Reptoman

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   Dec 29

Taliban attacks in Pakistan threaten crocodiles

Militant attacks on a sacred shrine have lowered the number of visitors to the site, which means the local crocodiles aren’t being fed.

From Aljazeera America:

Iqbal has already paid bus fare and an entrance fee and given a donation to the shrine’s saint. Now she’s worried that the meat’s inflated price means she won’t have enough money to get home. The crocodiles’ caretaker, Shahan Mahmood, shakes his head sadly. He can’t afford to sell her the meat at a lower price.

“The crocodiles are starving,” he says. “No one is coming to feed them.”

In the last year, Mahmood and the rest of the shrine’s caretakers have buried two crocodiles. For two years, they say, very few of the eggs laid by the reptiles here have hatched. Iqbal forks over the change and watches as the caretaker walks to the makeshift iron fence to feed the closest crocodile. Mahmood says this is the first purchase of meat he has seen in three days.

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Read more here: King Snake

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   Dec 29

'Smart' turtle robot can fix underwater tasks

By Herp News

Singapore, Dec 29 (IANS) A team of Indian-origin scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has finalised a 'smart' maneuvering robot that can be used for oceanic surveys, inspections of pipe and cable, ship hull or a propeller's shaft.

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   Dec 29

The hare, the tortoise… and the end game

By Herp News

At the top of Australia's batting order are the hare and the tortoise.

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   Dec 29

Herp Photo of the Day: Horned Frog!

It’s our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user reptillia69!

Horned Frog, uploaded by kingsnake.com user reptillia69″ />

Upload your own reptile and amphibian photos photos at gallery.kingsnake.com, and you could see them featured here! …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Dec 28

Lowcountry turtle sanctuary seeks to save species from around the world

By Herp News

CROSS – Deep in the woods of Berkeley County, some of the world's rarest and most endangered turtle species are being saved from collectors and Asian dinner plates.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 27

May Howard students help Injured Savannah turtle get a leg up

By Herp News

T he box turtle had a missing leg. The elementary school had a 3-D printer. This is the story of how they came together to produce Stumpy 2.0, a box turtle with a custom-made prosthetic limb. Stumpy arrived at Oatland Island Wildlife Center in early September with a badly injured and infected front leg. Oatland veterinarian Lesley Mailler wasted little time in amputating the limb and stitching …

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 27

Bristol Aggie program aims to increase Chinese box turtle population

By Herp News

An endangered species of turtle that is indigenous to China has found refuge at Bristol County Agricultural High School as part of a long-term conservation project with an educational purpose.This is the first year that the school’s natural resource management department is raising Chinese box turtles as part of an effort in cooperation with the Turtle Survival Alliance, said Aaron Caswell, a …

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 27

Bristol Aggie program aims to increase Chinese box turtle population

By Herp News

An endangered species of turtle that is indigenous to China has found refuge at Bristol County Agricultural High School as part of a long-term conservation project with an educational purpose.This is the first year that the school’s natural resource management department is raising Chinese box turtles as part of an effort in cooperation with the Turtle Survival Alliance, said Aaron Caswell, a …

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 27

Bristol Aggie takes on turtle conservation

By Herp News

An endangered species of turtle that is indigenous to China has found refuge at Bristol County Agricultural High School as part of a long-term conservation project with an educational purpose.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 27

Meet the grinch who stole Christmas for gamers: The Lizard Squad

By Herp News

A trollish hacking group says it brought down Sony and Microsoft's gaming networks over the holiday.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 27

Lizard Squad: Kim Dotcom Plays Christmas Hero After Gaming Attacks

By Herp News

Call it a belated Christmas season miracle.This is a story of an eccentric Internet entrepreneur who singlehandedly may have managed to save gamers around the world — and the Christmas season — from a hacking collective known as Lizard Squad.Microsoft's Xbox Live and Sony's PlayStation Network both suffered outages Christmas Day that extended into today, frustrating gamers who were unable to …

