iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It’s Spoopy Season, so here are some scaaaary things I found in the uninventoried part of the herpetology collection here at @nhmdk.bsky.social today! 🧪👻💀

A jar with a badly splintered lid. It should be full of ethanol. Instead, it is totally empty of ethanol. The material inside cannot be rescued. It will be thrown away.

A specimen with a tag attached on a long string. The string got caught in the lid when it was closed, and all the ethanol evaporated out along the string. The specimen may be partly salvageable. The skeleton is intact. But this is a cautionary tale; cut your tag strings!!

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

A friend for you from the walk to my office this morning

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Four-year-old asked me to guess what animal he was drawing on the whiteboard. The answer? A sea squirt.

An anatomically simplified illustration of a sea squirt. The oral siphon, above, represented by a kind of star on a stick; to the right, the atrial siphon is illustrated with the same kind of star on a stick.
Orange marker on whiteboard.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The office today, reading through some proofs. 🧪🦎

A sunny day at the botanical garden, legs up on a chair, holding a printed document with pictures of Geckolepis fish-scale geckos on it. A red pen in hand.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Here are two of the four new species of moss-camouflaged frogs we just described in the journal Salamandra: Spinomantis fohitstilo and S. chlorostictus! The article is OA, available here: www.salamandra-journal.com/salamandra/6... 🧪🐸

Spinomantis fohistilo, a mossy-looking frog with big finger and toe pads, green and brown patterning above, and rather white flanks. The legs have a series of little white spines, which are the source of the name, which means white spines in Malagasy.

A brown frog with a two-toned eye, and little green splotches over its back. Those green splotches are the source of the name, which is of Greek derivation. This one is quite smooth without fringes or spines, but still has well expanded finger and toe tips.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

I feel you totally. We had our son while I was in the throes of putting in early career grants. Got a lot of work done with a sleeping baby on my lap. Honestly, it was quality time for both of us. But I felt guilt too.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Reminder that what your child is interested in at the age of six could well foreshadow their entire career path. It did mine, at least. 🧪🦎

The childhood drawings of yours truly at the age of six featuring a badly drawn tree with fairly well drawn snake crawling up it, and two, one big and one small, looking at it. Above, childish handwriting reads 'Granddad and I go on safari int he back yard.'

The childish drawings of yours truly at the age of six. It features a relatively abstract tree with a person with an obnoxiously long nose drawn to the side of it, with what must be a lizard in hand, for above the caption reads 'We like catching lizzards.'

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Now meet the six other #NewSpecies we described alongside R. quentini!! 🧪🐸

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Say hello to Quentin’s Diamond Frog, Rhombophryne quentini. 🧪🐸 #NewSpecies

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

This little pebble is Rhombophryne kilonjy, a small, poorly known and obscure species related to R. ellae and R. quentini but found in lowland forest close to the coast in northwestern Madagascar. The name kilonjy means ‘pebble’ in Malagasy because, well, just look at it. 🧪🐸 📸 F. Andreone

A pebble of a frog. It is round. It is pale beige. It has a smoky grey chevron on the back and a distinct curved fold of skin over the ear. It rests on a pile of leaves. There is almost a feeling that, hefted in the right way, it would skip well across a calm little lake. Please do not skip the frog.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Rhombophryne quentini is an orange-thighed species from high-elevation in northern Madagascar. In 2020 I named the closely related R. ellae after my partner, Ella—so I took particularly great pleasure in naming this new species after our son, Quentin. A little family of frogs. 🧪🐸 📸 M. Vences

A rather chubby brown frog on a moss-covered log. It's not much to look at. But just wait.

Hidden on those thighs of that bland brown frog were spots of bright orange, perhaps even red, and large black spots on the hips outlined with cream. It gives a very different picture of the animal! Here seen from behind, the left leg stretched slightly down to reveal the full redness of the posterior thigh.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Rhombophryne kotrobaratra is a species from northeastern Madagascar with unusually long and strong hindlimbs. The name kotrobaratra means ‘thunder and lightning’ in Malagasy, and refers to the inclement weather that seems to bring these frogs out (true for all Rhombophryne, really). 🧪🐸 📸 F. Andreone

To the untrained eye, this might be called a 'toad'; its resemblance to a bufonid is striking, with rough skin with distinct warts and bumps. But this is not a bufonid. It lacks the parotid glands. It has strong hindlimbs. The back is brown splotched with dark umber, especially in a chevron over the shoulders. The eye is almost maroon as the frog looks to frame left. It rests on a large dead leaf on the forest floor.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Rhombophryne anatiala is a very poorly known species very closely related to R. sonaliae but found further north and differing subtly. The name anatiala means ‘in the forest’ in Malagasy, referring to the forest habitat of these frogs. 🧪🐸 📸 F. Andreone

