Biodiversity Blog
A Northern Cardinal in North Austin
Male cardinal. (Photo: Gary Leavens - Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license) I awoke on a Sunday morning last week, started the coffee, then opened the curtains to my backyard. My usual habit, but on this Sunday, I had the surprise of seeing a female Northern Cardinal duck into the tight weave of a climbing rose about seve...
Meet Stengl-Wyer Scholar: Ummat Somjee
Ummat Somjee is one of our 2021 Stengl-Wyer Scholars and is researching the evolution of exaggerated sexually-selected traits in animals. His research aims to understand how the energetic costs underlying these exaggerated traits may shape their evolution. As part of the Stengl Wyer Endowment, the Stengl Wyer Postdoctoral Scholars Program prov...
Pets as Invasive Species: Amphibians and Reptiles
Burmese python. (Photo: Susan Jewell, US Fish and Wildlife Service, CC) In the pet trade, amphibians and reptiles are considered “exotic.” They and other species like certain fish and birds for example also share the same label. There is such a demand for exotics that the industry around them is a multi-billion dollar global business. That’s a l...
Trees of BFL: the Redbud
Photo collage: Larry Gilbert Nothing quite signals the coming of spring in Austin like when a redbud tree starts to bloom. After our brief but botanically-drab Austin winters, the bright pink flowers are a welcome and invigorating sight. At Brackenridge Field Lab, redbuds grow there natively in places where limestone quarries existed in t...