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 27

How Kim Dotcom (Almost) Saved Christmas From The Lizard Squad [Updated]

By Herp News

A week ago, I read an article that claimed the infamous Lizard Squad had been dismantled for good, taken down not by the FBI, but by a rival group of “whitehat” hackers, Finest Squad. It's a rather good piece, chronicling how the new group essentially beat the digital vandals at their own game, and outed them to authorities.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 27

How Kim Dotcom (Almost) Saved Christmas From The Lizard Squad [Updated]

By Herp News

A week ago, I read an article that claimed the infamous Lizard Squad had been dismantled for good, taken down not by the FBI, but by a rival group of “whitehat” hackers, Finest Squad. It's a rather good piece, chronicling how the new group essentially beat the digital vandals at their own game, and outed them to authorities.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 27

How Kim Dotcom (Almost) Saved Christmas From The Lizard Squad [Updated]

By Herp News

A week ago, I read an article that claimed the infamous Lizard Squad had been dismantled for good, taken down not by the FBI, but by a rival group of “whitehat” hackers, Finest Squad. It's a rather good piece, chronicling how the new group essentially beat the digital vandals at their own game, and outed them to authorities.

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…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 26

Lizard Squad Hacker Group Targets Tor

By Herp News

A large number of Tor relays have popped online, all named some variant of “LizardNSA.” Hmm.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 26

Indonesia’s silent wildlife killer: hunting

By Herp News

By and large, Indonesia is a peaceful country. In fact, on the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime’s list of homicide rates, Indonesia ranks number 10, making Indonesians one of the least murderous people on Earth. A ban on gun ownership probably helps, although obviously there are many other ways to snuff out another person. Maybe Indonesia’s general tendency to avoid conflict helps, too. Whatever the reason why Indonesians are relatively unlikely to kill each other, such favors are not extended to Indonesia’s non-human wildlife. The relative safety of Indonesia’s people does not guarantee similar security for its animals.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 26

Indonesia’s silent wildlife killer: hunting

By Herp News

By and large, Indonesia is a peaceful country. In fact, on the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime’s list of homicide rates, Indonesia ranks number 10, making Indonesians one of the least murderous people on Earth. A ban on gun ownership probably helps, although obviously there are many other ways to snuff out another person. Maybe Indonesia’s general tendency to avoid conflict helps, too. Whatever the reason why Indonesians are relatively unlikely to kill each other, such favors are not extended to Indonesia’s non-human wildlife. The relative safety of Indonesia’s people does not guarantee similar security for its animals.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 26

Engineers develop self-charging turtle surveillance robot

By Herp News

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online As part of an ongoing attempt to develop underwater robots capable of thinking on their own, engineers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have created a mechanical turtle capable of performing complicated tasks such as surveillance and energy harvesting. In addition, the turtle robot is maneuverable, operates on a self-charge mode …

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 26

How Kim Dotcom Saved Christmas From The Lizard Squad

By Herp News

A week ago, I read an article that claimed the infamous Lizard Squad had been dismantled for good, taken down not by the FBI, but by a rival group of “whitehat” hackers, Finest Squad. It's a rather good piece, chronicling how the new group essentially beat the digital vandals at their own game, and outed them to authorities.

Go to Source

…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 26

Making your own hide boxes

Most reptiles and amphibians do better in a captive environment if given a place to hide or burrow.

Thankfully there are lots of commercial hides and hide boxes available in all different sizes, shapes, and formats. From simple plastic hides, to elaborate logs and caves, these commercial hides work great if you only have a few animals. If you’re dealing with a large number of animals, however, they can sometimes be problematic. Aside from being expensive to buy or replace, they can be difficult to clean, they may not fit the cage or the animal well, or they may not do all the things you need them to do.

I needed a hide box that would work for my medium-sized colubrid snakes. And I needed one hunderd of them, so they had to be inexpensive, replaceable, easily cleaned, and, as a special requirement, they needed to “hold” a replaceable water dish, in this case a 16-oounce round deli container. Although I found several that met most of my needs, none of the commercial ones met them all. So I made my own.

