By Herp News
Nearly two-thirds of tropical forests in Southeast Asia have been degraded by logging, agriculture and other human uses, and their fauna have been decimated by hunting and the bushmeat trade. But if those degraded tropical forests are to recover naturally, they will need to rely on their remaining large wild animals to disperse large tree seeds, according to a new study.
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The saw-scaled viper, Echis carinatus, is a venomous snake found in India and the smallest member of the Indian “Big Four” deadly snakes of India.
This pygmy snake is one of the fastest-striking snakes in the world, and definitely the fastest striking one in India. The thing I like best about this tiny creature is that when the saw-scaled viper is disturbed, it coils and rubs its saw-like scales together to make a noise like a wood-saw.
They are hemotoxic by nature as they are from viper family.
Another species of saw-scaled viper found in India is the Sochurek’s saw-scaled viper, Echis carinatus Sochureki, which is found in some western and central parts of India.
The saw-scaled viper’s body is pale brown with a white-bordered zig zag pattern. The body is white underneath with tiny brown spots. Small scales are present on head, and a white or pale brown spear mark on top.
The eyes are large golden with vertical black pupils, and the body is rounded and has scales with saw-like keels. The tail is short.
Saw-scaled vipers are commonly seen in coastal areas and they are found under boulders and thorny bushes. Though nocturnal, they may be seen basking in the morning. They feed on scorpions, centipedes, and geckos. Viviparous by nature, they give birth to 4-8 young ones.
Usually there are few saw-scaled vipers in my area, but whenever I find one while herping, I am eager to hear the wood-saw noise. I find these tiny creatures very beautiful and attractive, but I always avoid bare-hand handling them. …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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Sexually dimorphic species are less likely to go extinct, according to new research.
From the Costa Rica Star:
By examining research on global patterns of amphibian diversification over hundreds of millions of years, De Lisle and Rowe discovered that “sexually dimorphic” species – those in which males and females differ in size, for example – are at lower risk of extinction and better able to adapt to diverse environments.
Their work suggests the ability of males and females in sexually dimorphic amphibian species to independently evolve different traits – such as size – helps them survive extinction threats that kill off others, says De Lisle.
He says classic ecological theory would not have predicted that about amphibians, a class of vertebrates that includes frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians.
The conventional school of thought believes different-sized sexes of the same species take up more resources and are less able to adapt and diversify than species where ecologically relevant traits like size are basically the same between males and females.
Read more here. …read more
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This hatchling pink pastel hognose shares our feelings about Mondays in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user JoeTaffis!
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By Herp News
Reptile vendors and breeders were in Savannah to showcase hundreds of different reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, spiders, and small exotic animals to area enthusiasts on Sunday.
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By Herp News
A man from North Carolina is launching Reptile Munchies, a startup that will deliver live roaches to the doors of reptile owners so they can keep their pets fed without any hassle. The subscription service costs $29 per month for a month's worth of reptile food—about 100 roaches.
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By Herp News
To better understand the variety of salmonella species harbored by captive reptiles, Staten Island Zoo has teamed up with microbiologists.
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By Herp News
Cleopatra the leopard tortoise has been given a 3D printed prosthetic shell to protect her from injury
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By Herp News
Reptile vendors and breeders will be in Savannah to showcase hundreds of different reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, spiders, and small exotic animals to area enthusiasts on Sunday.
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By Herp News
Help your turtle by jumping from one platform to the next and destroy your friends records!And remember you are a ninja, nothing is…
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By Herp News
Ninja Turtle Jumper is a fun and simple action game perfect for all age group! This game is free!! Try to beat your own high score…
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By Herp News
Her name is Cleopatra, and she looks fierce.
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By Herp News
Searching the globe for undiscovered species takes biologists to far and remote locations, trekking through exotic locales that may yield a new discovery. However, exploring the black market can also produce results. And this is just the case for Rafe Brown, curator of the University Of Kansas (KU) Biodiversity Institute, during a recent visit to the Philippines. In a black market in Manila, Brown and his colleagues discovered two new species of water monitor lizard for sale.
