Episode 71: Talking Tuatara with Sarah Lamar

10/13/22 • 95 min

1 Listener

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Seventy One! Here it is, mid-October and the fall rains are soaking us here at SMP world headquarters. As always, I want to say thank you to all of the show’s patrons, including Brandon Bourassa, who came in at one Patreon level and recently went up to the next level – thank you Brandon, I appreciate that. I also want to give a shout out to our newest patron, Christian Diederich, who made a one-time contribution via Venmo. Thank you so much, Christian, and it was fun hearing about your recent experiences with rainbow snakes. Christian spotted a neonate rainbow snake while driving 55 on a highway at night, which is pretty cool. It got me thinking about my own rainbow snake sighting, which was 25 years ago and I haven’t seen one since. It was suggested that maybe I should herp better. I took a peek at some of the show’s stats this week, I don’t do this often, because it’s easy to obsess over numbers and guess what? 42 thousand listens to date. I think that’s an amazing number and I appreciate everyone’s help in getting here. Our show this week features a conversation with Sarah Lamar, a doctoral candidate at the Victoria University of Wellington in Wellington, New Zealand. It's amazing to me that I can talk with someone on the other side of the planet with relatively little effort at all. Sarah's research brings her into close contact with those amazing rhynchocephalians (see photo) and I thoroughly enjoyed our talk. Thanks for coming on the show, Sarah! It was so much fun. And thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is [email protected], and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, methods for opening your third eye, tips for herping better, etc. Cheers! Mike

Previous Episode

Episode 70: Panel Talk with Some Illinois Bois

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Seventy! It's nearly October and I hope all of you remain safe and healthy out there. It’s good to be talking with you all again after a bit of a gap – I had a lot on my plate for the past few weeks. You’re probably thinking that an old retired guy ought to have plenty of free time, and usually that is true enough. But I recently started doing some half-time consulting work for my old department at the university, and I’ll be working there for just a few months or so. A temporary thing, I have no desire to rekindle a career. So thanks for your patience while I worked all of that out and got started. As always, a big thank you to all of the show’s supporters – there are costs associated with running any entertainment channel and I am grateful to all of you for keeping this little boat afloat. And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to [email protected]). Here we go with another panel discussion show! I haven't done one in a while, and I came up with the notion of getting a group together to talk about herping in my home state. Jeremy Schumacher and Justin Michels return to the microphone for this, and I’m happy that Joey Cavataio agreed to join us, so we've got representation from the north, south, east, and west corners of the state. Thanks Jeremy, Justin and Joey - it was fun chatting with the three of you. And thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is [email protected], and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, dolomite prairies near you, tips for herping better, etc. Cheers! Mike

Next Episode

Episode 72: Weird Tales from the Field

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Seventy Two! It's the day before Halloween, an appropriate time to release these tales of strange occurrences from the world of field herping. As always, I want to say thank you to all of the show’s patrons, including our newest Patreon member Brad Allen! Thank you so much Brad, and I appreciated your note as well. I’m grateful for everyone’s contributions and it does keep the show rolling along. And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to [email protected]). This week's show came out of a suggestion from someone (I can't recall who) last fall to do a show on the weird/creepy/spooky/unusual things that happen out in the field. I began soliciting stories and recorded the first of them back in January, and the last was recorded a few weeks ago. I want to say thanks to everyone who contributed to this episode – Matt Ratcliffe, Jake Scott and his alleged litter robot, John Burris, Tim Warfel, Matt Cage, Jeff Martineau, Rob Kreutzer, Pat Kain, and Bryan Hughes. I also want to thank the folks who sent in stories that I couldn't include for one reason or another. Thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is [email protected], and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, lifting curses cast by Hungarian witches, tips for herping better, etc. -Mike