Research: Professor Mark O’Shea

FROM WOLVERHAMPTON TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH... AND BACK AGAIN

–Professor Mark O’Shea is always ready for an adventure.

A lifelong snake enthusiast – he built up a collection of 200 when he was still living with his parents in their Wolverhampton home in the 1970s– Mark now teaches on the University’s Animal Behaviour and Wildlife Conservation courses and conducts herpetological research.

TURNING YOUR HOBBY INTO A CAREER

Since graduating in 1985 from the-then Wolverhampton Polytechnic as a mature student with a BSc (Hons) in Applied Sciences, he has enjoyed a long and varied career, being author of six books, including the recently published The Book of Snakes, TV presenter and photographer.

“Coming to the polytechnic started me on my academic life and it armed me with the tools I needed,” he says. “It made me think outside of the box and gave me the ability to question, and ultimately transformed me from a reptile keeper into a reptile scientist. The University of Wolverhampton is an excellent institution that gave someone like me, who hadn’t followed a conventional schooling route, the opportunity to have an academic career.”

Fieldwork has always been his passion: he even took a year out of his degree to organise an expedition to Borneo. Early outings include searching for British snakes through to expeditions to the tropics for Raleigh Executive, Discovery Expeditions and the Royal Geographical Society and three Operation Raleigh expeditions, on which he was scientific directing staff.

Since his early days, he has worked on numerous tropical expeditions, including snakebite research projects in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Sri Lanka and Myanmar, working with toxicologists and medical clinicians from the Universities of Oxford, Liverpool, Melbourne and Adelaide. He also co-led a team surveying the entire reptile and amphibian fauna of TimorLeste, Asia’s newest country.

Mark also presented four seasons of the internationally acclaimed O’Shea’s Big Adventure for Animal Planet and Channel 4 between 1999 and 2003, and also presented films for the BBC, ITV and Discovery Channel.

But fieldwork has not been without its dangers: he has almost drowned at sea twice, has had malaria six times, Dengue fever twice, and Onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness. Mark also understands snakebite both as researcher and victim having been hospitalised by snakebites several times. His most serious was a bite from a large canebrake rattlesnake at West Midland Safari Park, where he worked as Curator of Reptiles for 33 years.

For Mark, who was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Sciences in 2001 for his contributions to herpetology and was appointed Professor of Herpetology in 2018, snakebite is an occupation hazard but one he prefers to avoid.

The prize of describing new species and learning more about snakes is what matters – as does the urgent need to ensure antivenom is available to the inhabitants of developing countries, such as PNG.

“Snakebites deserve more attention in the West,” he says. “Around the world, up to 138,000 people die from snakebites every year and a further 400,000 are permanently physically disabled by their bites, and many more are affected mentally and financially. As many people die from snakebites in a single month, every month, as died from Ebola in 26 months.

“Snakebite is primarily a disease that afflicts poor people in developing countries. Unlike Ebola, you can’t catch snakebite and bring it back home, so people in the West tend to ignore it, but it’s never been more important to find an antidote to snakebite.”

For an herpetologist, one of the biggest honours that can be conferred is having a species named after you, and in 2018, Cylindrophis osheai – also known as O’Shea’s pipesnake – from Boano Island, near Seram, Indonesia, was described.

So, what is next for the intrepid explorer and snake expert? As well as speaking at international conferences and symposia, he is revising his field guide to snakes of Papua New Guinea, which was first published in 1996, teaching undergraduates and postgraduates and is working to expand herpetology at the University. And with a fellow University of Wolverhampton herpetologist and conservation geneticist, Simon Maddock, another expedition to PNG is planned, this time to work on the seasnakes off the north coast.

“Wolverhampton is my city and I thoroughly enjoy being at the University,” he says. “When you turn your hobby into a career, it might cease to be your hobby, but it’s still fun. I like going to work.”