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Just let this panther chameleon clean that spot on your screen for ya in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user 1Sun!
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By Herp News
Broken Lizard has already reached its $2 million crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo thanks to a passionate fanbase that could help the budget get even higher than the stoners in the original film. It took less than 48 hours for Broken Lizard to hit its goal, as 21, 647 backers have donated $2,257,241 as of 7:33 p.m. PDT .
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Researchers aren’t just looking at snake venom to develop potentially life saving medicine; lizard venom is also being mapped.
From phys.org:
Venom research is a large field, especially due to the pharmaceutical potential of the venom proteins. The idea here is that venom proteins are capable of affecting the body’s cells. Excessive amounts can be harmful and even lethal in some circumstances, but if the right dose is used, the venom proteins can be used to treat certain diseases. Snake proteins that normally cause prey to bleed can be used in small doses to treat blood clots, for example.
In the same way, work is currently being done to develop spider venom proteins to provide pain relief. The Aarhus researchers focused on gila lizards, and these are currently being used in pharmaceutical contexts. Gila lizards produce exendin-4, a small venom protein used in the treatment of diabetes and obesity, which is a competitor to Victoza – produced by Novo Nordisk.
Read more here. …read more
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In his little Austin Healey Sprite, Ron and I zipped across the border in Brownsville, Texas heading into Mexico’s interior. We had no idea where we were going or where we would stop. We were young, had enough time and hoped we had sufficient dinero to get us to wherever and back home again. We did. Barely.
As it turned out we encountered torrential rains in the Pacific Coast state of Colima, and with the rains there were herps–herps of kinds we had never seen before in the wild, and many that neither of us had seen anywhere.
The rain flooded low lying fields and now treefrogs of a half dozen species were vocalizing. Mexican wood turtles walked the wet roadsides and swam across larger flooded areas. Lyre snakes, parrot snakes, and our hands down favorite – brown vine snakes – were crossing or sitting quietly on the highway. We were surprised that the latter were active as they are considered diurnal species with poor night vision but it seemed probable that the heavy rains prompted divergence from the norm.
Although Ron and I were known for unplanned trips, this one was by far the longest yet (a longer trip, it too, unplanned, to southern Chiapas was to come later). This multi-thousand mile trip for 2 adults in a 2-seat Sprite from Tampa to coastal southern Colima was more than just a bit crowded. But now, 50 years later, I still look back on with fond memories.
Continue reading “Somewhere and back again” …read more
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Join the Electric Company with this Lygodactylus williamsi and be blinded by beauty in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user jamesmatthews!
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By Herp News
A camera trap photo of a young buck touching noses with a fawn is among the finalists in a picture contest organized by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The image was snapped in a camera trap set up in Apopka, Florida.
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By Herp News
Cleopatra doesn't seem impressed with her new coat. But the red plastic shell probably will save the teenage leopard tortoise's life.
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By Herp News
Ecopassages may be less effective reptile road mortality mitigation tools when fences fail to keep reptiles from accessing the road.
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By Herp News
The rate of forest loss in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem — the only place on Earth where rhinos, orangutans, tigers, and elephants live in the same habitat — has more than doubled due to logging, encroachment, and conversion to industrial plantations, warn conservationists. In a statement issued Tuesday, the Sumatran Orangutan Society reported that 80,316 hectares of forest were lost between 2008 and 2013, a sharp increase from the 30,830 hectares cleared between 2002 and 2008.
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By Herp News
( PLOS ) Ecopassages may be less effective reptile road mortality mitigation tools when fences fail to keep reptiles from accessing the road.
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The common krait, Bungarus caeruleus, is a venomous snake found in India — one of the four deadliest snakes of India known as “The Indian Big Four.”
