Newsletter of
The Minnesota S I o c Volume 22 Number 4
APlil2002
Jon Weins is assistant curator of Amphibians and Reptiles at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and editor of the book Phylogenetic Analysis of Morphological Data published by By Tony Gamble Smithsonian Institution Press. His research interests are on the theory May General Meeting and methods of phylogeny reconFriday, May 3, 2002 7:00 pm struction, the use of phylogenies to answer questions in evolutionary Program: biology, and the phylogeny and evoTreasures of the Sierra Madre: lution of reptiles and amphibians. He continues to look into the evolution of sex, color, and evolution in the iguanid lizards and he is beginning a Mexican long-term project to reconstruct the spiny lizard (See/oporus jar - evolutionary history of the major rovit) groups salamanders.
Upcoming Meeting The Vice-president's report
Guest Speaker' 路路 Jo hn Wems The
Mexican
spiny
Reptile and Amphibian Art Work Needed for April's Meeting
The membership will be Voting on both Bumpersticker and T-shirt Ark Work during April's general meeting. If you have any submissions please bring them to April's meeting. If you have any questions please contact Nancy John is a great speaker and his talk Hakomaki at 651.631.1380 or . tures. . WI'11 be fuII 0 f racy I'Izard PIC Marilyn Blasus at 952.925.4237 Don't miss it! lizard .---_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _--'--'_ _ _ _--,
(Sceloporus jarrovit), as traditionally recognized, exhibits amazing geographic variation and sexual dimorphism in color. The species contains seven subspecies found in the mountains and deserts of the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico. Whereas females are typically dull brown or gray, in males the range of basic colors among populations is almost as great as the range of colors among all species of reptiles (i.e., red, black, green, yellow, brown, blue). John's work on Sce/oporus jarrovii focuses on using molecular phylogenetic techniques to investigate the evolution of male color morphs and species boundaries in the Sceloporus jarrovii complex, and tries to address the possible role of sexual selection in the origin of new species.
MHS Newsletter Editor is Resigning, Plus Big Change in Rodent Sales
'---------------------------1 First thing is first... I am signing from the Newsletter Editor. My personal and professional life is making harder for me to for fill my position as newsletter editor. So the best thing for the Society is for me to resign and let someone else carry on this very important role. The newsletter is the MHS's best tool of communication to the whole society plus masses outside of the society. If you are interested in filling these shoes then please give myself a call1email or any other board member. I do plan to stay very active in MHS activies and events so you'll all see me around. I'd like to thank all of those individuals who have submitted countless articles and those who submitted original pieces to the newsletter in the past year and a half. Again thank you! - Heather Matson Secondly... Tina Cisewski has also resigned from her position as Rodent Sales Chairperson. Jody Holmstrom will be taking her place starting in May. If you have any Orders to place please through Jody either email jodyalso@yahoo or phone 651.224.7212