Isn’t that roughly proportional to the surface area of the planet that is classified as an island?

The turtles will die at sea from cold shock in this season and this part of the world, so do not return them to the water! If you find a live turtle, contact your nearest aquarium or animal rescue service. If you find a dead one, contact your nearest natural history museum.
🧪🐢

Read the full research paper published in 𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑏𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑍𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦, a Senckenberg journal hosted on the ARPHA Platform:

doi.org/10.3897/vz.7...

The description of P. efatra also involved some #museomics and comparative osteology, to resolve the identity of the highly similar P. tetra. @alicepetzold.bsky.social managed to get DNA sequence from the holotype and a paratype, so we could place them in a mitochondrial tree—far from P. efatra! 🐸🧪

I count 12 species so far described mainly from that trip:
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Platypelis efatra
Platypelis laetus
Rhombophryne longicrus
Rhombophryne diadema
Stumpffia sorata
Stumpffia miovaova
Boophis pikei
Gephyromantis grosjeani
Gephyromantis lomorina
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Brookesia nana
Calumma uetzi
Uroplatus fivehy
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Real credit for the discovery of Platypelis efatra goes to the field team led by Frank Glaw to the Sorata Massif in northern Madagascar, who collected the types. Their 2012 expedition was an incredibly fruitful one, yielding numerous reptile and amphibian species described over the last decade. 🐸🧪

Quietly, on the same day, my colleagues and I also described a #newspecies of microhylid frog from Madagascar, Platypelis efatra. No press coverage for this one, and regrettably behind a paywall at Zootaxa, but nonetheless a charming frog 🐸🧪 www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Possibly related to the massive cyberattack on the MNHN infrastructure some months back. Contacting the curator may get you the photos you need.

I guess it’s the main axis of weight distribution for the forelimbs? But there are some species of Arthroleptis that have obscenely long third fingers, and I have no idea why

@katie.hipopener.com they have more bones in that finger than the first two. Also it’s the first to form during development.

do they not consume single food items larger than their bodies, like gulper eels?