Used in food and folk medicine, Thai fishermen may be catching too many sea snakes.

From National Geographic:

Some scientists are raising concerns about the practice. Little is known about the region’s sea snakes, including what species and how many live there, so it’s not clear whether the harvest is sustainable.

An overharvest, these researchers worry, could jeopardize potential medicinal discoveries. Compounds in venom, once processed and administered in controlled amounts, can be beneficial in treating human ailments like heart disease.

The sea snake catch—a side job for the region’s Vietnamese squid fishers—takes in over 80 tons (73 metric tons) of the marine reptile annually. That’s roughly 225,500 individual sea snakes per year, valued at over $3 million.

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The colorful Malabar pit viper, Trimeresurus malabaricus, is one of the most beautiful snakes one can come across in India. Most herpetologists would agree with this. because malabaricus is found in a stunning variety of color morphs including red, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, chocolatey, pink, and grey color forms. Usually malabaricus is found on trees as it is an arboreal pit viper, but some of them are also found on rocks. Most of those are grey in colour and they are called the rock Malabar pit viper.

An adult malabaricus is about 45cm to 105cm in size and usually found in southwestern and southern jungles of India. However, the usual locations where malabaricus is found varies according to the seasons. For example, in summers it’d found on higher branches of trees, whereas during monsoons it’s found on the lower branches a foot or two off the ground, as well as on rocks.

Last weekend I visited a friend in Amboli, a hill station in the Western Ghats, a mountain range that runs almost parallel to the western coast of India, and a paradise for herpetologists who are in search of malabaricus. It was a cold night and I had no intention of herping as I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t find anything, but the area looked so scenic and perfect for herping I couldn’t stop myself and went on a night field trip.

To my good luck I found a malabaricus within 20 minutes. It rekindled my spirit, as this the primary reason that I love snakes and feel a bond with them. It was about 50cm long and green in colour, and it was coiled up on small fallen branch of a tree.

These snakes are active at night and shy in nature, and are sometimes seen during day basking in the sunlight. They are very rare to find in winter, as it is assumed to go into hibernation at that time of year.

Encountering this Malabar pit viper added happiness to my weekend! …read more
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It’s our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user ke!

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By Herp News

Tortoise Capital Advisors today announced the tax characterization of 2014 distributions paid to stockholders of:

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By Herp News

A quantum light source demonstrates that light-sensitive cells in frog eyes can detect single photons. Miniature light detectors in frog eyes known as retinal rod cells are directly and unambiguously shown to detect single photons of light — an astounding sensitivity considering that a humble 60 watt light bulb spews out a staggering 1020 photons per second.

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By Herp News

Paleontologist Sterling Nesbitt's latest addition to the paleontological vernacular is Nundasuchus, a 9-foot-long carnivorous reptile with steak knifelike teeth and bony plates on the back.

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The fossilized remains of a small aquatic reptile surrounded by six babies suggest that the extinct animal was caring for the little ones when they died, a new study finds. The reptile is an extinct species called the philydrosaurus, and likely lived during the Early Cretaceous, a time period that spans about 145 to about 100 million years ago. An anonymous farmer donated the “beautifully …

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Easily confused for snakes, a new type of caecilian, or legless amphibian, has been discovered.

From phys.org:

“The I.cardamomensis species is only the second caecilian species ever discovered in Cambodia. The other is the striped Koa Tao Island caecilian, I. kohtaoensis, which is also found in, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.

These discoveries are important to demonstrate that much of Cambodia’s biodiversity remains unknown and unstudied by science, and many more areas need to be searched,” Thy said.

The forested Cardamom Mountains Range represents some of the largest remaining areas of habitat for more than 80 threatened species, including Asian elephant and gaur.

Thy said in recent years the Cardamom region had revealed its extensive reptile and amphibian diversity, including frogs, turtles, lizards and crocodiles.

