Lecture: Snake and lizards through time: what fossils and molecular data can (and cannot) tell us

Speaker: Dr. Catherine Klein, formerly of the University of Bath

Entry Fee

Members: Free

Visitors: Book via Eventbrite

Date and Time

19:00 -

Location

Virtual Talk via Zoom


Lecture Description

Squamates (snakes, lizards and amphisbaenians) are represented by over 10,000 living species, with a rich diversity of ecologies and life history traits. They split from their closest relatives some 250 million years ago, and as a group have survived several large environmental upheavals, notably the Jurassic-Cretaceous extinction event, the Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K-Pg) mass extinction, and the Eocene-Oligocene (E-O) cooling event.

Dr. Catherine Klein was recently awarded a PhD from the University of Bath for her work on the Mass Extinction and Adaptive Radiation of Lizards and Snakes. Her work was based on evidence from the fossil record and molecular data. Using molecular clock analyses to show how squamates diversified through time and responded at times when other fauna experienced elevated rates of extinction.