Using a few tools, including a cordless drill and two hole saw bits, and cheap black spray paint, I re-purposed a stack of used plastic containers into the (almost) perfect hide box for my needs.

Starting with the plastic containers, once yearling cages, I used a 2-inch hole saw to cut out a side entrance at one end of the container. On the top of the container, at the other end, I used a 4-1/2 inch hole saw to cut a hole in the top of the box. These were hole saw bits that I already had, and if I had to purchase a new one for this project I would use a 4-3/8 so that the deli cup would fit tight in the hole. With the 4-1/2 inch bit the tolerance is too close for a tight fit, but my hides prevent the bowls from being tipped over, and that was the goal. I also found that the hole saw bit’s teeth would often grab the plastic as it broke through and “fling” the box around. Running the drill in reverse to do the cutting once the initial pilot hole was drilled prevented this. It took longer, but created less dust and a cleaner hole.

With my boxes cut, I took some $1 flat black spray paint and gave the boxes single ruddy coat of paint. It doesn’t need to be a solid perfect coat, just enough to obscure the light filtering through. Once dried, the hide boxes were placed in the cages, water bowls filled, and my kingsnakes all had new homes. …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Dec 26

Herp Photo of the Day: Angels in a Box!

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

Angels in a Box, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Snakeskii” />

Upload your own reptile and amphibian photos photos at gallery.kingsnake.com, and you could see them featured here! …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Dec 26

Herp Video of the Week: Soft Shell Turtle!

Check out this video “Soft Shell Turtle?” submitted by kingsnake.com user freymann.
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
Read more here: King Snake

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   Dec 25

Herp Photo of the Day: Merry Christmas!

It’s our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user ninthof9!

Merry Christmas, uploaded by kingsnake.com user ninthof9″ />

Upload your own reptile and amphibian photos photos at gallery.kingsnake.com, and you could see them featured here! …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Dec 24

Frankie Tortoise Tails – So This is Christmas

It’s early Christmas eve and Greg and I doing what we usually do for the Christmas Holidays….avoiding the Christmas Holidays.

It’s not that we are Bah-humbug, but Christmas is the longest holiday we have to endure. It starts well before Thanksgiving when the first tv commercial features the sounds of Christmas bells or an outright Christmas song. The array of things to do for Christmas for the next 45 days is so vast no one family can do it all. We pick and choose what we do but the rest still comes at me like bad celebrity news. It is exhausting.

Our plan for the next two days is to watch commercial free TV, stay outta the stores, make home-made pizza (both days), relax and pretend it is January.

The only other thing to be done is take care of Frankie, the cat, and the geckos.

It’s getting cold tonight so Frankie is inside in the big bathroom. I was prepared. Room cleaned, rags and newspaper available, cardboard palace set up. I went out and picked Frankie some grass. I mixed it with some lettuce, vitamins, and calcium. I brought Frankie his Christmas Eve din-din.

Frankie sat, rear blocking the the door, munching on his feast. He was happy. And then he peed.

I’ve said this before, it is absolutely astonishing how much pee can come out of the back end of a 100 pound sulcata. I can hear it from the gecko room. I arrive in time to grab rags and inspect the damage.

One can never have enough rags with a 100 pound sulcata.

Now this has never happen before: Frankie’s pee went under the door and into the hall where there is a rug.

I start throwing rags at the door to sop up as much pee as possible. It was too late. Although I could not open the door (Frankie is blocking), I can peek out enough to see that the rug just outside the bathroom door is getting soaked. I squeeze through to door.

“GREG!”

“What?”

“Can you bring me the rug cleaner spray, NOW?”

You see, as much as sulcata poop seems to bother people, there really isn’t anything, including sulcata poo that smells as bad as sulcata pee….in 24 hours. Getting the sulcata pee out of the rug is a Holiday emergency!

