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.

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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
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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!”

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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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By Herp News

This is the shocking moment an explorer was forced to flee the onslaught of a horny giant tortoise. Documentary filmmaker Paul Rose was on an island in the Seychelles for a National Geographic segment when he spotted two of the 250kg reptiles doing the nasty. After disturbing their intimate moment, Rose was relentlessly chased by the 0.17 mph beast for more than 400 yards around Assumption …

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By Herp News

‘Mama, I wanna be a toxic caterpillar,’ says the little bird. ‘Okay,’ mamma answers, ‘but first you gotta study your Batesian mimicry.’ Meet the cinereous mourner, an ash-colored, Amazonian bird that looks rather hum-drum compared to many other birds found in the region. Yet, scientists have discovered something special about the birds: its newborn babies look and move like a neon orange, toxic caterpillar.

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By Herp News

Police sought the public's help Monday to locate the owner of a Tegu lizard that was found in the front yard of a residence in Fontana.

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By Herp News

New information about the relationship between symbiotic microbial communities and amphibian disease resistance has been gained through a new study. A frog-killing fungus known as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd, has already led to the decline of more than 200 amphibian species including the now extinct-in-the-wild Panamanian golden frog.

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By Herp News

Every winter, sea ice in the Arctic expands, providing vital habitat for birthing seals, hunting polar bears, and foraging walruses. But as the Arctic has warmed faster than any place on the planet—due climate change caused by burning fossil fuels—sea ice is not expanding as far as it once did.

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By Herp News

Following the success of the Lazzarini-designed Jet Capsule mini yacht, a lighter and faster version called the Reptile has been launched. It's 500 kg (1,102 lb) lighter than its predecessor and is equipped with a 570 hp Ilmor MV8 high performance marine engine that powers the compact vessel to maximum speeds of 50 knots – that's over 90 km/h (57.5 mph)… Continue Reading Jet Capsule's Reptile …

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By Herp News

This is the shocking moment an explorer was forced to flee the onslaught of a horny giant tortoise. Documentary filmmaker Paul Rose was on an island in the Seychelles for a National Geographic segment when he spotted two of the 250kg reptiles doing the nasty. After disturbing their intimate moment, Rose was relentlessly chased by the 0.17 mph beast for more than 400 yards around Assumption …

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If there were such a thing as a category for “Best Actor in the Reptile World,” the eastern hognose snake would certainly be a nominee.

The eastern hognose snake, Heterodon platyhinos, is a denizen of sandhill and other xeric habitats of the eastern U.S. The snake has an upturned rostral scale it utilizes as a digging tool to help search for its principle prey of toads.

These snakes can be variable in coloration with reds, yellows or gray mixed into their pattern, and also can commonly be solid black. Besides its upturned snout, which gives it an almost comical look, this snake is best known for being an extremely good actor.

We recently encountered two specimens of eastern hognose snake in the wild. When we first approached one specimen, a near three-foot long female clad in beautiful golden yellow and black, she began to spread her neck very much like a cobra and hissed as she swayed her head back and forth. To the uninitiated she may have appeared to have been quite dangerous! However, this “act” did not work on us, so it was on to act two!

When hissing, spreading, and bluffing did not work, she then proceeded to simply roll over onto her back and writhe around with her mouth wide open and her tongue hanging out, then went completely limp. She pretended to die. What an act that was! She was better than any cowboy in any old western movie I have ever seen.

After we took a few photographs to preserve the encounter, we hiked another fifty feet where, to our surprise, we encountered another eastern hognose snake, this time an adult male clad in gray and silver with a slight pattern. He did not display the way the female did, but instead immediately went limp and “died.” What an incredible find! Two hognose snakes, within fifty feet of one another and both looked completely different!

Their “acting” behavior alo makes them one of the most interesting snakes to encounter in he field in North America. …read more
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Fences designed to protect woodland habitats in Canberra are having unintended consequences for the herp population.

From ABC Australia:

Lead author Bruno Ferronato said more than 100 animals died because the fence restricted their natural movement patterns.

“Usually they will move to other ponds, usually during springtime, looking for ponds to feed,” the University of Canberra researcher told 666 ABC Canberra.

“The fence is interrupting with the migratory habits of turtles. When they’re trying to move between ponds they’re hitting the fence and some of the animals are dying there.”

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This Teratoscincus scincus is “wondering” where her next tasty treat is in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user zmarchetti!