Picture a slightly overdone American-style pancake. Add frog limbs along the edges. There you go.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Rhombophryne sonaliae is a rather well known species from eastern Madagascar that's previously been called R. alluaudi—until we showed in 2019 that the name belonged in fact to a species of Plethodontohyla from southern Madagascar! We dedicated this species to our esteemed colleague Sonali Garg. 🧪🐸

A very, very shiny frog, reflecting the diffuser used to take the picture. Its skin glistens, but below the shine is a fine grey-brown. In the hip and on the thigh are large, yellow spots reminiscent of the egg spots of cichlid fish. These are totally hidden when the frog is at rest; here it is just starting a step forward.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Rhombophryne mavokely is a wee species from the northeast. Mavokely is Malagasy for ‘pink’ but literally translates as ‘small yellow’ (mavo = yellow, kely = small). I LOVE this. As they're small, sometimes pink and sometimes yellowish, the name seemed apt. This one is for @gretchenmcculloch.com 🧪🐸

A pinkish, almost peach rotund frog on a green leaf. Its back has a few black spots with light centres. Above the ear is a dark blotch, behind the richly bronze eyes.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

But I want to introduce BlueSky to the seven new species in turn. Let's start with Rhombophryne maraorao. This is a burrowing species from the northeast of Madagascar. The name maraorao means ‘rough to the touch’ in Malagasy, referring to the rough skin of this species. 🧪🐸 📸 F. Andreone

Basically an animated pinecone on a log. This frog looks like a clump of mud, not a frog.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I am thrilled to introduce seven new species of diamond frogs from Madagascar! A new monograph on the genus Rhombophryne published #OpenAccess in Vertebrate Zoology. 🧪🐸 doi.org/10.3897/vz.7...

A new species, Rhombophryne sonaliae, looking right at you. It looks a lot like Kaloula pulchra, aka chubby frogs, with its light flank stripes and dark brown top and sides, but is super shiny.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Glorious to be able to watch @criticalrole.bsky.social with Edinburgh Castle as a backdrop!

Full stands in front of a brightly lit stage, itself in front of Edinburgh castle with sconces lit, in the evening light.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

‘Playground’ time with an animal kid

A child prone on the sand, his hands full of beetles, the swings and other accoutrements of the playground forlorn and forgotten in the background.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Yesterday I presented what I think was the first conference poster of my career 😅 at #SMBE2026, talking about my ERC StG project on the genomics of miniaturisation in vertebrates—GEMINI. Really happy for the discussions it sparked. Thanks everyone who stopped by! 🧪

A selfie of Mark standing beside his poster, which features a penguin trying to explain what miniaturisation is and why it matters.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

A hilarious effect of the way @inaturalist.bsky.social obscures data on threatened species is that observations that are all from more or less the same place form square clouds of obscured points. Here, the observations of the giant chameleon Calumma parsonii around Andasibe in eastern Madagascar 🧪🦎

A map of rainforest in Eastern Madagascar, with a beautiful square point cloud representing observations around Andasibe.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

I have had a great many frustrations in 3D printing recently, but the last few prints have been absolutely beautiful. It’s honestly hard to believe we even have this technology.

A dragon wing in pale white resin on the cerulean printing plate of a Photon S 3D printer

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Today I caught one of the largest frogs of my life. This gigantic Pelophylax ridibundus belongs to a Balkan lineage (formerly P. kurtmuelleri) that has an established introduced population in one lake in central Copenhagen. They are about twice the size of our native green frogs! 🐸🧪

Yours truly and the Very Large Frog, our faces with the same expression. The Frog (the F is capitalised; a proper noun for a proper Frog) is huge, about the size of my face, and held in a gloved hand.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Denmark may not have a huge amphibian diversity, but some of our frogs are real stunners. Just look at this handsome green toad, Bufotes viridis!

Picture if you will a light brown, almost beige toad. Cover that toad in large algal-green blotches, and intersperse a few warts that are neither green nor tan, but rather a rich orange. For an artistic flare, this same colour is repeated at the tips of the fingers and toes. The eye is black flecked with gold, with golden rims outlining the iris on top and below. A masterpiece of amphibian art.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Spring in the north means tadpoles in our lakes and ponds! These little common toad tadpoles are in one of the little ponds at the Botanical Garden here in Copenhagen (part of @nhmdk.bsky.social), which is also full of newts in full breeding dress. 😍

A wide angle photo of a pond reflecting a cloud spotted sky, with little black toad poles in the shallows in the foreground

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Three weeks after being in the rainforest of Madagascar, I spent the day surveying reptiles and amphibians in Denmark. Somewhat different weather. But still very rewarding. We saw a whopping NINETEEN adders! 🐍🧪