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The tortoise, a foot long African spurred tortoise, Geochelone (Centrochelys) sulcata, had been dropped in the tortoise yard. In the morning we had no African spurred tortoise and didn’t really want one, then in the afternoon we had one. Spontaneous turtle and tortoise acquisition had happened to us before, but this was our first unaccounted for spurred tortoise.

We weren’t really surprised. Over the years, a fair number of feral examples of this big Sub-Saharan tortoise had been found in North Central Florida. But because of its burrowing proclivities it was a species that we didn’t particularly want.

Yet here it was and it appeared to be in good condition, so we decided to let it stay for a while. It ate and it grew. 18 inches came and went. It ate more and it grew more. 24 inches! And it wanted more and more food. But at least it wasn’t burrowing. It spent the nights in a big heated (when needed) tortoise house.

Then one day it didn’t come out of the house to forage. Well, it (and we) were entitled to a day off. It didn’t emerge the next day either. On the 3rd day it emerged wearing a huge pyramid of soil on its carapace.

Uh oh.

Time to check, but something intervened and several additional days went by. To check we had to move the big tortoise house and that was always a chore. When we moved the house, I deeply regretted that we had waited. The interior of the tortoise house was almost filled with the dirt from an immense burrow that went far back beneath the foundation of our house. Left to its own devices, it looked like the tortoise was headed for Sydney, Australia and our house wouldn’t be far behind. The sulcata was unreachable. I’d have to await his next emergence, temporarily cage him, then check the burrow and somehow remove smaller tortoises that were assuredly utilizing this haven.

It took some doing, but a day later the big sulcata was surprised while eating, two smaller tortoises were removed from the burrow, and the hole was refilled. And our house still sits solidly on its foundation – I think. Did I mention that we no longer have any sulcata?
Continue reading “Our house survived a spurred tortoise “ …read more
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It’s our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user MikeRusso!

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By Herp News

The Lizard Squad, an Internet mayhem group, has recently been caught with their proverbial pants down when an attacker compromised the customer database of the group’s recently released distributed denial of service (DDoS) for hire service. The service, the “Lizard … Continue reading →

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Frankie has been indoors almost every day since Christmas. He is not happy with me.
“I hate you, mom.”

His indoor space isn’t very big so he is very annoyed.

“Something in this gecko room is coming down. Plastic barrier is not going to keep me from ramming garbage can or the humidifier.”

It’s all I can do to keep him occupied and amused.

“Hello, Steel Stella. I’ve missed you.”

Newt joins Frankie at each meal. Frankie doesn’t mind sharing at all.

Playing footsies under the door with Frankie is going to get that cat in a whirl of hurt.

Frankie gets my constant attention….including 10:00 pm bedtime check.

“Get outta my way! It’s sunny and I am going outside.”

Poor Frankie turned into an unmoving shell sculpture in his backyard. He was so cold I had to get help to carry him back inside. Frankie refused to move for thirty minutes. Sorry Frankie. Sunny and 40

By Herp News

 The Lizard Squad, the group of hackers credited with taking down Xbox Live and PSN over the holiday, have been compromised and much of their data leaked. Brian Krebs received a listing of the Lizard Squad’s LizardStresser customer database and noted that the group made about $11,000 in bitcoin serving up denial-of-service on demand. At the same time police arrested an alleged member of… Read More

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By Herp News

Somebody hacked the Lizard Squad's super stupid DDoS-for-hire service last week, and guess what? The Lizard Squad sucks at cybersecurity. Not only did the hackers leave their so-called LizardStresser service vulnerable, the money-hungry kids left all their customers' data in plain text and $11,000 in bitcoin on the table. Read more…

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By Herp News

Not only have several members of the Lizard Squad hacking group been arrested lately, but their Lizard Stresser client list has leaked all over the web. The post Lizard Squad chased by police, humbled by fellow hackers appeared first on Digital Trends .

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By Herp News

A two-year comprehensive turtle survey, the first of its kind in Oregon's Clackamas County, has failed to document any trace of the imperiled western pond turtle during its first year of searching, according to a recent report.