The krait is also included in the top five deadliest of the world, in part because of its silent killing ability. When a person is bitten by a krait, he or she won’t feel pain because of the small-sized fangs; the bite pain is like a mosquito bite.
The common krait is a nocturnal snake; the kraits I rescued have all been rescued after 8 PM. It’s difficult to find a snake during daytime rescue calls.
India is home to six or seven species of krait, and they’re and also common in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and many other Asian countries. The bite rate for the common krait is lower in India as compared to cobras and Russells vipers because kraits are very shy by nature and usually do not bite. That is the reason I love them.
Kraits have smooth bodies and glossy scales; they are blue or black in color and sometimes dark brown. There are single or paired thin white bands on the shiny black body, which makes them more beautiful and is the reason I use the ‘Black Beauty’ to describe a common krait.
The ventral part is white and sometimes yellowish. They feed on snakes mostly and sometimes even other kraits. Occasionally they eat mice, frogs, and lizards. The average length of krait is 100-120 cms and the maximum length is 175 cms.
There are many controversies related to krait bite deaths in India. Often when people are bitten by a krait, it’s night time and they don’t realize it. And the symptoms of krait bite are not at all predictable. The symptoms might take 6 hours or even 48 hours to start. The symptoms have seven or eight stages leading up to death. The deadliest symptom is paralysis; the bite victim is not even able to move his or her fingertips. There have been cases where the victims were declared dead by doctors in the paralyzed condition.
Keeping the deadly part apart, I always loved kraits because they attacked me very rarely on rescue calls and always make my rescuing task easy.
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Rainforest frog populations rely on feral pigs to create wallows, but with pig populations dwindling researchers have recreated the wallows using simple plastic bowls.
From Digital Journal:
To study the impact of these depressions on the reproductive success of the frogs, scientists based at the University of Vienna installed a series of plastic bowls to collect rainwater at regular intervals in a patch of rainforest in French Guiana and monitored frog populations in their test and control plots.
It was found that the frog populations expanded rapidly in both the areas with the bowls and nearby plots, from 148 frogs the season before the bowls were installed to 246 frogs two years later, while no increase was seen in plots far away from the man-made peccary wallows.
Read more here. …read more
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This close up on the eye of a Correlophus ciliatus is an amazing shot. This Crestie is keeping her eye on you in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user LizardWizard!
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By Herp News
An injured green sea turtle was found on Mustang Island. The turtle had been hit by a boat propeller. It is currently at the Animal Rehabilitation Keep out in Port Aransas.
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By Herp News
Broken Lizard is turning to fans to help fund a follow-up to the 2001 cult hit.
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By Herp News
Reptile roundup: Delaware arrest warrant leads to seizure of guns, drugs and lizards
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By Herp News
Australia natives King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard get impressively close to peak '70s psychedelia with their nostalgic sound…
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By Herp News
DRUG addict Lee Pemberton stole a £300 tortoise from a pet shop before selling it on to fund his habit.The 37-year-old was caught on Fenton-based Glovers Fish and Water's CCTV cameras taking the reptile from a vivarium.North Staffordshire Justice Centre heard a customer warned the shop assistant there was a man in the store who smelt of alcohol. Steve Knowles, prosecuting, said: “The assistant …
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By Herp News
Herbert the tortoise proved the proverb still rings true when it shrugged off the distractions of a rabbit named Sven and beat it in a race at the Paws and Claws Pet Store in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.
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By Herp News
A previously undiscovered species of crocodile-like amphibian that lived during the rise of dinosaurs was among Earth’s top predators more than 200 million years ago, a study shows. Palaeontologists identified the prehistoric species — which looked like giant salamanders — after excavating bones buried on the site of an ancient lake in southern Portugal.
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The family of the late Steve Irwin has come under criticism for their work with crocodiles and other animals.
From Smithsonian Magazine:
“It’s an honor and a privilege to work with the largest living reptile and largest terrestrial predator on the planet,” Robert tells me in the singsong tone of his television-ready family. “An awesome animal that roamed the primeval landscape for millions and millions of years.”
