Notes from the transect and the bench.
Short pieces on method, species and the ordinary business of doing biology — written for anyone curious, not only for specialists.
- 14 August 2026Bench
What a Toe Bone Remembers
A lizard will not tell you how old it is, and it does not have to. The bone in a single toe keeps the record for you — one thin line for every winter it survived.
Method · Skeletochronology
4 min - 02 June 2026Karamenderes Valley, Çanakkale
A Gorge That Keeps Things
Araplar Gorge is narrow, shaded and fed by water in a valley that is otherwise ploughed. Survey it for a season and you learn what a refuge actually is.
Fieldwork · Faunistics
4 min - 18 April 2026Anatolia
Three Lizards, Three Clocks
Lacerta trilineata, Parvilacerta parva and Ophisops elegans share Anatolian hillsides but not a life-history strategy. Comparing how they age is a way of asking what size costs.
Species · Skeletochronology · Lacertidae
4 min - 09 February 2026Ankara
From the Gorge to the Bench
I went from counting growth lines in lizard bone to reading urine sediment in a public health laboratory. The specimen changed completely. The discipline did not change at all.
Laboratory · Method
3 min