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By Herp News

Spring Special Also Includes Choice of Added Bonus Offer Worth Up to $1,000 (PRWeb January 19, 2015) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/01/prweb12448468.htm

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By Herp News

New research details how a preserved fossil found in China could be the oldest record of post-natal parental care from the Middle Jurassic. The specimen, found by a farmer in China, is of an apparent family group with an adult, surrounded by six juveniles of the same species. Given that the smaller individuals are of similar sizes, the group interpreted this as indicating an adult with its offspring, apparently from the same clutch.

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Could a universal anti-venom be just around the corner?

From Tech Times:

Scientists from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) are working toward the development of a universal anti-venom that can be used for the bite of all of the snakes in sub-Saharan Africa with the aid of a new technique dubbed antivenomics.

The technique can help improve the potency of extracting snake venom and thus the potency of the antidote. Scientists hope that this breakthrough could help save thousands of lives per year.

In sub-Saharan Africa, snake bites cause the death of 32,000 people per year. Some of those who manage to survive likewise suffer from serious effects with snake bites permanently disabling 96,000 people in the region annually.

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It’s our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user gerryg!

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By Herp News

Flying Lizard is making a long-awaited return to running Porsche 911s, only it's not where you'd expect. In addition to announcing a third customer McLaren 650S to run in Pirelli World Challenge today, Flying Lizard said that they will field a two-car customer effort in the Pirelli Porsche GT3 Cup. Read more…

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By Herp News

A counter-hack against the Lizard Squad hacking group's distributed denial of service (DDoS) tool LizardStresser has resulted in a customer data theft. Details of 14,241 users' user names, passwords, and other data, store in plain text, has been stolen from the group and posted online….

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By Herp News

A counter-hack against the Lizard Squad hacking group's distributed denial of service (DDoS) tool LizardStresser has resulted in a customer data theft. Details of 14,241 users' user names, passwords, and other data, store in plain text, has been stolen from the group and posted online….

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An adult female Gulf Coast spiny softshell turtle, Trionyx spiniferus asper, can be a rather large, somewhat difficult turtle to handle. Their long neck, strong jaws and willingness to defend themselves when cornered can leave a lasting impression.

We encountered such a female while walking around at a local fish hatchery one afternoon. She was trapped in a pond drain about nine feet below us with no way of escape.

The question was, how were we going to get her out?

The pond drain itself is there to keep the pond at a certain depth, and although it’s smooth concrete on three sides, one wall is made out of boards that can be put in place or removed to either stop or allow water flow and change the depth of the pond.

It actually didn’t take my boyfriend long to get to the bottom of the drain. He practically jumped in, and within another second or two he was back out again with the large softshell turtle in tow. I’m still not quite sure how he did it, but for this particular turtle the day had been saved.

Once we had her hauled out and took a good look, there was evidence that she had been trapped there for at least a little while, so after one or two pictures we released her into a nearby sand-bottomed creek where she would be more at home and less likely to be trapped again. …read more
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Check out this video “Reach! Reach! I can get it!” submitted by kingsnake.com user drsam.
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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It’s our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user marcp!

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By Herp News

It's a sea turtle mystery that has stumped scientists for decades: How does the female sea turtle, which travels across thousands of miles of open ocean each year, still manage to navigate back to the same beach where she hatched to lay her eggs?

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By Herp News

In the last 500 years, the oceans have suffered far fewer extinctions than on land—at least that we know of. According to a recent study in Science, 15 animals are known to have vanished forever from the oceans while terrestrial ecosystems have seen 514 extinctions. The researchers, however, warn that the number of marine extinctions could rise rapidly as the oceans are industrialized.

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By Herp News

This is obvious, but still important: humans are not a marine species. Even as we have colonized most of our planet’s terrestrial landscapes, we have not yet colonized the oceans. And for most of our history, we have impacted them only on the periphery. A new review in Science finds that this has saved marine species and ecosystems from large-scale damage—that is, until the last couple centuries.

