Reptile Fight Club - Is Published Data Infallible?

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of  Is Published Data Infallible?       Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland  on IG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Welcome to the LVR Network. All right, welcome to another edition of Reptile Fight Club. It's me, Justin Julander. And with me, as always, Chuck Paul. And what is up roll the dice we've been having a little technical issue issue here and chuck keeps disappearing every like a couple seconds not a technical issue i think i was just messing with my microphone and it was like causing the ultimate go on the fritz like yeah let's hope I was phasing in and out of existence and noises were coming on and going away.

And now I hear Ruby squeaking in the background, getting ready to hear the words. Yeah. She's like, Oh, it's flight time. It's go time. Time to bark.

Yeah. All right. Well, it's been a little while since we've recorded. It's been a while. I don't even feel like I know you anymore. Who are you? I know it's been a little while since uh we've recorded it's been a while i don't even feel like i know you anymore who are you i know it's been you're a man of many books yeah man that's holy cow yeah so i don't know maybe i'll do a little uh recap of so i recently went to mexico on a little trip. You boys been to Mexico?

Yeah, I posted a link. I don't know if anybody saw it, but I posted a link to some short clips. But there's a YouTube video I need to put up that my buddy filmed. He's got this. All I saw was a seal and a fat bird. Oh, yeah. Oh, just the pictures, photos. You haven't seen the video yet.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure I shared it on Facebook, but. I think you did. It's pretty cool. So he has one of those 3D cameras. So basically we went down to, where was it? Wymas area down in Mexico. So basically south of Tucson until you hit the ocean.

And beautiful place. Like just really nice really i think they thought it was going to be this huge resort town and so they like built it up like it was going to be huge and then it didn't really deliver and so it's kind of still got the small town feel but you know the ocean's beautiful the you know water's nice and clear and very warm. It was like 80 degrees, the water temperature down there in October. So not a bad thing. And so mainly the trip was focused around snorkeling and stuff. And so we were in the water quite a bit, did a bunch of day dives, I guess.

I don't know if you call them dives when you're snorkeling. Day swims. Well, you were with divers, right? Oh, yeah. There were divers and then you guys were snorkeling, right? So, yeah, the first few days we just kind of hit some of the different sites around town, just from the beach and looked at fish, did that kind of thing. Oh, my gosh. You're going to become a fisher.

I dragged, I dragged my buddy. So I went with my buddy from high school and my daughter, Grace. And then we went, uh, like I dragged him out at night to go herping. So I brought some little lights and stuff. And we actually stayed at my buddy's house in Phoenix the night before we went down to Mexico. And so we went out herping that night too, but we only found a, um, tarantula and a banded gecko, uh, out in the Phoenix area. Where did we, we just kind of went east of his house, I think. So, um, over into the, like the foothills of the superstitions. So we, we went after dark, so I didn't really get to see where we were herping. But he took us down this cool canyon, so we did this little loop hike thing in the dark. And, yeah, found a couple things.

Found a little red-spotted toad. So, yeah, it was fun. And then got a good night's sleep, drove down there in the morning. You know, like I said, went around snorkeling and stuff. The food was fantastic. Really not expensive it was really uh nice uh time for a lot of stomach yeah yeah we had uh fish tacos of course and some shrimp tacos and then we got some octopus at one restaurant kind of down for, or I guess it was further North above, uh, San Carlos where we were

staying. Was it fried or was it served up? It was grilled octopus and it was like smaller octopus, but just served up, you know, tentacles and suckers and all. So my, uh, my daughter even tried some. Yeah. I was going to ask. That's why I was just going to ask if Grace was with it. Yeah, she did all right with it. She was great. She snorkeled really well. There was one spot where I thought a wave was going to catch her and kind of smash her into the rock.

So I kind of grabbed her, and I was trying to push her away from this little area because the water just looked too shallow for her to go over the rock i thought she was going to get like ruined and there are all these sea uh urchins and stuff and so in the process of trying to get her clear of it i smashed into an urchin like all these spines in my uh right knee and uh in my hand and i still have a couple like stuck in there. I think they've, they're still, uh, welted up and a little strange, but yeah. Um, but I, I, I don't even know. She probably would have been just fine. I probably was panicking for no reason, but I kept, I kept getting worried. Like I can't lose one of my kids down here, you know, like she,

she gets carried off in the surf or something. I don't think Heidi would. Yeah, that would be a real deal your daughters in mexico yeah so every time i lost sight of her and she was pretty brave like she just cruised off on her own and stuff i'm like where's grace where is she i'd swim over to her and she's like dad we'd have to change it to a reptile you you're never going to live this down club rather than a love club. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So luckily I brought her home intact and she was just fine.

But yeah, she had a good time. Well done. So. Did it hurt? Did it hurt? Oh, yeah. Keep going. Oh, the last day we went out to Nalasco Island.

And it was like an hour and a half boat ride out there. And, you know, on the way out, we were seeing some good birds, a couple of flying fish, stuff like that. We didn't see any dolphins. Shane said all the other trips they went on down there, they've seen dolphins. So I felt a little gypped. I'm going to have to go back, I guess. But out at the island, like the water was crystal clear. You could see down, you know, maybe 20, 30 feet.

And there is like this rocky bottom. And so out in Alaska, they have a bunch of sea lions that hang out around that island and, you know, lay up on the rocks and stuff. And so, um, yeah, like you mentioned, there was a boat full of people, um, like 30 or 40 people on the boat. And we, the three of us were the only snorkelers. And so the scuba divers all hit deeper water and went offshore a bit while we stayed around shore and had the sea lions all to ourself so like there were groups of probably 15 16 sea lions swimming around us and and we went to three different spots on the on the island and um it was really cool i and they were cool like you know sea lions can be

sometimes yeah you know what i mean they didn't bother us at all i mean they'd come up to you maybe like bark underwater and kind of scare you you know yeah or open their mouth and kind of like try to scare you give you kind of the ruby the ruby treatment like the sea ruby yeah at the last dive spot just before we were coming back there was one female that just followed us around the whole time. And she'd swim around and come right up to us with her mouth open and stuff. And you'd be like, oh, crap. And then she'd get close enough. I tried to pet her a couple times, but they're just too fast and agile in the water.

But it was a lot of fun. And it was funny because you would dive down under the water a bit, and they would come check you out. But as soon as you kind of came up by the surface, they'd kind of keep their distance. They'd go back away. So I think they felt superior underwater. At the second site, we were hanging out on the boat, or kind of by the shore, and there was a couple big males kind of up on the shore, and kind of keep watching if you get too close to the things they they you know clear the area or whatever they'll let you know so i was kind of going up by the rocks and and i i was in shallower water

and uh it spooked a bunch of females and they and juveniles and they all start crashing into the water and then the bull's like all right that's enough he kind of stands up and starts making his way over i'm like oh crap so i'm trying to swim away from the shore my friends all laughing like way to go dude you you really got him riled up now and he came you know barking into the water and then he swam past me kind of gave me the side aisle dirty you know look and just swam kind of me. And then he got back out and went back to his little spot and resumed sleeping. But yeah, uh, quite the experience. Like I've never had such an interactive mammal experiences that, you know, like just they're as curious about you as you are of them. And so they're coming up and swimming around you and you're kind of swimming

around them. And it was really cool and the footage shows you know the how close they got up and he has this 3d camera so you can see all the way around you so you know sometimes he'll widen it out so you can see kind of almost behind you and in front of you kind of thing it was it was pretty fun so there's some fun footage and then the sea lions like really like the camera so they'd come up and like the camera, kind of bite on it a little bit. And he's like, hey, easy there. But yeah, one came up like four or five times. But yeah.