A large female adder, curled in a defensive posture among leaf litter, sticks, and rocks.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Something parasitic definitely got this robberfly I found stuck to this leaf in littoral forest of southeastern Madagascar. But what kind of parasite? Fungal? Vespid? Any ideas? 🧪🪰

A weird bulbous expansion stretches up from the back of thorax of a robber fly, which has somehow gotten attached to the tip of a leaf in the forest.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Yesterday we hiked out of the forest after five days totally off-grid. Hard to believe what’s happened in the world in the last five days! I’m quite glad we were out of signal range and able to focus on just excellent frogs and reptiles. 🧪🐸🦎🐍🇲🇬

Boophis reticulatus, a brown tree frog with weird ridges on its back, perched on a serrated bright green Pandanus leaf.

Platypelis pollicaris, a little brown narrow-mouth frog with flecks of gold over its body, sitting atop a bright green leaf

A female Calumma oshaughnessyi, a large green and grey chameleon with diagonal stripes up its body, walking along a branch toward camera left.

A portrait of Liopholidophis dolicocercus (sorry if you’re using a system that reads these Latin names aloud!), a black, brown, and bright yellow snake. In my years working with snakes in Madagascar, I think I have never had a more cooperative subject. It was totally calm and posable!

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Platypelis tuberifera always remind me of a rockclimber bridging a chimney, the way they sit in the groove of Pandanus fronds. Such charming frogs! And we know so very little about their ecology. For instance, as far as I know nobody has ever found their eggs or tadpoles! 🧪🐸🇲🇬

A little yellow and brown frog in the groove in the middle of a vibrant green Pandanus frond, its feet splayed to the side to brace it in place.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Boophis albilabris is one of Madagascar’s largest tree frogs. Today we found this individual just beside the road near Ranomafana National Park. 🐸🧪

A big brown tree frog on a rich green leaf. The flank of the frog is marbled with yellow, its toe webbing is orange, its thigh striped with dark brown, the edge of its eye bright green, and the edge of the lip bright yellow. It sounds gaudy, but really it’s quite subtle.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Our main target species in this area was Mini mum, one of the smallest frogs in the world. Every morning, from at least 5 to 10, the air was full of their tiny peeping calls. Finding one is hard, despite incredible population density, because they live in the spaces between the leaf litter. 🇲🇬🐸🧪

A very small frog in the leaf litter. This is Mini mum. The name says it all: these frogs are approaching what we think is the minimum possible adult body size for a vertebrate.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

But WHAT a forest! Dry littoral forest on sandy soil going down into shallow valleys full of these incredible swamps dominated by Pandanus and Ravenala. Choruses of different species of frogs take turns singing throughout the day and night. It’s a special place. 🧪🇲🇬🐸🌴

A swamp with dark brown water, full of pandanus screw palms rising up to and above eye height. We had to wade to the knee through this water, leaving our shoes and socks soaked for the rest of the hike.

Dry littoral forest on the hills above the swamps. Still very humid - 80-90% - but there’s almost no moisture in the soil as it’s all just basically sand. It feels like this forest just shouldn’t exist. So weird. And so many orchids!!

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Fortunately the route was not a long one; the porters can make it in an hour or so. It took us about 90 minutes. But a good deal of that is in the scorching heat; we were sweating buckets today. 🧪🐸🇲🇬

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

It took 21 porters to bring the materials for this team of eight to live and work for five days inside the forest. 19 to get us back out again today. They were awesome, some carrying very fragile or cumbersome loads through deep mud and swamp 🧪🇲🇬🐸

The team with all 21 porters who helped get us into the forest, and also a chicken.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Here’s a photo of the awesome team I’ve been working with in Agnalazaha. Wonderful, extremely hard-working people. Such a privilege to be in this unique ecosystem with such a dedicated group! 🧪🇲🇬🐸

The team in front of a forest backdrop. From left to right: Augustin, a local guide working for the site managed by Missouri Botanical Gardens; Louisette, our phenomenal cook; Laza, a researcher working at the local environmental ministry office; Angeluc, expert guide; Alice, postdoc in my group working in herpetology and especially museomics; Sandratra, a student at the University of Antananarivo and trainer expert herpetologist; Ranary, another local guide; and yours truly, a giant (literally, apparently) goober who likes to set nearly impossible tasks like finding the eggs of specific frog species when we have no idea where they lay those eggs.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

My office for the last few days, where we have been collecting material to sequence for my ERC project, GEMINI, here in the littoral forest of Agnalazaha in south central eastern Madagascar. It’s been thrilling and even more successful than anticipated, with some VERY exciting new discoveries! 🐸🇲🇬🧪

