Dr. John Peterson

04/26/2024

A decade of building this program with Becky Doyle-Morin and Ryan Haasl. So many amazing students that share our love of animals and public outreach 😊

02/26/2024

Behind the scenes. A day in A Chorus Line rehearsals. So much fun! 🤩

01/24/2024

New episode of The Herpetologist. How do turtles survive winter? They breathe through their butt… 🐢🥶. I also have a blog post with more https://johndpetersonphd.wordpress.com/2024/01/12/breathing-in-human-embryos-and-hibernating-turtles/

01/20/2024

People always ask what I carry in my backpack… well now you know

01/18/2024

A snake that loses its spots. When the North American Racer (Coluber constrictor) is born, it looks nothing like its mother. It is cream-colored with beautiful red blotches for its first two years of life. After those formative years, the snake becomes a solid blueish-gray color with a yellow throat. But why? Read on at: https://johndpetersonphd.wordpress.com/2024/01/17/a-snake-that-loses-its-spots/

01/16/2024

I’m glad you asked and I’ll be honest. Here at my university, we don’t have class from Dec 26th through Jan 22nd. We have a short three week semester, called winterim where students take a three credit class on campus or abroad. I don’t ever teach these classes. Technically, our break ends two weeks before class, so we get a two week break if we don’t teach winterim....

I’m glad you asked and I’ll be honest. Here at my university, we don’t have class from Dec 26th through Jan 22nd. We have a short three week semester, called winterim where students take a three cr…

01/15/2024

What I say to the toy store manager…

01/14/2024

You might think about blue frogs and blue reptiles in tropical areas, but I’ve encountered both in Wisconsin, of all places. If you’ve seen one green frog, you’ve seen them all. Not so. I remember learning about blue green frogs from Jim Harding during my college herpetology class at Michigan State University. I never thought I would ever see one in the wild....

You might think about blue frogs and blue reptiles in tropical areas, but I’ve encountered both in Wisconsin, of all places. If you’ve seen one green frog, you’ve seen them all. Not so. I remember …

01/13/2024

“Failure” #2 After our “failure” with Katie’s box turtle debacle (see part 1), we regrouped and thought about river turtles. We devised a route that Katie could drive along the Mississippi and Wisconsin Rivers in a big loop and look for turtles basking. One of the locations I knew we could find river turtles Turtles bask to increase body temperature....

“Failure” #2 After our “failure” with Katie’s box turtle debacle (see part 1), we regrouped and thought about river turtles. We devised a route that Katie could drive along the Mississippi and Wisc…

01/13/2024

I’m officially a YouTuber… 🤦🏻‍♂️ 🦎 🦖 🏰 🇬🇧

I found a real, live Dimetrodon outside of castle in the UK

01/12/2024

All cells require oxygen, from turtles to humans, but how does an embryo get oxygen before there is a placenta or lungs? How do turtles breathe when their ponds ice over? The answer is more than skin deep. Hibernating turtles I was waist deep in murky water when I stepped on a rock. I was leading a field trip for my amphibians and reptiles of Wisconsin course, so I was hoping this rock was something more exciting....

All cells require oxygen, from turtles to humans, but how does an embryo get oxygen before there is a placenta or lungs? How do turtles breathe when their ponds ice over? The answer is more than sk…