So it was a great trip. And then when we were getting back on the boat after the first sight, I saw these lizards running around on the island. And had my zoom camera and zoomed in. And they were the Alaska Island Spiny-tailed iguanas so that was pretty sweet got to see a new species i guess and that's the only place where they are apparently because it's in their name i guess but uh i guess yeah it would it would be misleading if they were yeah tinosara noscalensis i or something like that. I'm not sure if I'm pronounced, pronouncing that right,

but yeah, those, I really liked the spiny tail iguanas, but we didn't get to go up on shore or anything. So that's, I only got a couple of kind of long distance shots with my P 1000. So they turned out okay. But yeah,

I posted one of those to Instagram and Facebook. Long distance wanker shot. Yup. That would have been cool to go chasing a little bit but yeah yeah yeah yeah but yeah there's a bunch of new bird species out there too but yeah at nights i'd drag them around looking for herps and we found a well we were driving into town and found a um let's see a sonoran whip snake so that was pretty cool all the whip snakes uh you know that group are just really cool snakes so it was fun it was a smaller one and he was cruising across the road like right in the middle of traffic and we we missed him and uh so i'm like stop the car so i

jump out and run across the street and and he's trying to make up like make it up this uh cement embankment and he can't quite get up he wasn't tall enough and so i was able to grab him and and then grab him yeah put him back in the brush you know yeah he didn't try to bite or anything he's pretty chill just kind of let me take a couple pictures i i tried to take some pictures in in the bush but didn't work out he was gone pretty quick and and they were like dude we're in the bush, but it didn't work out. He was gone pretty quick. And they were like, dude, we're in the road. We've got to get out of here. So I went back to the vehicle.

But, yeah, it was cool to see. They're beautiful snakes. And then we saw a Dior long-nosed snake. So not the best way to see a snake. And then also a couple different toads. We saw a Coloradoorin or a Colorado river toad and some other, I think it was red spotted toad or something else, but so a little bit of herping in there, a little, uh, incidental herping, I guess you'd call it. So when I, and some focused herping, but just not a lot of success. There was,

there were quite a few things down there. I was really hoping to see a boa, uh, Sigma, but, um, didn't get that lucky, I guess. Maybe I wasn't, I didn't know what I was doing, but, um, or they weren't close to the town we were in, but there were records, there were inat records down there we just missed out so all right did ruby settle down no no well yes for now no she's going she's still going still going i don't know i think this is like twilight dog walking hour time here so everyone's walking their dogs so so every every everybody who walks by is a peak call. Good times, good times. Yeah. Yeah.

So we came. Wouldn't be Fight Club without Ruger. Right. We came back to Phoenix where my buddy lives, stayed at his house the night. So we got back Sunday and got up in the morning kind of early and went out east towards Bob Ashley's place. And along the way, we went out and looked for hognose snakes. We did find one, but it had recently been hit. And so that was not the way I wanted to find one. I was kind of bummed out.

And then Dustin had to post the one he found, the rubidine. Yeah, Dustin found a nice one. It's an exantic hognose out there. That's a nice one. It's an Exantic. I know. Hog nose out there. That's a pretty lucky find. I had a friend that found one of those out there before as well. Yeah, John. Is that a – I mean, is that kind of a – I mean, is that pretty rare or is that kind of a – I mean, it's rare you know how reds are you know how reds are kind

of a a color variation in in coastal just like and it's not not uncommon you know like is that is that an no this is a you know a simple receptive recessive trait that's you know reasonably uncommon but that area is known to have them so people have found them there before and that's probably where my buddy found one too but uh you know cool looking animal um yeah for sure i just i hate it when you find them dead but that's the it's not the best way so i need to get out and hike or something or get on some roads that aren't being traveled on or something but that's definitely not the way you want to find any type of reptile when you're on the road we saw a big old beautiful uh coach whip across the road just bright red you know making his way across the road so that was pretty sweet um we saw a checker garter snake and um a patch nose snake the patch nose had been hit as well but yeah some

stuff was out and moving so that was good we stuck to the pavement because i thought the dirt roads would be too cool for the animals but dustin found his on dirt roads so maybe i should have been on dirt roads checking it out what was that episode we did about conventional wisdom and herping i don't know that was my inexperienced conventionalism or limited experience you know two or three trips down there well and you know dustin's out i'm just doing it so you know i mean and so we were herping and then i'll so the books were supposed to arrive at 2 p.m at bob's place and so i was kind of like it was get i realized it was like, oh, it's like almost noon.

And so we better think about heading down towards Bob's house. I think you're Bob's place. We were about an hour away. So we start making our way out there and he texts me. The books are here. So I'm like, oh, sweet. Let's go. So, you know, picked up the pace a little bit.

I'm lucky I didn't get a ticket or something. But so we drove down there uh grace went and checked out the museum while i uh um loaded up books and you know is that the first time she's never no no yeah none of my family has that's she's the only one that's been there now so summer was very jealous that her older sister got too old. She's like, you got to take me there, Dad. Grace doesn't even appreciate it like I would. I get totally hurt saying that, too. Yeah.

That's funny. I'll need to take Summer down there. And Heidi, too. I want to take Heidi down there. I want to go do a little trip. I think they would. I mean, that's a cool. Oh, yeah.

You got to. Bob's place is awesome. It's pretty fun. And that area down there, it's hard to beat. I think they would I mean that's a cool you gotta buy this place it's pretty fun and that area down there it's hard to beat the fun stuff you can see down there so yeah we unfortunately we had to just load up the books and head back because it was like a 10 hour drive

you know and we were at 2 so I think we rolled into St. George where Kate's living uh down in the southwest corner of utah so we kind of went that way because we knew we weren't going to make it home it was 15 hours from bob's place to our door if we went the fastest route so we thought we'll take a little detour go over see kate um chat with her for a bit uh we actually met dustin he was on his way back from work as we were passing through Phoenix, Tucson area. So we met him on the side of the highway or, you know,

at a gas station on an exit kind of out between or just north of Tucson. So he picked up a book. So he was, he got the first copy of the ones I picked up other than Eric's, you know, and then, uh, so he, he got a book there and then, um, drove to St. George and fortunately had a very, you know, easy time, easy drive. It was just long, you know, we're like, man, when are we going to be past Phoenix? Hit a little bit of traffic, but nothing too bad. And then, uh, rolled into st george about 12 45 or something and then got a bit of a night's sleep and got up and kate had gotten a flat tire the night before and so you know we she has the prius down there because she blew up her car trying to get down to st george after a little family reunion we had and then then she borrowed one of our cars, and then she couldn't get the tire off.

So she called AAA, I think, and they came, and they couldn't get the tire off. So it took them quite a while to figure out how to get that tire off. And then, I don't know, it was a whole other deal. So luckily we were there in the morning. We could help her go over to get a new tire, show her how to do that, and help her adult over to get a new tire show her how to do that and help her adult a little bit and then um she had to go to work so we went just cruised home and got home sounds like triple a had a hard time adulting there we we got home at uh like just before

eric uh we started i was just gonna say just going to say, just before MPR. I stopped off at the university and got rid of the majority of the cases of books. I picked up 33, and I brought eight home. So the rest are up at the university. And I think I'm down to like six or seven at the university and eight at home. So, yeah, I shipped out a lot of books this week. And so now I'm in a good place, except I'm leaving on vacation. But if anybody wants a book in the next couple of days, hit me up.

Well, you're not going to hear this until Friday until we're leaving. But yeah, so, yeah,'s uh nice to have those out and and i've still got a couple orders that you know are pending and should take up quite a few books once you sell the rest of these books are you gonna place another order with bob or eventually yeah i think yeah i mean yeah they went pretty quick and i had quite a few pre-orders, which was nice and sent a bunch of books overseas and, you know, within the U S and I, you know, when I, since I picked them up, I, I, uh, since I picked them up, I was able to save on the shipping. I think Nick, Nick got like one case more than I did, and it was like $700 or something. So crazy, yeah. So I guess I saved a little bit, and it was just good timing that I was down there in the area when the books arrived.

