Welcome to the wonderful world of herpetology!

Hey everyone and welcome to my website! My name is Steve and I am an eccentric and passionate herpetologist based in the UK, although my fieldwork and research has taken me all over the globe. I grew up not far from London and fell in love with the limited diversity of British herpetofauna as a small boy. I have always had an affinity for the natural world and thankfully I have been able to develop this passion into my career.

Growing up, I would always be outside chasing frogs or trying to photograph lizards (among other wildlife), which helped to plant the seeds for my future profession. As I grew older, I started to pursue this fascination more through my academic studies. Most recently this culminated in a PhD at the University of Kent. You can find out more about my story on the About Me page which is both a fun insight into my life as well as a comprehensive list of my affiliations and achievements. If you have any questions then please use the Contact page to get in touch!

My view is that the impoverished herpetofauna of the British Isles are a greatly undervalued group of animals, that when understood can bring enjoyment to anyone, especially those that love the outdoors and nature. They have provided me with countless hours of joy even before I started to study them. Unfortunately there are huge gaps in our knowledge as to their ecology, behaviour and conservation. It very much seems to me that whilst ecologists and biologists were out exploring the British Empire, they neglected the wildlife found in their own back gardens. Thankfully we have made huge progress in the past 50 years but there is still so much that needs to be done! I hope that with this website I willl be able to help enthuse you about their study as well as inform you about my personal journey through academia and share stories about the projects I have been involved with.

Below you can find quick links to some of the more important pages on my website. I intend to post more content regularly on my blog, so keep an eye out for that too. Just click on the images to be taken to the relevant pages.

Research

Fieldwork

SciComm

Blog

Publications

Useful Links

Patreon

Podcasts

In The News

My Videos

In 2019 I started making videos and uploading them to YouTube with the topics very much relating to my research and herpetological observations. I aim to upload a video once a month but this does not always happen. I would also like to collaborate with other suitable YouTubers in the future once I have grown the channel more. I hope you like my videos, if so please leave a comments and subscribe to be kept updated when I upload new content!