Petticord explores a Kenyan ecosystem one tortoise at a time
As Princeton senior Daniel Petticord was conceptualizing his thesis on animal movement in the African savanna, he could have chosen to study elephants, zebras, giraffes, impalas or any of the iconic animals that inhabit central Kenya. He chose the ubiquitous leopard tortoise.
“I’ve always been a ‘dig around in the dirt and look for reptiles’ kind of person, so that was a good jumping-off point,” said Petticord, an ecology and evolutionary biology major receiving a certificate in environmental studies. “I really wanted to study snakes, but my adviser told me that the problem with snakes in Africa is that they’re all either really, really fast, or really, really venomous, which are two excellent reasons to not study snakes.”
Choosing the leopard tortoise, however, extended beyond Petticord’s fascination with the small and scaly. He wanted to explore how overlooked organisms like the leopard tortoise fit into global-scale dynamics such as climate change and ecosystem health. For his thesis, Petticord found that drier conditions on the African savanna brought about by climate change could promote the spread of a livestock disease and an invasive plant species, both of which are carried by the humble leopard tortoise.
Click the link to read more…
Turtle News From Around the World
Conservation
UAE:- Ecotourism is helping out the endangered Hawksbill turtle (Video)
USA:- Gopher tortoise relocation effort makes a visit to gai
USA:- Ravens vs. Tortoises
Education
Research:- Green turtle somatic growth dynamics: distributional regression reveals effects of differential emigration
Research:- Landscape genomic signatures indicate reduced gene flow and forest‐associated adaptive divergence in an endangered neotropical turtle
UK:- Sea Life Blackpool waves a flipper goodbye to beautiful green sea turtle Lulu
Health & Medical
Olive Ridley Project:- Turtle Patient Update Issue 6
South Africa:- Stranded baby loggerhead turtles find new home at uShaka Sea world
USA:- Foundation in Osseo gives tortoise second chance at life with new pair of wheels (Video)
Miscellany
USA:- 4 On The Job with Chris Jacobs – Sea Turtle Inc. (Video)
This Week In Turtles…
Fly in for sea turtle rescue!
A amily-friendly event on May 18 to learn more about how pilots are helping save hundreds of endangered sea turtles each year! 9 am-3:30 pm, Location 93 Old Colony Road, Marshfield, MA
Question or Concerns? Want to submit an article to get posted? Email us at [email protected].
Photo from James Lorget.