So it allowed me to save that shipping. So that was nice. And then I had them know because nick still had to wait for his to ship out so i pretty much had all mine shipped by the time nick got his and then now he's in that same stage i was last week i'm trying to get you know get things packaged up and all that kind of stuff and to the post office i mean i like, and I have a post office on campus, so I can just box them up in my office. So I would go in early, like a couple hours early to work, box up books, and then, you know, run them over once the post office open, just kind of walk them over. I'm

carrying like 12 books and I'm like, you know, huffing and puffing. People are offering to help me, you know, like you need help. I'm like, do I look that weak? I don't know. But you know, it's a heavy books. You're not a young man anymore, Dr. Jolander. I'm carrying 50 pounds of books across campus, you know. It's all fun and games until you throw your back out. Yeah. My back was a little off this week for sure. So I'm telling you. I'm not a young man anymore. We are not spring chickens. Yeah, one of my lab techs was walking out at the same time.

He's like, can I help you with those? I'm like, yes, please. But yeah, it's good to have that kind of behind me now a little bit. And, you know, I'm still getting the orders. And I think after we did NPR, I got still getting the orders. And, and I think after, um, we did, uh, NPR, I got a lot more orders in and, you know, people are like, are you getting any more copies left? So I still do have, you know, a few copies. And so if you want to purchase one, you're welcome to just check out my website, australianaddiction.com the details there. I also put a link up for the posters. So,

um, if anybody's interested in a poster and they find the link there, see a picture of it, purchase it if you'd like. And I've got a few, uh, posters left on hand and some shipping tubes, so I can ship you some, but yeah. So that's kind of been my, uh, what's going on with me. How about you? That's crazy. Yeah, it's been crazy. I don't know. Like, and then now we're leaving again. So, you know, I gotta get gear up for the next trip.

So, yeah, I, I, I don't have my, my life is not as, I mean, I've, I've got, so my air conditioning unit, they finally came today and I'm finally getting that installed. So that'll be great. Now that it's cooling down. I'll have air conditioning just in time for winter. Yeah. That's awesome. So it was good for the guys who had to get up into my attic space.

It's not 1,000 degrees up there where they're putting in the air handler. But, you know, kind of nice to close that loop a little bit. And then I talked to tony doyer so i ended up remember i was trying to get cages for the for all the tracy a that i'm growing up and and uh you know tony tony messaged me and it's like hey dude i don't know if you want to um if you're interested or not um but you know i have an order in with ap if you want to jump in on it. And so he was, yeah, he totally, totally clutch. And that's cool. Um, so those are those, he, he just messaged me today that those are shipping. So at a drive up, drive up probably, I don't know, next week or something sometime and

pick those up. So eight, eight new AP cages come in. So that that's, that's that's cool um what size did you get have that uh i did four i think i did four by four by 24 by 18 talls i think it was a it was a space thing it was i would have liked to gone a little taller but it's just what would fit in the area that i had unfortunately a little bit oh yeah a little bit. Oh, yeah. A little bit limited. Are you going to do like roof hides or things like that? Yeah, I'll probably put some in. I kind of, you know, I didn't, I didn't, I'll probably do some, probably just like buy the plastics from uh san diego plastics and and build them myself

and then something that can just modularly go in there um but yeah so just wanted to get the cages i'm right at the point now where you know all the the 2019 animals are really ready for new enclosures and and all the the 2020 animals are ready for their the 2019 so it's everybody's ready to jump so it was like super clutch that tony is like the timing was pretty perfect like it allowed me to feed up those older animals and and uh you know they're about they're about size to to switch cages now so it couldn't have worked out better so i'm excited about that and uh just starting to really throw food at at the tracy again uh for this season and and uh let's see what else has been going on tony's a cool guy that's that, that's nice. Yeah, he is man.

Just, yeah, he, he totally like, I mean, everybody honestly, like when I had asked about, uh, cages, everybody kind of came out of the woodwork and, and, uh, you know, offered. So I was, I really am appreciative of everybody who reached out. Um, but it just happened to work out that i you know i hate the weight but i really do like ap cages and they do a good job with those cages and it's kind of what i'm familiar with yeah you know i'm an old man i stick to what i know and having that uh san diego plastics or whatever down there i bet i order from what is it californ California Plastics? Yeah, there's a San Diego Plastics, and I think there's a, I don't want to say it's like a U.S. Plastics. There's another plastics company right down here. But San Diego Plastics is like, it's right on the border of National City and Chula Vista, right by the 5.

Can you pick stuff up there then? It's not far at all. You just go? Yeah, yeah yeah yeah you can go i mean they've got like you know any kind of plastic you want like um so you know it's not not the cheapest like obviously like all these these plastics cage manufacturers are getting good deal on their on their uh their their their their foamed their foam PVC by buying in such big amount. But, but I mean, if, you know, it, you know, it's, it's kind of, if you didn't want to have to do it in plywood,

which is probably just about as expensive, if not more expensive, depending on what you're getting. Yeah. So, um, yeah, so it's been, you know, kind of excited about that. Um, yeah, just, I don't know, some, some crazy doctor sent me a couple of books and, and, uh, I got a, I got an awesome t-shirt. Um, it looks like, it looks like you need to do some more t-shirts. I know. Yeah. That's well, give me a minute for, yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry i like i it's funny because i've i've had them for for a long time and i still have quite a few of them so it's like they're not flying off the you know at the shows or whatever well you're not a you're not a man of marketing i thought they're such i thought they were so cool they just sell themselves kind of they are

i really like them anyway yeah they're fun i i well everybody else likes them too yeah i guess it's just like one of those things i mean there's reptile people like to spend their money on reptiles you know as evidenced by keeping in you know less than ild ideal cage you know why man i think they do like t-shirts usually i i need to just give them to people who buy stuff from me that's what i don't do like t-shirts usually i i need to just give them to people who buy stuff from me that's what i need to do that i just forget like you know i i mean that's kind of what it was meant as is like a bonus for somebody who bought stuff and i've i've given a few away to people who buy stuff what day is a good day to ship and what's your

exactly yeah but sometimes it's hard like yeah i gotta ship them separately or something you know so i bought a bunch of Mylar things. Or not Mylar, but just plastic shippers that I could just throw a T-shirt in and slap a label on it and go. But I just need to remember to do it. If you buy something from me, remind me you want a shirt and tell me what size you wear. Give me a shirt. Send you something along with your animal. Well, we probably should.

Could I twist your arm into coming out to Pomona in January? Is that possible? I think that, yeah. I'm doing this very publicly so that I can get this on. That's good. I want it on record. I would like to do that. Let's look into it and see exactly when and see what's going on with work and stuff

i think it's the seventh the seventh and eighth so that could be a treacherous drive for me through through utah but um yeah it should should work out i wouldn't mind getting somewhere a little warmer yeah so i mean i'd split the cost with you so you know it wouldn't be like you'd be eating yeah eating a whole table yourself. And I haven't done a California show in a while, so that'd be good to... I haven't been to Pomona in a couple years. I think the last time I went to Pomona, was I with you? Probably.

Yeah, that's the last time I did it. I think we vended together. Maybe it was San Diego. No, it was Pomona. No, it was Pomona. Yeah. I don't think I've ever vended San Diego. No, it was Pomona. No, it was Pomona. I don't think I've ever vended San Diego. It was

Pomona. Yeah, I remember that. That was a good show. That was fun. Yeah, we're going to need to make that happen. Yeah, if you want to set it up, I'll drive down and vend with you. That sounds really nice. Okay. Alright, guys. You heard it. Holding it to it.