I sop up what pee I can from the rug. I start spritzing the rug with rug cleaner. Then I just open the rug spray container and pour it where the pee is. Rub, rub, rub, pat, pat, pat, pray, pray, pray.

I finish all the rug cleaner and go through a dozen rags. I squeeze back into the bathroom, pushing Frankie butt away from the door. Good timing. Frankie just finished up another round of pee.

At this point I am ready to have Frankie move so I can get under him but he …read more
Read more here: Turtle Times

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   Dec 24

This is Lizard Squad, the nebulous hacker group now tied to the Sony hack

By Herp News

Talk to any avid gamer these days and they’ll tell you about Lizard Squad.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 24

Christmas colors disguise gliding lizards in the rainforest

By Herp News

By mimicking the red and green colors of falling leaves, Bornean lizards avoid falling prey to birds whilst gliding, new research has found.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 24

Chinese giant salamander finds new home in UK

The largest amphibian in the UK is a Chinese salamander named Professor Wu.

From the London Evening Standard:

The 19-year-old has been brought over for a new conservation project to help research ways to prevent the giants from becoming extinct in the wild and was named after one of the project’s partners.

Professor Wu is the only Chinese giant salamander in the UK and can be seen in the Land of Giants exhibit at the zoo.

The animals are classified as the world’s largest amphibian and face threat of extinction because they are being over-harvested for human consumption.

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

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   Dec 24

Herp Photo of the Day: Dragon Wings!

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

Dragon Wings, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Snakeskii” />

Upload your own reptile and amphibian photos photos at gallery.kingsnake.com, and you could see them featured here! …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Dec 24

Hypothermic turtle, 'Solstice,' rescued on Washington coast

By Herp News

The 41-pound olive ridley sea turtle was discovered Monday on a beach in Oysterville, WA, and is now receiving treatment at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. 

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 24

Meet Lizard Squad, the group that may have helped North Korea hack Sony

By Herp News

© Damian Dovarganes/AP A detail of the Sony Pictures Studios headquarters building is seen in Culver City, Calif., Dec. 19, 2014 An amorphous hacker collective known as Lizard Squad may have played a role in the massive cyberattack against Sony, according to the cybersecurity firm IntelCrawler . The group has attacked Sony previously and appears to have some links to Guardian of Peace, the …

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 23

Top 10 Environmental Stories of 2014

By Herp News

In 2014, the unimaginable happened: companies representing the majority of palm oil production and trade agreed to stop cutting down rainforests and draining peatlands for new oil palm plantations. After years of intense campaigning by environmentalists and dire warnings from scientists, nearly two dozen major producers, traders, and buyers established zero deforestation policies.

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   Dec 23

White cobra that roamed Thousand Oaks goes on exhibit at San Diego Zoo

By Herp News

Attention, reptile enthusiasts: A venomous white cobra that was once loose in Thousand Oaks is now on exhibit at the San Diego Zoo.

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

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   Dec 23

Show respect for the snakes on "Rattler Road"

Note the very visible loreal pit of this, the dusky pygmy rattlesnake.

The road we were on could almost have been called “Pygmy Rattler Road.”

Actually there were many other herp species found on it, but it was a road that almost never failed to disclose from one to several dusky pygmy rattlesnakes that would vary in size from neonates (in season) to adults of 16 to 20 inch length. In other words, it was indeed a pygmy road.

It is the dusky pygmy rattlesnake, Sistrurus miliarius barbouri, that is found in our area (North Central Florida). They have a curious and rather spotty distribution: common in one area, virtually unknown only a few miles distant, and then common again in another nearby locale.

When startled and on the move they most often dart quickly for cover. However, if approached while in a basking coil they, as often as not, will coil more tightly, twitch their head and sometimes the entire body nervously, and rattle (for all the good this latter action does).

The rattle of even an adult pygmy is so small that unless your hearing is exceptional, you will often not hear the sound produced. If you still insist on bothering them they will strike, rapidly and accurately. Although the venom is not usually fatal to a healthy adult, a bite will be sufficiently painful (even with prompt medical intervention) to have you wondering why you were dumb or careless enough to be within striking range of this feisty little pit viper.

