Natural History Club at San Diego State University

Body snatcher! Not only is it a horror movie classic, it’s also the topic of today’s club meeting come learn about some creepy critters at 5pm in LSN 269!! Food and drink are also provided

NHC will be at Balboa Park today from 11am-3pm for the City Nature Challenge! Come say hi, check out the events, and record the species that you see Hope to see you there!!

Hello zoology club members! Our next meeting is TODAY at 5pm We’ll have pizza for you all, as well as some ways exciting ways to document the flora and fauna you see every day! Please bring $10 for club dues so we can continue planning some great events, & we’ll see you there!

The NHC is going camping!! Join us in observing Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve's many species From 12:00pm on Saturday, April 7th, to 12:00pm Sunday, April 8th, we will be on a mission to find, identify, and log as many organisms as possible.... Participants are able to join us any time between these hours, HOWEVER, you must sign a liability waiver to do so! Also, note that the property is locked -- you must tell us you are coming so we can let you in. If you would like to stay for the full event, we will be camping overnight at the field station. SMER is an SDSU-owned property and is not open to the public. Don't miss this great opportunity to explore native plants and wildlife in a preserved ecosystem! If you are interested, please email us at naturalhistorysdsu 'at' gmail 'dot' com and we can get the waiver & event details to you. We hope to hear from you!

Our mission is to educate the community on topics related to the natural history of southern California. We aim to do this via monthly meetings, guest seminars, and field outings led by local wildlife biologists and naturalists.

Fauna del Noroeste is having a workshop on Baja California Amphibians and Reptiles including a trip to Sierra San Pendro Martir! This would be great for the resume! https://www.faunadelnoroeste.org/noticias/

Hundreds of Cedar Waxwings on campus this morning

Body snatcher! Not only is it a horror movie classic, it’s also the topic of today’s club meeting come learn about some creepy critters at 5pm in LSN 269!! Food and drink are also provided

Hello zoology club members! Our next meeting is TODAY at 5pm We’ll have pizza for you all, as well as some ways exciting ways to document the flora and fauna you see every day! Please bring $10 for club dues so we can continue planning some great events, & we’ll see you there!

This NYT article is relevant to the club and the important experiences we help provide

Reminder: our last field trip of the year is here! For the last day of the City Nature Challenge, the NHC is hosting a grunion run TONIGHT at 10:15pm If you would like to car pool, you can meet us at Lot 16/A on campus by 9:15pm. Or if you catch your own ride, find us at 8300 Camino Del Oro by 9:45 so we can walk down to the shore. ... Be sure to grab your jeans, jackets, and flashlights. We’ll see you there!

NHC will be at Balboa Park today from 11am-3pm for the City Nature Challenge! Come say hi, check out the events, and record the species that you see Hope to see you there!!

The NHC is going camping!! Join us in observing Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve's many species From 12:00pm on Saturday, April 7th, to 12:00pm Sunday, April 8th, we will be on a mission to find, identify, and log as many organisms as possible.... Participants are able to join us any time between these hours, HOWEVER, you must sign a liability waiver to do so! Also, note that the property is locked -- you must tell us you are coming so we can let you in. If you would like to stay for the full event, we will be camping overnight at the field station. SMER is an SDSU-owned property and is not open to the public. Don't miss this great opportunity to explore native plants and wildlife in a preserved ecosystem! If you are interested, please email us at naturalhistorysdsu 'at' gmail 'dot' com and we can get the waiver & event details to you. We hope to hear from you!

Hello everyone! Are you ready for some friendly competition? Join us TODAY from 3pm to 6pm for our kickball match -- more info below!! -We will be meeting at 2:45 in front of the ARC -Please bring water, athletic attire, and running shoes -If you can, bring one plain and one colorful shirt to help clarify teams... -Feel free to bring your friends with you!! See more

A few days ago, we lost the late great Ernest Karlstrom (1928-2018). Ernie was an early student of Robert Stebbins at UC Berkeley, whose indelible impact on California herpetology is still felt today. Ernie’s work on Yosemite toads embodied the passion of his lab for natural history and evolution. For those unfamiliar, the YoToad is a shining beacon for curious minds, a squishy denizen of a rugged montane wilderness, and an evolutionary relict of an earlier time when glaciers... scoured California. Ernie was arguably the first to shed substantial light on this beautiful, sonorous oddity, although his work would not have been possible without that of Joseph Grinnell, and his two students Charles Camp and Tracy Storer, between 1916 and 1925. After finishing his dissertation in 1956, Ernie published his research in his 1962 book entitled The toad genus Bufo in the Sierra Nevada of California. This deceptively simple title belies some of the best and earliest natural history observations of the YoToad’s growth, development, physiological relations with the environment, and phenology. However he went much further, and delved into its bizarre adaptations for montane life. He carefully observed its evolved mating trill, size, and pigmentation (YoToads are by far the most sexually dichromatic anurans in North America). He quantified how its close relative the boreal toad exhibits convergent adaptive traits in higher latitude regions such as Montana, Canada, and Alaska. He catalogued areas of sympatry between the two species, but noticed how they rarely co-occur. And he came up with some tantalizing hypotheses for how speciation in Sierra Nevada toads has progressed, ascribing similar processes in the local frogs and salamanders. Perhaps most importantly, Ernie opened up a window for numerous other graduate students, allowing them to journey into this amphibian’s world, and quench their own scientific curiosity. By my count, 9 students have completed their theses or dissertations on YoToad topics: Wood 1977 MS, Sherman 1980 PhD, Stephens 2001 MS, Grasso 2005 MS, Martin 2008 PhD, Pauly PhD 2008, Nelson 2008 MS, Liang 2010 PhD, Dodge 2012 MS. Two others are not far behind: Maier PhD and Lindauer MS, planned completion in 2018. Although I am very saddened to hear of his passing, Ernie had such a positive influence on so many people that his life should be celebrated. He spent much of the rest of his life teaching (37 years, mostly at University of Puget Sound), studying recolonization of Mt. Saint Helens, being a loving husband to his wife Marilyn (also a teacher and naturalist), and staying engaged with natural science organizations until the end. I wanted to share my feelings about the greatness of this guy, since his work had such a strong influence on my own doctorate. RIP Ernie, you will be greatly missed. --Paul Maier See more

Casey Richart and Dr. Kevin Burns recently wrote a short article on birding SDSU. The article is on page 10. I hope more natural history was part of y'alls 2018 resolutions! http://retire.sdsu.edu/newsletterPS/Fall_Winter2017.pdf

Check out this beautiful T-shirt, a perfect gift in time for the holidays! The artwork (by Nathalie Aall) commemorates the Tandayapa Andean toad (Rhaebo olallai), one of the rarest amphibians in the world. Rediscovered after 40 years of "extinction" -- and occupying just 100 meters of threatened Ecuadorian streams -- this species needs your help. Proceeds will be given to The Biodiversity Group for eDNA work.

Seems pretty cool! Perhaps useful on our tide-pooling trips :-)

Don't forget guys: graduate discussion panel from 4-5 pm in LSN 101 tomorrow to go over tips/tricks into applying and succeeding in your dream graduate program! :)