All posts tagged with herpetology

Lack of access to published information about biodiversity is one of the major inhibitors to efficient scientific research today. It’s such a longstanding problem, in fact, that it has a name. The taxonomic impediment. For hundreds of years, scientists and naturalists have published information about Earth’s species in books and journals. Many of these works, however, are available in only a few select libraries, and information about species is often not available within the countries in which those species live. The taxonomic impediment is a very poignant reality for Paul Smith and his colleagues working in Paraguay.

“Life is short but snakes are long.” While some may recognize this as a quote from author David Quammen, it’s also the name of a place you can go to get some very cool information about snake natural history and herpetology research. For instance, did you know that at least 15 species of spitting cobras in the genus Naja are capable of spitting their venom through the air as a defensive measure, and that some of them can aim “at targets the size of a human face with >90% accuracy up to 8 feet away”?