at KENW. Following the release, we held a networking lunch, where partner agencies from across the region were able to get together to discuss the species, shared interests, and conservation priorities. Further, Spencer was able to present some of his preliminary research on the effects of salinity on the blood chemistry of the Rio Grande Cooter.
It’s was a fun event and nice to see so many interested individuals and agencies supporting the conservation and recovery of this imperiled species!
The DHL recently returned from another sampling trip out to C. E. Miller Ranch, which marked the 20th year of my visiting this site located near Valentine in west Texas. Though the efforts began as herpetological surveys, our time has shifted to sampling a large population of Yellow Mud Turtles (Kinosternon flavescens) that occupy both ephemeral- and permanent- water sites on the ranch. I were joined (as usual) by long-time collaborator Travis LaDuc (who first began these surveys in 2006), Braden DeWeerd (M.S. student), and Madden Haag (post-bac summer technician). T
Members of the Davis Herpetology Lab recently attending the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (JMIH) in New Orleans, Louisiana. Summer technicians Caden Myers and Madden Haag presented posters and undergraduate Ben Genter presented an oral presentation. 
DHL graduate student Braden DeWeerd was just awarded funding through the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Award, through the American Museum of Natural History! These funds will allow Braden to screen his anuran samples from his summer fieldwork for the presence of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), a fungal pathogen that has received little attention across the region. Not only is there a pathogen surveillance component of his research, but he will also use these results to examine how land use and habitat characteristics influence infection and pathogen load. 
DHL graduate student Braden DeWeerd was recently awarded funding through the Howard McCarley Student Research Award through the Southwestern Association of Naturalists! 
DHL graduate students Sebastian Summo Elias, Braden DeWeerd, and Spencer Duffendack presented research posters at ENMU’s Student Research and Creativity Conference. Spencer (top) presented his thesis research on Western Ribbonsnakes (Thamnophis proximus), Braden (middle) presented on his proposed thesis research on SGCN Pecos River frogs, and Spencer (bottom) presented on his proposed thesis research on Rio Grande Cooter (Pseudemys gorzugi) physiology. Additionally, Spencer (pictured here) took home the 1st place prize for the graduate student poster proposal category! Sebastian will soon defend his thesis and both Braden and Spencer will start their first summer field season of data collection.
DHL M.S. student Kevin Green recently presented at the Texas Academy of Science Annual Meeting held on the UT Tyler Campus in Tyler, Texas. Kevin presented a research poster titled, “Understanding the diet and distribution of newly documented Hemidactylus aff. malcolmsmithi from south Texas, USA.” This was research he began as an ENMU undergraduate, which focused on examining the distribution and diet of a recently established non-native gecko in Texas. Through this work, Kevin was able to document this species in five new counties in south Texas and recorded 13 orders of arthropods in the diet of over 150 individuals. He previously was awarded funding as an undergraduate from the Texas Academy of Science to conduct this research and he was able to return to present his results at the conference. We also were able to visit with DHL collaborator and Curator of Herpetology at The University of Texas at Austin Biodiversity Collections, Travis LaDuc (pictured with Kevin), which is always a fun time!
Two new student-led notes were recently published in Herpetological Review 56(2). Both were natural history notes, documenting new diet items for two species. Undergraduate technician Caden Myers published an observation of an Ornate Box Turtle (Terrapene ornata) scavenging a road-killed North American Racer (Coluber constrictor) in Colorado. This observation follows a separate, recently published observation of a T. ornata consuming a road-killed Gophersnake (Pituophis catenifer) in eastern New Mexico. These observations suggest that T. ornata may scavenge road-killed snakes at a higher frequency than previously reported. 
An article was just published by the ENMU Office of Advancement and Public Relations featuring DHL M.S. student Sebastian Summo Elias. It provides a brief biography, introduces his thesis research at ENMU on Western Ribbonsnakes, and mentions some of his recent accomplishments. 
Drew R. Davis, Ph.D. 