Always show them due respect!

Continue reading “Show respect for the snakes on “Rattler Road”” …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Dec 23

The problem with 'heroes in a half-shell'

Contrary to popular beliefs, the most common reptile in rescue is not a giant. I see and receive requests to surrender more water turtles, primarily red eared sliders, than any other reptile. In fact, in one week I will get more requests to surrender sliders than I have received to surrender Burmese pythons in the entire existence of my rescue.

With Christmas around the corner, I am cringing. The wildly popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie will lead to a lot of impulse slider purchases. They are small, cute and cheap, and available at almost every pet store. They also live a long time, take a lot of care to set up properly and while the animal itself is inexpensive, a good set-up is not.

I have no problem with gifting a pet, but slider acquisitions are often made on impulse. Research will be minimal and the care sheets that are handed out are less than wonderful. The animals will come from a big box chain, and the likelihood that they have a chance to talk to an actual reptile person will be minimal.

The end result will sadly be people who talk about how horrible reptile pets are. This takes more than a blog post to fix. Reach out to friends who may be thinking of getting their very own “hero in a half-shell” for their children. Let them know the real commitment that a water turtle will take, and let us hope they do not follow the historical trend of movie impulse purchases. …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Dec 23

Update on USARK lawsuit against USFWS

There’s been a change of judges in the USARK v. USFWS lawsuit about listing big constrictors as injurious species.

The case was recently transferred to Judge Raymond Daniel Moss. He will be the third judge assigned to the case. In August, we had been informed that the case had been transferred from Judge Sullivan to the Honorable Reggie B. Walton. In the case of both transfers, it appears to be simply a matter of trying to distribute the judicial workload.

On November 14, 2014, Judge Moss received his judicial commission to serve as a federal judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Upon his confirmation, Judge Moss left a large, prestigious DC law firm where he had chaired the Regulatory and Government Affairs Department. This is his first position as a judge, although upon graduation from law school he was a law clerk for a federal district court judge and then for Justice Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Judge Moss has spent considerably more time in private practice than working for the government. Hopefully, his private practice experience in regulatory and government affairs will help him be able to also see the issues from our perspective.
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Read more here: King Snake

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   Dec 23

Eagle-faced dinosaur takes record as North America's oldest horned dino

A new dinosaur, the size of a large rabbit, is the earliest known horned dinosaur in North America.

From IFL Science:

Over a decade ago, paleontologists working in the Cloverly Formation of Carbon County, Montana, unearthed the partial skull, lower jaw, and teeth of a small horned dinosaur. Previous work has shown that horned dinosaurs (or neoceratopsians) originated and diversified in the Early Cretaceous, but findings from that time period in the North American fossil record were limited to isolated teeth and bits of the post-cranial skeleton. Beloved triceratops showed up much later.

Now, based on several features—including a hook on its beak-like structure (or rostral bone) and a long, pointed cavity over its cheek—the skull belongs to a previously unknown species, according to Andrew Farke from the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology and colleagues.

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

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   Dec 23

Herp Photo of the Day: Sleigh Ride!

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

Sleigh Ride, uploaded by kingsnake.com user ginag” />

Upload your own reptile and amphibian photos photos at gallery.kingsnake.com, and you could see them featured here! …read more
Read more here: King Snake

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   Dec 23

Frankie Tortoise Tails – Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays From Frankie Tortoise Tails

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Read more here: Turtle Times

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   Dec 22

Pet reptiles pose health risk for infants: study

By Herp News

Owning exotic reptiles such as snakes, chameleons, iguanas and geckos could place infants at risk of salmonella infection, according to a British study published on Monday. Researchers in the southwestern English county of Cornwall found that out of 175 cases of salmonella in children under five over a three-year period, 27 percent occurred in homes which had reptile pets. If the pet is allowed …

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