Meet your guest blogger

From tomorrow through March 9, I’ll be sailing the Caribbean and lecturing on a Scientific American “Insights” cruise, bound for the islands, Costa Rica, and Panama (tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it). So that you’re not deprived here of matters evolutionary, I’ve asked my friend and colleague Dr. Greg Mayer, an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, to fill in for me, and he’s kindly agreed. Greg is also Adjunct Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians at the University of Wisconsin Zoological Museum and Field Associate in the Department of Zoology of the Field Museum of Natural History. He did his undergraduate work at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and received his masters and doctoral degrees in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University. After his graduate work, Greg did postdoctoral research at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, and at the University of Wisconsin Zoological Museum. His research and teaching have taken him to many places, including Central America, South America, throughout the West Indies, and to Darwin’s own enchanted isles, the Galapagos.

I have known Greg since he was an undergrad at Stony Brook. He’s not only deeply read in evolutionary biology, but also a tireless opponent of creationism and an excellent writer. I should add that he is co-author of a paper called “The platypus is not a rodent.”

Please welcome Greg and do follow his posts over the next ten days or so. Here he is in Costa Rica collecting reptiles (blue bag at his waist):