Holding it to it. This is what I got to do. I invite myself on her trips on this. This is my forum for participation. I appreciate it. Yeah, I rope you into things, and I invite myself on things. Like, this is my platform. It's kind of what I do, too.

I think I've always done that, too. Yeah. Well, do you think it's think I've always done that, too. Well, do you think it's time to fight? We can do that. Okay. Well, yeah, today we had a lot to catch up on, I suppose. Talking about publications, so Chuck and I were just having a conversation and talking about different papers that came out and stuff. And we're thinking, you know, sometimes papers can be very valuable for learning things.

And other times they can maybe even be a misleading thing where people take too much from them and hold them in too high regard or take them too seriously. How do you want to say that? So we're going to fight about that today. So we'll, I guess, weigh the pros and cons of using data from reptile publications. Does that sound like a reasonable way to state it? Sure. All right, well, let's toss the old coin, see what side we get. Go ahead and call it.

Tails. It's heads. Oh okay yeah um i'm gonna go with the pro that it's you know that herpetological publications have good material that can move us forward in our keeping and understanding of these things. Okay. So, of course, with any topic, there's lots of pros and cons or things to consider. Hills and valleys. Hills and valleys. Hills and valleys.

So we'll go over those today. So I'm going to go ahead and pull a Chuck and let you go first. All right. Go ahead and lead a Chuck and let you go first. All right. Go ahead and lead out. Okay, hold on. So my whole thing is that they can be – The limitations are – yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I think obviously in any publication, it's only as good as the science that's put into it. And sometimes, depending upon any type of data you have or you create or you gather, it's all how you process that data and how you kind of look at it and interpret it and how you put it out. Because any data can be misinterpreted and put out incorrectly uh and lead somebody down the path of perhaps the wrong conclusions or even you know having um biases in your you know in your interpretation of data can sometimes be a pitfall. So, you know, it's a huge, huge thing for, you know, researchers and people who publish data and papers to really, really be careful that they're not subject to biases in their data. And that's exactly why they have peer reviews and why you have third-party experts or third-party reviewers look at this stuff so that you're not publishing something that potentially could mislead your reader and make you look like an ass to the, to, to the, uh, you know, your fellow, um, researchers or whatever. So, you know, I think that's probably where I would lead out as like kind of the big overarching statement of why you

have to be really careful, uh, when it comes to publications, um, of any kind. And I mean, I think, you know, and even in non-scientific type publications, you have to be a critical reader. You have to, you know, gather data from multiple sources and be a critical thinker and, you know, kind of understand kind of what you're, you know, and some of that's a process and some of that is, you know, you can be, you know, it's a, uh, an evolution. You can be led to the wrong path to figure out, wait, that's, that's not right. And to later, you know, um, kind of understand when you kind of gather data from, from multiple or better sources, you know, so, you know, it's, it's definitely a, it's not a, an easy thing, but, but I, you know, I do think that well-gathered scientific

research is probably one of our best points of, of, you know, I mean, I clearly think that the reprodu the scientific method and the reproduction of science, science, uh, in, you know, under the scientific method is probably our strongest form of, of, uh, um, you know, of gathering real data and real information that is, is, you know, um, helpful. Um, but yeah, that's a strong, and I'm thinking, man, I should have taken the con because there's a lot of good, good insights maybe from being in the, you know, in, in, uh, academia and publishing quite a bit, but so, yeah, I mean, I, I would agree that, uh, peer review is one of the best things that we have going for us as far as scientific literature. At least it has to go through the hands of two or three or four people that critically review it, looking for things that could be off or that could raise alarms, looking for plagiarism, looking for all those kind of things, looking to see that their statistical analyses are reasonable for what they're doing and that they're not over-interpreting things. But sometimes it's like another thing to your list and you just try to get through it quick.

And also some reviewers can be too critical and just like hammer a paper even though it's a good paper and has important data. So I try to facilitate to make sure that I raise concerns about things that might be mis, you know, misinterpreted or over interpreted or overstated. Look for other issues like that. But, you know, that's that's kind of the gatekeeper to to having good data published. You also many people may not know that there's like a tiered system you have different levels of journals that you can shoot for you know you have some like um you know low level journal that does not have much of an impact factor so impact factor is a rating system that they use to kind of demonstrate, you know, the quality of the

journal, the impact of the articles that are published in that journal, how much, how many people that read them and how impactful they are in the scientific literature. And so if you, you know, you'll have some journals that have a 20, you know, or a 30 impact, you know, very high impact factor, 25 or 24, I think you're kind of the highest level or I don't know what it goes to, but it's up in the twenties, maybe 30 or something is the highest. And then you have some that have like 0.5. So, you know, you have a big, big difference. Now, a lot of the journals I publish in are, you know, maybe between five and 10, you know, they're usually around five. If I have a really

good paper, I'll try to submit it to one that has a little bit higher. And I've gotten a couple co-authored papers into the, you know, 20 level journals, some of the really good journals. So, you know, like cell or science or things like that, those are kind of the upper, you know, division journals. So, um, the, if you read an article on that, you know, that it's gone through the ringer and that they just don't let anything through, you know? So, um, you know, there's differences in quality of journals and, and the, um, how stringent they are in their reviews and how hard they hit, you know, when they're doing their reviews. So, um, I review for journals that are in the five and six range, you know, so they're kind of good journals, but

not, you know, the pinnacle journals, I guess. And, and, you know, it's, it depends on the, um, area you're in. I don't know, like for some of the herpetological publications, but anyway, I mean, you kind of brought this up, so I'm just fleshing that out a little bit. But peer review really helps to improve the quality. And you don't have that with like care sheets online or reptiles magazine articles. I mean, I'll read some of these reptiles magazine articles and they're just complete trash. And others, you know, are pretty good and they're not bad, but some are just garbage. You're reading them going, do these people even know what they're doing with these things? Yeah.

It's crazy. Some articles that get posted are not there. I would not consider them scientific. Yeah. No, they're more of like, you know, they're, they're more of a, they're more of a professional care sheet or a care sheet that's been done under more zoological type conditions or something like that where they're almost giving more of a species plan to – what do they call the husbandry? Yeah, herpticulture. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. plan to, or what do they call the husbandry? Yeah. Herpetoculture. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, and there's a section in the journal Herpetological Review that is for herpetoculture. You know, they have a section on that. And that's another maybe point I can make really quickly is that you have different kinds of articles too. There's some like that are review articles that just basically sum up the known literature and kind of put it together, covering one aspect of an area of science. You know, like, they could cover skinks that, you know, practice, you know, grouping, you know, live in family groups or something. I've seen, you know, seen that article, and it's a really cool article. It just talks about all the published information regarding that subject. And so those review articles are actually very handy because it gives you a a full research article where they've controlled their studies and balanced them out. You can have an ecological study where they're just observing what's in the environment and what animals are present and what they're doing in their environment or what their gut contents are and things like that, you know, so those can be helpful to get a glimpse into what's going on with the animals,

but they're not, there's no, like, uh, not really any kind of statistical analysis needed. You know, it's not like they're trying to discover something new other than like what an animal's eating or what it's doing in the wild. Then you have things that might be like case reports where you know like you maybe you're talking about where you get a um talk about what what you did you know what species you bred in a zoo and what you did to get that result and that may not be the the best way or the worst way or you know that's just kind of the way they did it. It's just an account. Yeah. It's kind of more of an account of something rather than a. And I would say those are like good jumping off points for, you know, if you're looking into that species. That's a really good place to start.