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By Herp News

REPTILE lover Garry Sippel is on a mission.

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By Herp News

Scientists have turned to the opossum to develop a promising new and inexpensive antidote for venomous snake bites. They predict it could save thousands of lives worldwide without the side effects of current treatments.

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Our Herp Video of the Week is the arrival of a new Iguana named Phoenix to the family.

Submit your own reptile & amphibian videos at http://www.kingsnake.com/video/ and you could see them featured here or check out all the videos submitted by other users! …read more
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Cute as a button is how we would describe this aquaflame collared lizard featured in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user eve!

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By Herp News

Mr. T is a rebel and a trail blazer, but we’re not talking about the Mohawk wearing, gold chain-ado

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By Herp News

A valley veterinarian is giving checkups to more than 100 desert tortoises, it's a pretty huge task.It's all in preparation of the Arizona Game and Fish Department's massive tortoise adoption where dozens of tortoises need new homes.

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By Herp News

A new study has shown that the dottyback, a small predatory reef fish, can change the color of its body to imitate a variety of other reef fish species, allowing the dottyback to sneak up undetected and eat their young.

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Unlike the eastern diamondback rattlesnake, eastern coral snakes have the same venom, no matter where they’re found.

From Genes to Genomes:

In a recent issue of GENETICS, Darin Rokyta and colleagues reported the results of a large survey of venom diversity across two snake species sharing nearly identical ranges and similar habitats in the southeastern United States. As expected, the mix in one species—the eastern diamondback rattlesnake—varied considerably from place to place. But the eastern coral snakes told a completely different story. In contrast to its rattlesnake neighbors, no matter where a coral snake came from, its venom was always the same.

Rokyta says the team was shocked by this lack of variation. “This is the first time anyone has looked at venom variation at this scale, and everybody has assumed that the co-evolutionary arms race would cause local populations to diverge quickly.”

The results not only challenge this assumption, they provide crucial information for rattlesnake conservation and coral snake antivenom development.

Read more here. …read more
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Unlike the eastern diamondback rattlesnake, eastern coral snakes have the same venom mix, no matter where they’re found.

From Genes to Genomes:

In a recent issue of GENETICS, Darin Rokyta and colleagues reported the results of a large survey of venom diversity across two snake species sharing nearly identical ranges and similar habitats in the southeastern United States. As expected, the mix in one species—the eastern diamondback rattlesnake—varied considerably from place to place. But the eastern coral snakes told a completely different story. In contrast to its rattlesnake neighbors, no matter where a coral snake came from, its venom was always the same.

Rokyta says the team was shocked by this lack of variation. “This is the first time anyone has looked at venom variation at this scale, and everybody has assumed that the co-evolutionary arms race would cause local populations to diverge quickly.”

The results not only challenge this assumption, they provide crucial information for rattlesnake conservation and coral snake antivenom development.

Read more here. …read more
Read more here: King Snake

The ringing peeps of a vocalizing ornate chorus frog, Pseudacris ornata, lack the upward slurring of the much more common spring peeper.

Although only one and one quarter inches in length, the ornate chorus frog, a heavy bodied species, looks larger. And this little frog of the southeastern United States, in some of its many colorations, is truly ornate. The ground color may vary from mud-brown, through russet, russet and green, to a clear pea green. There are often dorsal spots or stripes of a contrasting color. Black lateral and groin spotting is invariable and there is also a black eyestripe.

Despite its size, the ornate chorus frog can be perplexingly difficult to locate. It is ventriloquial to some degree, and a call that seems to be originating from close at hand may actually be originating from some distance away. On rare occasions, such as overcast, drizzly nights, ornate chorus frogs may sit on open muddy banks or float in the open while calling. But in most cases they call while tucked well away in tangles of blackberries or secluded in emergent grass clumps.

In some areas, such as its southernmost range on the Florida peninsula (the latitude of Lake Okeechobee), this frog is now present in reduced numbers (or extirpated). In fact, its current range in Florida may start well north of the Tampa Bay region. But in some more northerly areas it still seems common.

Take the time to look it up. It is a beautiful anuran.
Continue reading “Beautiful in sight and sound” …read more
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This male Cape gopher snake shows off some intense colors in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user pitparade!

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By Herp News

Climbing rats, seabirds and tropical gophers are among the 15 animal species that are at the absolute greatest risk of becoming extinct very soon. Expertise and money is needed to save them and other highly threatened species.

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