Justin M. Bernstein

Very happy to announce that I will be continuing my #snake research as an Assistant Professor at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania Fall 2026! This is the start of the SERPNT Lab! 🐍 Thank you to the huge number of individuals that have made this possible!

So glad to have this published in the J. Biogeography! We use genomics to elucidate patterns of diversification and dispersal in the Indo-Australian Archipelago and reject notorious biogeographic hypotheses in the region! Amazing job to all of the coauthors. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

So excited to have this important work on Philippines biodiversity get accepted. Congratulations and many thanks to my colleagues and friends over seas for having me be a part of this! zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1673...

If you're a fan of #snakes, then check out all of the incredible talks this week through the links for Snake Week!

So proud of the student I've been mentoring, Soe, on her first publication! Check it out @HerpNotes to see some neat country level records on wolf snakes in Myanmar! herpetologynotes.org/index.php/hn...

Check out our new paper embracing the heterogeneity of whole genomes for understanding evolutionary processes! And it's on #snakes! Always a plus! Huge thank you to my collaborators @bwperry.bsky.social and many more! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I did something I thought was impossible. I cleared out my email of 11 years, 30,000 emails. Including an email from 3 years from myself with a link "how to clear your inbox and clean your email."

I'm amazed that even in torrential downpours and flash floods, these guys still manage to hang onto branches or even just sit atop leaves. Pseudogekko and Cyrtodactylus in the Philippines

Rain and flash floods really bringing out the #frogs! This Rhacophorus was nearly white a few minutes before this photo

I'm a snake guy, but I can't not post some of the other beautiful species we see here in the Philippines, like this Kaloula! Check out those toes!

Another successful symposium in the Philippines! Doing these kinds of events between field research expeditions is imperative for local communities and academics to be aware of and understand why we do what we do!

Amazing elevation and landscapes in the Philippines, and beautiful species!

We hosted a seminar day specifically discussing research and enhancing student and local community awareness on #snake #biodiversity and education in the Philippines. A major success and the start of work to come! A huge thank you to FSUU, my collaborations, and all those that attended! 🧬

Awesome work by the team for getting Editor's Choice on our paper (doi.org/10.1093/jher...) in Journal of Heredity! Was so fun co-leading with Jackson Roberts🐍#genomics

A lot of exciting genomic work in my last year, but it's also exciting to get some really fun projects with collaborators done as well! More Mud #Snake research on the rise! mapress.com/zt/article/v...

Calliophis intestinalis, a beautiful coral snake in Asia that has amazing, colorful defensive displays. Highly venomous and a master of dramatically playing dead (notice the head tilt in the photo of it completely upsidedown, showing the black and white belly). #WCH10

I'm a #snake guy, but who wouldn't be fascinated by the giant stick insects in Malaysia. But here are green snakes to compensate anyways. #WCH10 #Borneo

The #WCH10 in Borneo has been incredible. With incredible wildlife of all types. I'll post some throughout, and end it with the best part of it all, the people I've gotten to see. To start, here is this beautiful forest dragon (Gonocephalus) with it's stunning eyes

Sad to be leaving #Evol2024 early, but it's time to head to Kuching for @WCHerp #WCH10! No title slide for my talk on diversity drivers of some Southeast Asian snakes, so here is a beautiful Myrrophis that will be in the talk! Credit to Artur Tomaszek in Hong Kong for the photo

Excited to talk about our rattlesnake transcriptomics research at #Evol2024! Come check my talk out on Saturday the 27th if you're interested in hybrids and genomes!

Woohoo! Our study is finally out, providing short-read whole #genomes for 18 #snake families! 🐍🧬 . Check it out here: academic.oup.com/jhered/advan.... Great work with @Sara_and_Snakes and all of our other collaborators and Iridian Genomes.

While I work on some genomics projects, I'm really excited to have been able to contribute to this book on aquatic #snakes! Ebook (and eventually limited prints) available at: herpconservation.com/book-fundrai...

And here it is! Our study identifies both inland tectonic and environmental factors as the likely drivers of diversification in rice paddy #snakes. This contrasts from common diversification paradigms of sea-level fluctuations in Asia. Now in Scientific Reports! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

After many years of collaborations, our newest paper describing poorly-studied biogeographic paradigms for Southeast Asian snakes will be published! Watch this space!

A tad late on posting this from the summer, but thank you to ASIH for the award! It is such an honor and I'm proud to contribute to what we know (and don't know) on Southeast Asian snake biodiversity!

Starting off the morning with some high throughout brewing

A new paper by Drew Duckett compares different sets of data for some common analyses and finds that SNPs collected via GBS or ddRAD give us nearly the same answer as whole genomic data in a montane vole. journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Time for an introduction! I am an NSF Postdoc at the University of Texas at Arlington. My work primarily utilizes genomic data to study snake evolution from all parts of the globe, with a big focus on Southeast Asia, and as of recently, rattlesnakes! 🐍