6/ and spaghetti like blindsnakes, like this Pilbara blindsnake, tend to occur in hotter + dryer areas with harder soil substrate. 📸 Stephen Zozaya

5/ So we asked whether the morphological diversity is correlated with their current environmental niche? 🤔

We found that sasaugey blindsnakes, like this robust blindsnake, tend to occur in areas that are cooler, wetter, with softer soil. 📸 Scott Macor

2/ Blindsnakes aren't actualyl blind, they just have very reduced eyes covered by scales because they spend most of the time underground....

1/ First, in 🇦🇺 spags = spaghetti and snags = saugages. I think they're pretty good descriptions of the variation in body shape/size of blindsnakes.

The "Spags🍝 and snags🌭" study is officially out in @journal-evo.bsky.social

w/ @alexskeels.bsky.social and Scott Keogh

Shout out to Stephen Zozaya for this amazing photo
of the Kimberley shallow-soil blindsnake

Check it out at: academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

more in this series of post 👇

Wrapping the year with #AusEvo2023 in Adelaide. This conference never dissappoints. Thanks to all the Exec committee for making it happen!

Had a wonderful time at my first full Australian Society of Herpetologist (ASH) meeting in Townsville. Here are some photos from arid geckos near Winton.