Daisy’s sawtooth tail whips the prone boy to the left. “The jaw pressure of the crocodile is incredible—3,000 pounds per square inch!”
Daisy’s tail whips him to the right. “I so admire the crocodile’s ability to kill with just its teeth. It’s quite amazing!”
Robert’s 16-year-old sister, Bindi, looks on solicitously. An actor, singer, game show host and, last year, a People cover girl, she’s confirming Daisy’s gender by inserting a finger into its cloaca and feeling around for genitalia. “It’s a girl!” she says. Her smile conveys a disarming buoyancy. “Here’s an animal that many people think is just a stupid, evil, ugly monster which kills people. That’s so not true!”
Read more here. …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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The family of the late Steve Irwin has come under criticism for their work with crocodiles and other animals.
From Smithsonian Magazine:
“It’s an honor and a privilege to work with the largest living reptile and largest terrestrial predator on the planet,” Robert tells me in the singsong tone of his television-ready family. “An awesome animal that roamed the primeval landscape for millions and millions of years.”
Daisy’s sawtooth tail whips the prone boy to the left. “The jaw pressure of the crocodile is incredible—3,000 pounds per square inch!”
Daisy’s tail whips him to the right. “I so admire the crocodile’s ability to kill with just its teeth. It’s quite amazing!”
Robert’s 16-year-old sister, Bindi, looks on solicitously. An actor, singer, game show host and, last year, a People cover girl, she’s confirming Daisy’s gender by inserting a finger into its cloaca and feeling around for genitalia. “It’s a girl!” she says. Her smile conveys a disarming buoyancy. “Here’s an animal that many people think is just a stupid, evil, ugly monster which kills people. That’s so not true!”
Read more here. …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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By Herp News
When a wrathful tortoise pursues you, don't walk away – stroll
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We spent only a few minutes flipping fallen palm fronds that lay on a grassy slope between a busy highway and a saltmarsh before we found the first of the several hatchling-sized ornate diamond-backed terrapins, Malaclemys terrapin macrospilota, we were to find that day.
After seeing several of the turtle babies while he searched the area for kingsnakes, Billy pointed out this tract of roadside habitat to us and, sure enough, the turtles were here. All were beneath the fallen fronds and all were at least partially dug into the sandy substrate.
Although it had probably been several weeks since they had hatched, all that we found during our search were still of hatchling size, and all but 1 or 2 were quietly tucked in, legs and neck withdrawn, eyes tightly closed. Since we still had weeks of warm weather ahead of us, it seemed strange that so many babies were this quiescent.
But compared to Mother Nature, what do we know?
The ornate is the subspecies of diamond-backed terrapin that is found along most of Florida’s Gulf Coast. It ranges from the northern Keys to Okaloosa County on the panhandle. Of the many subspecies, the ornate is most consistently the prettiest having a black flecked light gray head and usually an orange center to each carapacial scute. Hatchlings are particularly pretty and usually have very prominent vertebral tubercles.
Do not expect to see diamond-backs in freshwater habitats. They are restricted to salt and brackish waters.
Continue reading “Letting sleeping terrapins lie” …read more
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This Egernia stokesii is just chilling out on her log in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user stingray!
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By Herp News
Good Samaritans come in all shapes and sizes. Apparently, they respond on land and sea, too, as shown in a video of a turtle rescue in Lanikai that has gone viral and created a feel-good story in the process. It seemed like a typical day of ocean watching for Lanikai resident Susan King. “I was inside and I noticed some kayakers coming up pretty quickly. They were bringing something out of their …
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By Herp News
Researchers who develop snake-like robots have picked up a few tricks from real sidewinder rattlesnakes on how to make rapid and even sharp turns with their undulating, modular device. Working with colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Zoo Atlanta, they have analyzed the motions of sidewinders and tested their observations on CMU’s snake robots.
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