punk turtle and friends

When that Australian turtle with the green mohawk (Mary River turtle, Elusor macrurus) became a media sensation, I realised that there was a fairly big conservation story behind it, namely an advance enabling researchers to classify endangered reptiles on the basis of both their threat level and their uniqueness in evolutionary terms. The acronym EDGE combines these two criteria, Evolutionary Distinctiveness and Global Endangerment.

The EDGE of existence project at the Zoological Society London, which has previously published EDGE rankings for mammals and birds, has now released one for reptiles, so I've written a feature covering both the metholodical progress that made this possible and a few prominent examples from the new list. My feature is out now:


Reptiles on the EDGE


Current Biology Volume 28, Issue 10, 21 May 2018, Pages R581–R584


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The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), a fish-eating crocodilian found in the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent, is among the 20 highest-priority reptile species in a ranking based on evolutionary distinctiveness and global endangerment. (Image: © Shivapratap Gopakumar/Flickr by a CC BY-ND 2.0 licence.)