Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm curious, with all of the incredible experiences and information accumulated by the serious herpers who have been seeking alterna for so many years, is there anyone doing any serious research studies on the species? I did a search and came up with only 2 recent works, both, I assume, from the same student research team at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, that were concerned with DNA studies and phylogenetics. These were 2002 presented papers. Given that I am not reading the current herp literature I could easily be missing what's out there. Anyone know of past or current work? Thanks. --Henry W.

That's all there is at this point, Henry. Most people in academics have avoided L. alterna field studies because there are just too many problems with designing an effective project due to the behavior of the species. Since traditional systematics has already been beaten into the ground, all that remains is chasing molecules around...and that leads to nowhere with this species. You might want to contact Dr. Larry Nordyke at the U of St. Thomas for information on what his students have done recently. His email is: nordyke@stthom.edu.

Cheers,
Bob

I'll check in with them. Thanks for the email address, Bob. Its true that its a tough species to work with but that only makes them more interesting! I've long thought of following around alterna in the field using night vision goggles to get a better sense of their behavior when active (I'd probably get arrested for being a terrorist!). It would be really nice to do radio transmitter work but I'm not sure that the small transmitters would be effective for animals heading deep into crevices (I'm not up to date on that, though -- maybe it could work). Even some rigorous night surveys using a cadre of volunteers to effectively comb certain habitats over time to assess levels of activity would be interesting. I'm sure you guys would have great ideas how to get at the natural history of the species. --Henry W.