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By Herp News

Adult sea turtles find their way back to the beaches where they hatched by seeking out unique magnetic signatures along the coast, according to new evidence.

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By Herp News

It's a sea turtle mystery that has stumped scientists for decades: How does the female sea turtle, which travels across thousands of miles of open ocean each year, still manage to navigate back to the same beach where she hatched to lay her eggs?

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Think all frogs lay eggs? Think again.

From ScienceBlogs:

A new species of frog (Limnonectes larvaepartus) has been discovered in the rain forest of Sulawesi island in Indonesia. This species challenges the grade-school wisdom that taught us: ‘frogs lay eggs’. It looks like textbooks will need to be revised as this is the only known exception to that rule. Study author Dr. Jimmy McGuire (University of California, Berkeley) said the following as quoted in Reuters, “Reproduction in most frogs could not be more different from human reproduction. In this case, what is most interesting, ironically, is that the reproductive mode is more similar to our own.”

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About a half a mile from our house there is a small drainage culvert that channels water from a small neighborhood lake and wetland, beneath a busy highway, and into the Paynes Prairie basin. Various herps at various times utilize this culvert to assuage their various needs. Patti and I occasionally visit the canal just to see what creatures happen to be present at different times.

Sometimes we’re surprised, sometimes we’re not. When the water is flowing strongly it may attain a depth of about a foot. More normally it is 8 inches or less deep. Sometimes the culvert is totally dry and during droughts it may remain dry for weeks or even months on end.

But when times are good and the water is gurgling through this tiny culvert, I am provided with as good a chance at seeing a greater siren, Siren lacertina, or a two-toed amphiuma, Amphiuma means, as any other locale I know. One night when Mike and I stopped by we were happy to see hundreds of bluefin killifish. A Florida banded water snake or two is not an unusual find.

Patti made what was probably the most unexpected and most memorable find . We were passing the culvert one night and decided to check it out. Patti, being much more nimble than I, clambered down the slope to the culvert to see what wonders of nature awaited her scrutiny. Headlight gleaming, she peered into the culvert, made an immediate exclamation and scurried back up the slope.

“What’s the hurry?” I asked. “

“Look over the edge,” Patti said.

I did and leaning as far forward as I dared I could barely see the tip of a rounded black object.

She had come nose to nose with a 10 foot alligator, Alligator mississippiensis, that was sheltering quietly in the culvert.

We both decided that we had enough of herping for the evening.
Continue reading “Nose to nose with an alligator in the night” …read more
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By Herp News

The tortoise that was discovered by Jonathan Hanks on his Oahu driveway on New Year's Day was scheduled to be picked up by the State Department of Agriculture Wednesday afternoon. Rep. John Mizuno's office received several calls from people claiming to be the owner of the tortoise. The state will be calling them back and referring them to the Department of Agriculture.  The primary concern of …

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It’s our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Neverscared!

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By Herp News

A well-traveled tortoise is back where he belongs. Rarely does a tortoise become a top story, but a reptile has been been getting all sorts of attention after getting lost. Now, this tortoise story comes with a happy ending. The phone had been ringing off the hook at State Representative John Mizuno's office. Dozens of people wanted to talk about a large tortoise found on Oahu's Windward side …

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The story of a tortoise found roaming a Kaneohe neighborhood has come to a happy close, its ending not too far from where it all began.

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The tortoise that was discovered by Jonathan Hanks on his driveway on New Year's Day was scheduled to be picked up by the State Department of Agriculture Wednesday afternoon.

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By Herp News

New research by a team of biologists has revealed that creating antivenom is a bit tricky. That’s because the type of venom a snake produces can change according to where it lives.

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By Herp News

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa may have been the result of complex economic and agricultural policies developed by authorities in Guinea and Liberia, according to a new commentary in Environment and Planning A. Looking at the economic activities around villages where Ebola first emerged, the investigators analyzed a shift in land-use activities in Guinea’s forested region, particularly an increase in oil palm.

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