But don't take it as like this is the only way to do it. This is the, you know, that kind of thing. Okay. Sorry. I just wanted to – Well, I think that's a tough part too because especially if you're – if a zoo publishes something because they did something that's like hasn't been done or is difficult to do or whatever, hey, if not a lot of people have done it and you're the only person who's published on it, where does everybody go, you know, to, to, to figure something out? What if it's, if it's poorly accounted and, and you're, you know, your publication is the only one that really talks about it, then I don't know. I kind of feel like you're like the, the source, whether it's like, you know, a scientific publication or, you know,

a high end journal or, or a low, like you're the only, you're it, you know, a scientific publication or, you know, a high end journal or a low it like you're the only you're it. You know what I mean? So in that sense, it's kind of like, man, what you know, how do you think about that? Is there definitely pitfalls from that or benefits from that? And I mean, you know, it can it can can kind of, I, I, you know, I, I agree with you. I think there's, there's, there's, I think a lot of times people read something that hasn't been done and they think that's the way you do it. And I think, I think the reality of stuff is, is like, that's

how they did it. I, I, you know, I think the, the phrase more than one way to skin the cat comes to mind when I think about, you know, that, that kind of stuff. And, and. Well, that's, that's kind of relevant to maybe to right now, where we just had an article, uh, they, they had an article published in her logical review by, was it Blake Bauer? That was, uh, Oh, the Tracy paper. Yeah. Yeah. What'd you think of that? Like, did you read it? Yeah. I did. Methods or what do you think? Well, you know, so, I mean, I, I don't, I don't think that they're doing any, they were doing anything really you know extreme from keeping other somalia or other like type uh pythons um but

like the enclosures that they kept the animals in were much bigger than the enclosures i had they fed a little yeah yeah understandable so. And then some of like their methodology changed to where, you know, how they treated. I think they had had some issues around. They did paternal incubation and then had a failure with artificial incubation. And so, you know, obviously, like, they had changed some things. And I mean, I guess reading it, you know, nothing in there. I guess, I don't know. I don't know how to say it.

But they had the two males, right? I'm not. Kind of like you were doing it. But then they pulled one of the males and then they were doing but they weren't, yeah, but they weren't, they weren't leaving their males in there. Uh, they had, they had done, they had done some, it looks like they pulled one and then put it back. And then there was some, you know, lacerations on the animal or something. I kind of didn't, I kind of didn't understand that because they had never witnessed any male combat and and how how one of those animals got cut up was not like i didn't i didn't really i mean i was that what it was from was from they made the point to say that they had seen them bite each other in feeding responses so

it could have just been a misguided but feeding response too yeah and if you're feeding if you're feeding you know scrub pythons together like yeah totally that'll happen yeah you know for sure so you know i mean i think you know i i guess my thing is yeah um scrub pythons don't combat each other and that was you know kind of stated but not explicitly state you know ext the, they had said they just didn't witness it. Um, but, but then kind of made it sound like, um, maybe, you know, that they had some aggression to each other or whatever, but, and, and some of the, the, their observations around, um, you know, how the males interacted with the females and other males, um,

post pre and pre and post ovulation were pretty dead on to what I've seen. I think that was really very, you know, very much, you know, you, you knew, you knew the female was gravid because she'd get really, really dark and she'd swell and she just looked, she looked gravid. Um, and I, so, you know, I think there was some stuff in there that was great. But, you know, there was other things that like they did at, you know, husbandry wise that I just you know, it was a little different than when I did. And they had success. I had success. So like there's part of it there where I felt like, yeah, some of this is like I know exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I got that. I got. Oh, that, Nope, not that. Oh no, no, not that. So there's part of me that's like,

you know, I see the way it can be helpful, but at the same time, like if somebody was reading that and being like, Oh, their enclosure dimensions were this, this, and this, and think this is the way you have to do it. Well, I did it in much, much smaller enclosure. So it's like, you know, I think, I think it was, I think it's great. I'm glad Blake, Blake got that published and, and, you know, they, they absolutely should publish that as the first. And, and, you know, I just don't feel comfortable publishing, um, my stuff yet. I, I, I kind of wanted to have a third success and I haven't had a third success. And, um, so, you know, I, I, um, but, but again, like, you know, here's, here's, uh, here's a zoo and, and Blake having success, uh, their way, here's me having success my way. I guarantee you that Shane is doing it a little bit different. And I, and the guy over in europe uh who who who bred the same

year i did uh was probably doing it a little bit different as well i mean so you know i i think like you know it takes me all back to is python reproductive husbandry all that much different well you know in in some very minor ways yes but you know every single one of us is in different parts of the country and we all had success uh and you know we don't all have the same conditions our rooms are not the same conditions our enclosures are not the same you know i guarantee the way we feed is not always the same and it didn't even sound like the way they manage those animals year to year was exactly the same so like i think it goes to your point of like plasticity and reproduction um and so to me it's it's like less about like the formula you gotta have the formula this is the

this is the one two three check these boxes way to do it and more a way of like hey you know you know student of the serpent consistency um and then trying to be reproducible in that. You know what I mean? And I think when I changed enclosures, either those animals went two years in a row and said, we need a break or changing something made a difference or both. I'm not going to really know. I mean, we'll see. But, you know, I just, I don't know. I feel like I'm bumbling on now. But but but yeah, I mean, some of that was was super on point and super like, yep, yep, yep.

But but I feel like some of that also keeps with other scrub pythons that I've kept. They get you know, you can you can watch males as they cycle through their reproductive cycle, get very, very dark in their dorsal, and then they lighten back up a little bit. But never seem to lighten up quite as much as they do after the first sexually active cycle. You know what I mean? So there's certain commonalities, I think, that are there. And I think you can draw good insights from it. But I think my thing would be that there's definitely like if you were to take something somebody wrote other than just their account, you know, you definitely might set yourself up for chasing your tail a little bit if you're trying to reproduce something somebody did under completely different environmental conditions than you have. You know, I kept steady climates and my animals really from year to year, from season to season, they were like, yep, I know what's happening here. I got this. Okay, cool. You know what I mean?

To me, that's more important than to be checking the boxes. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, yeah, like you said, there's a lot of ways it can be done, but you know, to, and so that's, I guess that's the point of this discussion is that it's, uh, you know, you, you've got to take these kinds of things with a grain of salt and know that, you know, there's other ways to potentially do this. And so you can't just say, Oh, this is the way we breed Tracy. Hey, got to follow, follow this publication exactly, you know, how they did it and stuff. So yeah, that's, uh, kind of a trick, I guess, but so yeah, I, um, so some more pros I think is, is that, you know, academics are funded usually to run the studies, and so they have the means to run a well-controlled study.

They can house things ethically, I guess, although that may not be completely the case all the times you know um i our herpetology group was keeping a carpet python i looked in and they had like it in a glass aquarium with a screen top and a and a light on top and it was having shedding issues i'm like come on guys the complete carpet python's over in the library you can check it out and read up on these things so sometimes you wonder like um and i mean does that give you a level of satisfaction i don't know because like rick shine it's in the library what are you doing rick shine did uh say that you know he he could study reptiles all the time but he didn't really do the best job at keeping them in boxes and so you know i you know there's different and i think

a lot of academics kind of look down on herpers because they're like they're just keeping snakes in boxes and making morphs and things like that so i think that's when we generalize you know we don't we don't do do very well i think with generalizations but um, um, so yeah, I'm probably being too, uh, critical. They, I'm sure they do a great job at keeping their study species happy and healthy, but it's hard. It's hard to study a dead reptile. So hopefully they keep them, keep them to the highest standards possible. Well, and I mean, not every reptile is easy to keep in captivity. Some just don't do very well. So you can be a very talented keeper and still have a hard time just because it's not an easy species to keep. So, you know, I mean, you're a lot of times fighting, you know, things that maybe aren't always in your control as much as you'd like to think they are. I think so, you know, with those means, they can set them up the way they need to be set

up. They can test different experimental, you know, conditions in the lab or in the field. They have different instrumentation to measure things that, you know, the average herper wouldn't have access to. And so they can, you know, generate or or gather data um that a typical herper would have a hard time gathering uh so a lot of a lot of you know i i really uh like the a lot of the studies that came out of dale dinardo's lab and maybe sometime we got to get him on here if he'll come on and chat with us that'd be cool. He did a lot of great studies with children's pythons as a model species because, you know, they could looking at maternal care and things of reptiles.