A chaotic scene of two wood-cut tables set at a right angle to one another, strewn with various scientific accoutrement, including a microscope and several boxes of cryotubes. A blue light is cast over the tables by the large tarp keeping everything in shade. Behind the tables, the littoral forest surrounds the science area. Some of the samples we needed were collected just a couple metres from the tables we have been working at.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

My team and I have spent a few days in the rainforest of Ranomafana National Park on our way east to the littoral forest south of Farafangana called Agnalazaha. It’s been dry here, but we were happy to find a few calling frogs, like this beautiful male Boophis tasymena. 🧪🐸

A little green tree frog delicately spotted with red, sitting on a fern frond and singing into the night. Dozens of others nearby sing the same song, and females are hard to come by.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Yes indeed! A few km away from Ranomafana now, and it’s just started to rain

Rainy Malagasy landscape through the windshield of a car with the wipers going.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

We are on the road now headed south, making our way towards Ranomafana. We expect the drive to take around 14 hours on rough roads, but we have good company and fantastic weather, despite the cyclone that passed just yesterday. 🇲🇬

A Malagasy landscape, with pines in shadow in the foreground and a hill with exposed rock in the distance

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

I have a new favourite piece of graffiti. Look at this lovely piece of work in the Ankatso neighbourhood of Antananarivo!

A panther chameleon in grey, painted over newspaper? on a corner wall bedecked with barbed wire in Antananarivo. Passing through the chameleon is a yellow and red stripe that’s continuous on the walls before and behind the chameleon. In front and below it sits a small trolly selling Soya Yoghurt with vitamins and calcium in French and Malagasy.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Setting off for seven weeks of Madagascar fieldwork through 20-30 cm of snow is a somewhat surreal experience. Excited to undertake this work as part of my ERC project GEMINI, aiming to sample several miniaturised species to produce some high-quality genomes!

Snowy Denmark with yours truly in the centre wearing an orange winter jacket, a red scarf, a green hat, a backpack, and a few other small bags. Not exactly appropriate clothing for the 28°C that await me in Antananarivo.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Copenhagen is in the midst of a blizzard right now, but in three days I will be landing in Antananarivo, where the daytime temperature is 28°C. Hard to conceptualise from where I’m standing. But I’m excited to return to Madagascar on what promises to be a thrilling expedition!

My hiking boots covered in snow, with snow covering the ground. These same boots will see the rainforest and littoral forests of Madagascar for the next two months.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

New publication from my lab, led by @njorisfleck.bsky.social! 🧪 We explore the diversity and origins of a genus of tiny frogs 🐸 on an isolated mountain in north Madagascar. A cool case study of both in-situ diversification and repeated colonisation! vertebrate-zoology.arphahub.com/article/1664...

We explored the bioacoustic differentiation of these frogs, and found clear differences among basically all species, especially those co-occurring at the same elevation. This figure shows cut-outs of a the little whistling calls each frog species makes, and a plot of call duration against dominant frequency for all individual calls recorded, coloured by species.

There is an interesting pattern of both size diversity and elevational distribution among the Stumpffia of Montagne d'Ambre in the north of Madagascar. This plate shows dorsal, ventral, and lateral photos of all species, as well as their body size ranges, and then also a plot of elevational distributions of each species, showing clear stratification. All of the frogs are pretty round and shows some indication of miniaturisation. Most are resplendent in a variety of brown shades above and below, but some, like Stumpffia madagascariensis, have stark colour contrasts or lines, and one, S. megsoni, has orange on the belly.

A photo into the forest at moderately high elevation on Montagne d'Ambre. There is a rather open understory, with tree ferns and low bamboo(?), and quite thin tree trunks. It is a sea of greens and browns.

The tiny Stumpffia madagascariensis upon a bright green leaf in the leaflitter. This species is one of the smallest frogs in Madagascar, and indeed the world. This individual has a thin light stripe along the back, a pale brown dorsum, and stark black border along the flank. You can just make out the teensy tiny toesies, and it is, frankly, adorable.

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

At long last I finally managed to catch the northern lights! From home, no less! My first unsuccessful attempts scuppered by cloud were some 15 years ago, and I have had few chances to see them since.

A pink glow over a green glow in a light-polluted night sky over a residential area, with a playground and a tree in the middle foreground. The composition is shite and the aurora itself is pathetically pale, but it’s there!

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

@sarahmackattack.bsky.social I find the stats of iNat observations very useful indeed when trying to figure out how to find a specific creature

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Dr Mark D. Scherz @markscherz.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

So warm again in Denmark right now that the newts are back out and hunting. Last snacks before winter I guess. 🦎🧪

My hand next to a difficult to discern smooth newt on the wet pavement, with a tiny green caterpillar in its mouth.

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