To be fair, they are one of the cutest things in the world...
Sound on to hear their cute calls for food! 📢

All of this, under the constant threat of yellow-legged gulls (considered invasive in the Islands). The parents were attacking us while we were trying to find the amphisbaenians and their defense of their chicks got a bit too intense for us! 😅

When a PIT tag pings in the exact same spot for several days in a row, we usually fear the animal is dead. But when we carefully dug down to check on one, not only was the animal alive and well, but we also got a unique sight of the tunnel systems they use to move in the underground!

We also continued with our long-term monitoring project. We marked with pit tags close to 150 new individuals and recaptured another 100 on the islands of Isabel II and Rey. 🏝️📊

We kicked off the season in the Chafarinas Islands, working with the amphisbaenian Trogonophis wiegmanni. We sampled their chemical signals to understand how heavy metals impact their intraspecific communication in the fossorial environment. 🧪