Christopher C. Austin
Professor, Curator of Herpetology Louisiana State University
- Baton Rouge LA
Dr. Austin’s research focuses on evolutionary systematics, biogeography, and conservation of reptiles and amphibians.
Areas of Expertise
Research Focus
Herpetofaunal Systematics & Island Biogeography
Dr. Austin’s research focuses on evolutionary systematics, biogeography, and conservation of reptiles and amphibians, especially the rich faunas of New Guinea and Southeast Asia. He integrates field expeditions, genomic phylogenetics, and museum-collection phenomics to uncover cryptic species, map island diversification, and guide global herpetofaunal conservation.
Education
University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D.
Media Appearances
Spring mating drives turtles from the LSU Lakes into the dangerous road. How locals are trying to solve it
LSU Reveille online
2025-06-09
Christopher C. Austin, curator of herpetology at the LSU Museum of Natural Science, said common snapping turtles, alligator snapping turtles, softshell turtles, red-eared sliders, mud turtles and musk turtles live and breed in the lakes. Nesting season for these species starts in April and ends in July.
“They are like Goldilocks – not too dry or wet, but just perfect,” Austin said, describing turtles’ selective search for nesting grounds.
Living a Childhood Dream: Q&A with Dr. Christopher Austin
Louisiana State University online
2022-12-06
As Director of the LSU Museum of Natural Science and Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles, Dr. Christopher Austin is living a childhood dream of being able to learn something new about the natural world every day. Located in Foster Hall on LSU’s flagship campus, the museum houses one of the largest university-based collection of birds in the world and the largest collection of genetic resources (DNA samples) in the world, attracting graduate students from all over the globe to conduct research with its premier research staff.
Why Do Some Lizards Have Green Blood?
NPR radio
2018-05-16
The weird blood has been found in skinks that live in New Guinea, an island off of Australia, and its bright color is striking. "There's so much green pigment in the blood that it overshadows the brilliant crimson coloration of red blood cells," says Chris Austin, a biologist at Louisiana State University who has studied these lizards for decades. "The bones are green, the muscles are green, the tissues are green, the tongue and mucosal lining is green."
Articles
Whole snake genomes from eighteen families of snakes (Serpentes: Caenophidia) and their applications to systematics
Journal of Heredity2024
We present genome assemblies for 18 snake species representing 18 families (Serpentes: Caenophidia): Acrochordus granulatus, Aparallactus werneri, Boaedon fuliginosus, Calamaria suluensis, Cerberus rynchops, Grayia smithii, Imantodes cenchoa, Mimophis mahfalensis, Oxyrhabdium leporinum, Pareas carinatus, Psammodynastes pulverulentus, Pseudoxenodon macrops, Pseudoxyrhopus heterurus, Sibynophis collaris, Stegonotus admiraltiensis, Toxicocalamus goodenoughensis, Trimeresurus albolabris, and Tropidonophis doriae.
VenomCap: An exon‐capture probe set for the targeted sequencing of snake venom genes
Molecular Ecology Resources2024
Snake venoms are complex mixtures of toxic proteins that hold significant medical, pharmacological and evolutionary interest. To better understand the genetic diversity underlying snake venoms, we developed VenomCap, a novel exon‐capture probe set targeting toxin‐coding genes from a wide range of elapid snakes, with a particular focus on the ecologically diverse and medically important subfamily Hydrophiinae. We tested the capture success of VenomCap across 24 species, representing all major elapid lineages. We included snake phylogenomic probes in the VenomCap capture set, allowing us to compare capture performance between venom and phylogenomic loci and to infer elapid phylogenetic relationships.
Systematics and biogeography of a Sunda-Papuan snake lineage (Natricidae: Tropidonophis Jan 1863)
Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society2024
Sunda-Papuan keelback snakes (Serpentes: Natricidae: Tropidonophis Jan 1863) include 20 species distributed from the Philippines south-east through the Moluccas to New Guinea and Australia. Diversity of this insular snake lineage peaks on the island of New Guinea. Previous phylogenetic studies incorporating Tropidonophis have been limited to multi-locus Sanger-sequenced datasets with broad squamate or family-level focus. We used a targeted-sequence capture approach to sequence thousands of nuclear ultraconserved elements (UCEs) to construct the most comprehensive sequence-based phylogenetic hypothesis for this genus and estimate ancestral biogeography.
Lineage diversity in a Melanesian lizard radiation (Gekkonidae: Nactus) further highlights exceptional diversity and endemism in eastern Papua New Guinea
Organisms Diversity & Evolution2024
New Guinea and surrounding islands are home to some of the richest assemblages of insular biodiversity in the world. The key geological drivers of species richness in this region are largely considered to be mountain uplift and development of offshore archipelagos—some of which have accreted onto New Guinea—with the role of mountain uplift and elevational gradients receiving more attention than the role of isolation on islands. Here, we examine the distribution of lineage richness and body-size diversity in a radiation of Melanesian lizards that is almost entirely absent from montane habitats but closely associated with islands—the geckos of the genus Nactus.
The Contemporary Distribution of Scincine Lizards Does Not Reflect Their Biogeographic Origin
Journal of Biogeography2025
We assess the systematic relationships and historical biogeographic patterns in the subfamily Scincinae, a group of lizards that primarily inhabits the Afro‐Madagascan and Saharo‐Arabian regions with isolated lineages in Europe, North America, East Asia, India and Sri Lanka. The contemporary distribution of these lineages on the historical Laurasian and Gondwanan landmasses make scincines an ideal system to study the roles of vicariance and dispersal on a geologic scale of tens of millions of years.
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