Because they're bulletproof. Yeah, he did really well with them. He produced a lot of children's pythons. I actually met a Ph.D. student that's up at or maybe she's a postdoc, but she's up at the university up at Utah state university. And I was vending a show down in salt Lake and she came by the table and she's like, yeah, I'm doing research. And I'm like, Oh, what lab are you in? And she's like, Oh, up at Utah state. I'm like, Oh, cool. I'm in the building next to you. I'm like, I, we should,

I need to come over and check out things over there. And she's like, yeah, anytime. So I need to hit her, hit her up and go tour the lab or something, see what's going on, what kind of research they're doing. But I've had, you know, some inns there in the past, but I just haven't made it over there too often or visited with them much. So I need to see if I can make some inroads there. You know, I need to go rub elbows justin you know what i'm saying go go hobnob with the hurt with the hurt people there's been some really good studies that have been up at done up at utah state mainly with the like tetrodotoxin and and the newts and kind of the way that the damnophis the garter snakes could feed on toxic newts and not die so um there's like this

arms race and a little uh they identified the channel or or the what was it like an ion channel or something that allowed them to detoxify i guess once they ate their toxic meal or something i can't remember all the details but yeah there's lots of papers published by Brody and his lab, you know, Dr. Brody. So good stuff. But so, you know, having those having the funds to to run well controlled and studies that could use lots of different technology can be a good thing and can generate a lot of useful information. What about, what about like the pressure to publish? You feel like that that could be a detractor. I, I kind of feel like, you know, once you, if you, you know,

as a researcher or somebody who, you know, is, is I mean, a lot of your credibility comes from, you know, and some, in some fields you have to publish to be credible, right? Yeah. It's part of the job. You're not publishing work. Yeah. Yeah. If you're not publishing work, then who, who are you? I've never heard of you, blah, blah, blah. And, and, and you hear so much about, um, you know, publications that later come back to be, you know, hey, this was not on board or, you know, the high enough impact to find out that the data was maybe maybe not a complete data set. You know, I think I think I think I remember, was it Johnson?

It was one of the SARS-2 COVID vaccines. They got some criticism because they wanted to limit the size of their data set because it made their effectiveness look better. So obviously in a situation where you can make more money if there's a profit model to it. But I think I'm speaking more towards like, you know, just the pressure to publish. Yeah, I mean. To be relevant.

The statement. The issues that that. The statement publish or perish is a real thing in academia, you know. And that goes hand in hand with obtaining grants. And so a lot of times you have to chase academia, you know, if you, and, and that goes hand in hand with, with obtaining grants. And so a lot of times you have to chase, um, funding, you know, and, and, and kind of go research topics that, uh, are, are interesting to the funding agencies, you know, not necessarily to yourself. And so a lot of times they'll, they'll use model organisms, kind of like we were saying with the children's pythons and things, but, um, you know, they could use those to show, uh, maternal care in,

in an ectotherm kind of thing. So they're applying it maybe more broadly than, um, so, you know, yeah, you're limited. And a lot of times it's very hard to get funding to obtain any funding. And so, you know, that's, that's another challenge. And a lot of people, you know, I know people who've been at really great institutions, but they didn't get enough funding or didn't publish enough. And so they had to go find another job. They didn't make tenure. And so, you know, kind of the same thing as the journals is also, you have higher tier, you know, institutions like Harvard or, you know, Ivy league schools, that kind of thing. Um, not necessarily that better research comes from those places, but they have a very high standard for

their researchers. And if they're not obtaining funding and they're not publishing enough, then usually they don't last very long there. So. But those high standards are, are they equate to pressure? Oh yeah. Tremendous pressure. You as a researcher have a huge amount of pressure on you to, to, you know, publish a parish, as you said. So, you know, I, I think my concern would be, you know, some of the, and, you know, I mean, I guess maybe the, the, uh, the pressure to, to perform is something that's maybe good in, in, in small doses for everybody. But, but, you know, you could see, you could easily see how, you know, somebody might misconstrue data or misconstrue something because they're trying to get, you know, get data to say something that they want to help, you know, prove a point or,

you know, and, and, and I'm not even talking about a researcher doing that maliciously. I'm just saying that, you know, your unconscious biases will lead you to a path, especially, you know, if there's multiple ways you can look at the data and, you know, you brought up the children's Python paper and, and, you know, another thing that comes to my mind is you'd send that to me and I was like looking at it. You know, I'm. The reclassification or lumping everything in your children's eye except for all the stem cells. So, you know, I can read abstracts. No problem. abstracts no problem and i was very clear about that when i when i started like getting into

you know a lot of how they're interpreting their their um their dna stuff and like that's when i was kind of like okay i don't i don't see like you know there's nothing in there and you know part of it is probably because i just spent you know good 15, 20 minutes looking at it and I was kind of reading and looking at the graphs and kind of like, OK, OK. Well, you know what? Maybe they're right because I don't know how to read that stuff and maybe they're wrong because I don't know how to read that stuff. Right. So I think, you know, I mean, when a lay person reads something scientific and a researcher says, this is the way it is because that's what the data says. And you don't know how to read the data well enough to be like, uh, I, I, I agree with this part, but not that part, but I see this, but I don't see that. You know, when you can't see that, then what are you

left doing? You're saying, well, yeah, I mean, I guess the data't see that. You know, when you can't see that, then what are you left doing? You're saying, well, yeah, I mean, I guess the data looks pretty good. Yeah. I think that's what most people do. And, you know, I think you're right. That can definitely be a con if they're, you know, trying to name a new species. And so they're going to really work that data to show that, you know know there is a new species or something and and and uh they want to do something controversial so they'll you know like show that there isn't you know that all

these are lumped into one or i don't know you know i don't know what their motivations were if they had any ulterior motives and we can assign all that kind of stuff all we want but you know i guess it comes down to the to the species model that they use and their interpretation of data and their interpretation of what lines, they were like, nope, nope, nope, nope, no, no, no line to be drawn here. This is all children. Yeah, but you see like different structure within there. So, and, and I guess I've never understood like this. There was a knob tail paper that was published, and they named a new species. They split Asper into two species.

Now I can't think of the name. It's like, oh, man, Megalodon. What is it? Oh, well. Anyway, it'll come to me. That'll be my closing. You'll just blurt it out come to me. But, you know, we... That'll be my closing. You'll just blurt it out as my closing. You know, there's...

They did some nice research, and they showed there's biogeographical barriers. They showed there's genetic differences. They showed there's phenotypic differences. They showed there's phenotypic differences. And so, you know, I think they did, they made a good argument to show that there is a separate or distinct species there. They had some data that would maybe suggest there's even more, you know, splits that could be made within Neferis. And so, you know, that's, they didn't go that far. So I guess to me, that kind of suggests, okay, we're, we're, we're doing the work. We're doing our due diligence, you know, or I, I didn't get that sense when I'm reading that Antaresia paper, I got the sense that, you know, they had a very limited sampling, but, but of the spotted pythons, but that was enough

to say, yeah, these are, these are distinct species. So I just, I don't know. It was a little tough to take and maybe it's just because I didn't really, you know, agree with their conclusions. So it's kind of makes that, that difficult, but I don't know. What do you do? But a lot of your issues with those conclusions are what, based on, on phenotypical differences that you see? And it's not a professional. I'm not a taxonomist.

