Mark O'Shea

Mark O'Shea is a British herpetologist with field experience in some 60 countries on every continent except Antarctica. He holds the post of Professor of Herpetology at the University of Wolverhampton, in the United Kingdom, and in 2020 he received an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours, "for services to higher education, zoology, reptile conservation and snakebite research". FIELDWORK: His primary geographical area is Wallacea (eastern Indonesia & Timor-Leste) and New Guinea but he also has field experience in South and Southeast Asia, North, West, Central and Southern Africa, Arabia, North, Central and South America, and to a lesser extent Europe. Between 2009-2014 he and a colleague, assisted by students, conducting the first comprehensive survey of the reptiles and amphibians of Timor-Leste, Asia's newest country, and they have some 25-30 new species to describe. Mark has described new species of snakes from Indonesian New Guinea, Papua New Guinea, Borneo, and Timor-Leste. Mark is also a member of several IUCN Species Survival Groups. In 2018 a pipesnake from Boano Island, Indonesia, was conferred with the name Cylindrophis osheai. TEACHING: Mark teaches on a number of modules at the University of Wolverhampton on both the Animal Behaviour and Wildlife Conservation, and BioMed BSc courses and is keen to enthuse the next generation of herpetologists, zoologists and conservationists. SNAKEBITE: Within the reptiles Mark's specialism is the snakes, especially venomous species, and he has worked on snakebite projects in Papua New Guinea for Oxford University Dept. of Medicine, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and more recently for the Australian Venom Research Unit. He has also worked on snakebite projects in Sri Lanka and Myanmar, and is included on the WHO roster of snakebite experts. He also understands snakebites from the victim's standpoint, having experienced several serious bites himself. TELEVISION: Mark is also a television presenter of some 40 films (incl 4 seasons "O'Shea's Big Adventure" on Animal Planet, aka "O'Shea's Dangerous Reptiles" on the UK's Channel 4), filmed between 1999-2003, and has made other films and programmnes for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Discovery and National Geographic over the years. AUTHORSHIPS: Mark has authored seven books on herpetology and contributed chapters to several other titles. He is also a photographer who specializes in the macro-photography of reptiles, amphibians and venomous invertebrates. He spends a lot of time photographing and documenting preserved specimens in the world's natural history museums, part of his research that has led to the publication of numerous academic papers. SAFARI PARK: For 33 years Mark's day job was as Curator of Reptiles at West Midland Safari Park in the UK. He built and managed the collection and developed a symbiotic relationship with the management which enabled him to travel overseas, often for months on end, to conduct research or make films. He left WMSP at the end of 2019. LECTURING: Mark is a seasoned public speaker who has been speaking to audiences, about reptiles and his adventures, since he was 18. As a result he has been invited to speak at symposia, conferences, and special events, all around the world. CURRENT PROJECTS: He is currently working on several long-term projects including the 2nd edition of "A Guide to the Snakes of Papua New Guinea" with is being expanded to encompass the whole island of New Guinea (the world's largest tropical island) and neighbouring archipelagos from the Raja Ampats to Bougainville. He also has a fascination for islands, having visited a great many of them to search for snakes, and he has been building a "Snakes on Islands" project for over a decade. FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS: Mark is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Linnean Society of London, and the Explorers Club of New York, and the latter awarded him the Millennium Award for "services to exploration in zoology" in 2000. The University of Wolverhampton awarded him an honorary degree of Doctor of Sciences in 2001. As aforementioned, Mark is also an MBE. Mark can be contacted via his agent: David Foster of David Foster Management http://www.dfmanagement.tv/ or via the University of Wolverhampton, https://researchers.wlv.ac.uk/M.OShea