Me in the place I love
best - the desert!
 Jan Randall 
 
Howdy, pardner! That's me in the deserts of Arizona. I love the desert - grew up on a cattle ranch in southern Idaho, rode horses across the sagebrush plains, and fell in love with the Chiracahuas of Arizona. My most recent desert adventure was in the Kzyl-kum Desert in Uzbekistan.

I am a Professor of Biology at San Francisco State University, with a vitae.

I study the social organization and communication of desert rodents, particularly footdrumming as seismic communications in solitary kangaroo rats and social gerbils.

The great gerbil of Uzbekistan lives in extended family groups. It footdrums in combination with vocal and visual signals to warn group members of predation risk from reptilian and mammalian predators. Kangaroo rats footdrum in the presence of snakes to communicate to the snake it has been detected and to "go away."

 
             
Some of my students on a field trip to observe elephant seals at Ano Nuevo Beach in California. Then we go party with Bar-B-Q at Redneck Earl's!
 
I teach animal behavior, behavioral ecology, mammalogy, and nature study with a great group of students ... Interested in biology? Visit the Randall lab page or the SFSU Dept. of Biology web page. Heck, write to me!

Happy trails!