So, yeah, obviously they know better than I do in that regard. But again, I mean, that paper was not – I mean, that paper didn't address scale counts and phenotypical differences. They integrated that into their analysis somehow, I believe. Okay. It was a little embedded, I think, in there. But, you know, obviously it would be nice to get the authors on here and kind of discuss these questions or, you know, concerns that we have about this whole thing. And, you know and were they are

they just gene jockeys have they ever seen them in the wild have they seen them you know in in life or gone out and caught them or something um the name of the nephorus uh um oh my gosh i i love that kind of thing it's kind of a weird name It's reverting back to its Pleistocene Taxonomy That was for Nick Munn Yeah he likes that Pleistocene era Doesn't he That's his favorite time

He's always talking about Back in the Pleistocene Aeromanga Aeromanga Yeah the Aeromanga always talking about back in the place to see arrow manga the arrow manga yeah the arrow manga um spiny not uh knobtail gecko so i think that's the uh amy i arrow manga basin knobtail gecko that's what they're calling it so that's the common name so it's nephorus arrow manga uh anyway sorry i had to look it up. I couldn't remember it. Aeromanga.

I'm going to have to repeat that like 20 times. So they split it into a whole other – Yeah, so there was this big black soil plain in between the east and the west populations of asper. So there was kind of a gap in the distribution. The ones to the west look a little more reddish colored. The ones in the east have variable patterning, but they usually don't show that kind of reddish look to them. And so they almost look like a cross between an Asper and an and that you find these larger, redder spiny knobtails inland. And so, it wasn't a big surprise to some of the Australian guys that know their knobtails. I'm trying to think if we included this in the book.

I think we talked about maybe mostly about the uh cape york specimens the banded you know knobtails that look but there's some banded knobtails kind of from south of the but there there was some data that showed that there that those there could be other splits and that's what i was talking about so there is some distinction of the stuff way up the cape as well as at the bottom of the Cape compared to the stuff that's further South. So, you know, it's a big range and there's gaps and, and so things have time to kind of be in isolation, speciate. And then all of this is, it almost sounds like the East coast of carpet pipe pretty much, you know, similar, similar lines can be drawn. I guess maybe the

black soil planes, I don't know if they would stop a carpet, but I imagine they probably would. They'd be a little harder for a carpet to navigate across that. So you might have a similar break or something. And that probably separates the coastals or the Cheney Eye from whatever the whatever the desert inlands are the the the super inlands the the gammons and flinders range animals the super inlands so i don't know cool stuff that's gonna be the next morph you're gonna see gammons to be like, no, those are super inlands. That's a super form of metcalfi.

Let's not go there. I don't want to see that. But anyway. You started. Just remember, you said it. You started the whole thing. I do think, I mean, I think this paper, and it's called Po Pleistocene vicarians across the arid Australia in the spiny knobtail geckos nephorus Asper group with the description of a new species from Western Queensland.

And this is by Oliver Donnell and Donnell and gun. So that was just published like just barely, but you can access the whole article online. So it's kind of cool, but I think it was a well done paper. And I think, you know, this is a great example of, of the way taxonomy is done these days. You know, you find genetic morphological and, um, distribution differences. Um, if, uh, uh, biogeographical barriers involved all the better, you know, and that's kind of what we did. Well, we did do a little genetic work in the carpet book with Dr. Warren Booth.

So we tried to show those differences in genotype as well as phenotype and distribution. So I don't know. It'll be interesting to see what people think after they have a time to read the book and look at our reasoning and see if they agree with what we said. And that's the beauty of science too, is you don't necessarily have to agree with what comes out, but I guess it's kind of on a little bit on you to prove that wrong or show it's different, you know? And that becomes the trick is, you know, where, where I'm not a taxonomist, I can't really say, Oh, the children's Python paper or, you know,

the taxonomy paper was bad. And so, because. I mean, I don't, I don't think in that children's Python paper, you're arguing with the genetic, you know, findings there. I think you're just arguing with how they're, how they're, you know findings there i think you're just arguing with how they're how they're you know how their their their taxonomic model for arriving at that is is you know strictly genomic you know i mean if that's the case then you know is is is it reasonable to say that we need to have a you know completely redo taxonomy at a genomic level so everything is you know on the same page but you know stuff that was originally taxified taxonified

taxonomically designated thank you jesus i couldn't even say it. What, you know, it was originally more done phenotypically and, you know, scale counts and things like that. And now, you know, you're looking at genes. And, you know, so it's like, I don't know. It's interesting, too, because, you know, you think that like the genetics would be the end all be all. But I don't think it's that magic bullet that they because initially everybody was just sequencing things and trying to show oh it's different because of the genetics but i and it depends on which region you look in or how thorough you are or how thoroughly you look at the you know the and you, not all animals are under the same speciation pressures, right?

So animals that, you know, do not sit under heavy speciation pressures, their genes are not clocking at the same rate as something that's got a lot of pressure on it. So, you know, you might see heavy genetic difference between one population or another, but it has to be contextualized deeper than just this difference from this. Why? Why? That's my thing. It's like why? What are the other – what are the speciation pressures are happening there? Because it's not just – nobody – nature and the environment is not – it's a sliding scale all over the place for different reasons. And trying to make inferences around something when really looking at more of the puzzle will look like, any kind of differences in morphology. And, you know, this paper includes, you know, different measurements of like head size or arm length and things like that.

So it takes in these things into account and really makes it a very detailed and, you know, helpful analysis. So it's not just genetics, it's all these other things coming into play. detailed, and, you know, helpful analysis. So it's not just genetics. It's all these other things coming into play. And so, you know, if you don't have the funding or the, you know, instrumentation to run genetics, you know, yeah, you can say, ah, I don't like this paper, but it's really hard to, you know, show or publish something yourself without, you know, teaming up with a lab that has the same capabilities that that original group did. So and exactly. And if you have a lab that has genetic capabilities,

you're more likely to you, you know what I mean? Like it's, you know, again, it kind of goes to some of those biases I was talking about in the beginning. And, and you can see examples of them just based on what type of a researcher you might be, what your background might be, where you're, you know, how you, um, I will say you, you do have to have some kind, I mean, your, your bias, your, you know, initial bias is your hypothesis, right? You can say, this is how I think it's happening, but you have to be open to the fact that it may not be that way. And you have to be open to data that contradicts your hypothesis. And so, you know, obviously there are instances where that doesn't happen and the people ignore the data and go with their,

you know, what they want it to be and manipulate the data or, or try to fit it to, to match what they think. And that's, you know, that's when you get into scientific misconduct and people can have their credentials stripped and they can, you know, be fired from their jobs. And so I think it's, it's a rare thing. Um, does it happen? Yeah. But is it common? Probably not too common, you know, back to the children's Python paper, I don't think any of those researchers were committing acts of known biases. I don't think there was anything other stuff like the phenotypical differences, the scale count differences, other differences that they just kind of like. Well, that's why taxonomy is bunk. It's just so hard because they're making up what they want it to be, you know, almost like, you know, there's such a loose structure and such a such an ill-defined thing that you can pretty much say whatever you want as long as you have some data.

And I guess my point around that was if your background is in genetics and that is how, as a researcher, you're approaching maybe a taxonomic reclassification is with a background in genetics, then that's what you're going to focus on. But if you're a herpetologist, you know, who has, has, you know, is doing something around, you know, taxonomy, maybe you're looking at it from a different perspective, right? So that's what I mean, like, the biases of your background and how you approach it. And, you know, yes, they brought other factors in, but did they weighed those other factors as heavy as they did the genomic research that they did? Right. Yeah, that's the trick, I guess. And I believe. Yeah. So I'm not saying anybody's wrong here. I'm just saying, like, you know, I'm just trying to demonstrate what I'm talking about.

Like when you – there's all kinds of potential biases that – and I don't mean it as like malicious biases. They're just like things that like based on how you go at something, right? Like maybe you miss something or whatever. Yeah, and the authors, the gene jockey is the same guy on the Antaresia paper as on the Nefuras paper. So you've got Steve Dinellin that's doing the work for both papers. Undoubtedly, his genetic work is solid. Oh, I'm sure it is. It's just how you interpret that and your limits or whatever you set.

Exactly. It's not the genomic work that's the issue. It's how all that data is compiled and the conclusions that are made from it that maybe, did you include

other forms? Did you, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever. We've killed it. Yeah, I think so. So, I mean, just, I guess when you're reading things, just read with a grain of salt and kind of, you know, and we should use our own critical thinking skills to say, does this jive with what I have seen or with the data that I've collected? And we have to be able to tell ourselves, like, no, they're probably right.

Or I don't know. I think I differ with them in this regard. So we have to be able to kind of make those conclusions for ourselves sometimes. So, yeah, I mean, we do our best with, with what we have and that's what anybody does. I guess that's what these scientists are doing. Yeah. And science changes and that's the beauty of science is, is they can go back and say, no, we were wrong. Here's, here's how it is now. And that may change too, you know? So back in the day they were all Antaresesia children i so maybe we're just

headed back to that maybe they they missed the good old days when everything was just children taxonomy just rolls in big wide circles maybe these these guys just really hated stimson they just can't stand that guy and so they like we're stripping his name from these snakes. Who knows? But, you know, I doubt that's the case. The heathen shall not be. Yeah. So we – but there's a lot of things. And, I mean, we make strides and we make missteps, and that's science. I mean, people used to think the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth and things like that.

There are still people who think that the earth is flat. And now we're moving back into flat earth. Back to – yes. and things like that. There are still people who think that the Earth is flat. And now we're moving back into flat Earth. Which, you know, that's exactly what these guys are doing with Antaresia. They're going back to the flat Earth. Okay. I'm going to stop while I'm ahead. Justin wants to put them on a rocket to prove that they are wrong. Take them out to Western Australia.

I mean, they have pictures. They even have a picture of a pygmy banded python, I think, in here in this paper. But crazy. So, you know, we do the best we can with what we've got. So what do you do? But clearly some research does not sit well with the doctor. And that's the beauty of science, too, is you can disagree with it and you can try to generate hypotheses or your or your own interpretation where you know they they might have missed something but i don't know their

their their uh analysis was pretty deep i suppose so you know more power to them but what do you do well any other points we need to make? Any summary? We kind of went off on a tangent. We did. I think we had a great idea for a topic, and we just really talked into the cesspit about it. Yeah, hopefully you guys got something out of this, and it wasn't too painful. We were trying for a more focused approach to this, but maybe we focused in the wrong area. Thus going back to the biases that you know. So I think I would say in summary, like there is good data to be found from studies.

I think you need to understand what type of study it was and what kind of information you hope to glean from that study. And then, you know, you know, make sure that you know that nothing's ironclad that, you know, there's lots of ways to look at things or, you know, maybe it's a snapshot in time. Maybe they just did a study one or a couple months out of the year and then, you know, they missed a big window of activity or something. So they're, you know, their data set is limited so they can say, oh, we saw this at this time, but don't take that to mean that's all the animal does, you know, like dietary studies. If you're just looking at preserved specimens and they collected specimens, you know, in the summer, but their diet other times of the year is different, you know, or, or just during a couple months, you know, they only have a few samples. So

try not to over-interpret the data is I guess my point. And, uh, Yeah. And I think there's plenty of research that happens off the back of other research that comes up to find out that the research that they were, you know, basing their work off of was shite, you know, so, or different, you know, not shite, but you know, they, they found very different conclusions from what, you know, the previous research found, or even re but you know they they found very different conclusions from what you know the previous research found or even you know trying to reproduce somebody else's work and not being able to reproduce it so there's you know i mean this happens a lot so it's not one of those things where people should you know read a scientific anything and take it as, like you said, like it's the gospel because, you know, science is, you know, it's tough.

Yeah. And there's a lot of, you know, like anything, there's a lot of nuance to it, just like Fight Club. But get into the literature, read abstracts, read things, you know, look at the figures, look and see and see what they're looking at, you know, educate yourself. Don't just trust other people's word. I think that's a scary thing of our society these days is we just trust too much stuff, especially stuff on the internet. We just trust it without verifying, you know, it's, it's okay to question data and stuff like that. So, yeah, yeah, so that's, you know, the way it goes, but good times, good times. I need help. So, yeah. Um, I think, you know, we've pretty much covered what we were going to cover with this. Um, I hope everybody got something out of it. I, I feel like, you know, um, you gotta start somewhere when it comes to, to, to, to finding

information and, and finding research and scientific research. And, and, uh, you know, the more you read, the more, you know, you can, you know, a lot of, a lot of these papers are reference people referenced each other's work. And so, you know, get, get into those, get into those publications. I think, you know, again, as I said in the, in the beginning, you know, scientific research, peer reviewed research is the best form of, of knowledge that knowledge that we have put together as humans. And I think, you know, obviously everything is fallible. So you have to be a critical reader, a critical thinker, whether that's in your herp room,

observing your animals as a student of the serpent, or whether that's reading peer-reviewed research, always be thinking for yourself, always be trying to up your game and, you know, um, draw inferences from things that, that can help better you and, and, and, uh, man, don't be afraid to, uh, to, to publish yourself. If you have some, some insights and don't be afraid to be wrong. And, um, you know, that's, so, you know, being wrong is being right in a different sense. Right. Well said. Yeah. Yeah. Don't, don't be afraid to try to publish, get, you know, team up with somebody who knows how to publish or,

or just, you know, read the instructions for authors and figure it out on your own and do the best you can. I think that's why, of those journals like Herp Review is such a great journal because they take little observations. Like if you see something eating something strange, you know, oh, I saw a mulga eating a DOR death adder, you should publish that. And I'm speaking to myself because I did see that and I need to publish that. And so I just never have taken the opportunity, but we can publish those things and,

you know, citizen science is a real thing and, you know, get into it. So, all right, well, thanks for listening.

Hopefully, hopefully you got something out of all our rambling and ranting and, and, but I thought it was a decent discussion and hopefully you got some insight into publications and um we'll thank the npr radio network they're off enjoying themselves in australia so hope there it looks like they're finding a lot of good carpets and other reptiles so pretty sweet word i can't i cannot wait for the picture the picture yeah and the the recap the report of the trip so that'll be fun to listen to yeah check out all their stuff i guess they're

on hiatus for a bit until they get back and and but you know hopefully uh we'll get this show released i don't know if eric will be able to put it out there or not but um maybe he has a little i don't know if the mac and Wookiee is doing edits or what. I'm not sure how that's going to go. Contractually, I don't know if he's obligated. But check us out. I'm Justin Julander on Facebook or JG Julander on Instagram. My website's AustralianAddiction.com.

You can find information to order a book or a poster or an animal. Hit me up if you're interested in something. brilliant addiction.com and find information to order a book or a poster or an animal. Um, hit me up if you're interested in something. Um, but yeah, how about you, Chuck? Uh,

I am Chuck Norris wins on Instagram. You can find me on Facebook, uh, as Chuck Poland. Um, yeah, good stuff. All right.

Well, thanks for listening and we'll catch you again next week for, uh, another edition of repttile Fight Club. Don't forget, the Good Doctor's book is out. If you haven't gotten your copy, please do. Thank you. Bye.