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.

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Happy Holidays From Frankie Tortoise Tails

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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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Biologists describe upwards of 15,000 previously undocumented species every year. Some of these species are complete surprises, sometimes representing new genera. Others may be identified after genetic analysis distinguishes them from closely-related species. Some — especially conspicuous birds and mammals — are already known to local populations, but hadn’t been formally described by scientists.

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Biologists at the University of Porto, in Portugal, have found that the Iberian emerald lizards' skin reflects light in different ways depending on what angle it is being viewed at.

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On November 3, 2014, I woke up to check my flight status from Bangalore to New York. What I found when I opened my laptop was a mindboggling amount of emails, hate mail, death threats, and interview requests. The numbers were staggering. The night before, the Discovery Channel had aired the first trailers for the show they decided to call Eaten Alive.

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A team of mechanical engineers has used the same scientific principles employed by the sticky feet of geckos to create a superhero climbing device. With patents pending, they are poised to wrap their sticky fingers around some hard cash.

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Mid-August in the Deep South is hot and muggy, so we wanted to get an early start to our hike. This morning we were going to flip some boards before the sun made conditions too hot for anything to utilize them as cover.

Across a dirt road where a forest of oak, pine, and magnolia borders an old field is where we began our search. Our starting point was an 8×4 sheet of plywood that had been left behind by hunters or property owners, which we had conveniently tucked a little closer to the wood line.

Using a hook, we gently raised one side of the board and, in a low depression, coiled tightly, was a large female “canebrake” rattlesnake.

I call it a canebrake rattlesnake because until the 1970s the southern form was considered a subspecies, Crotalus horridus atricaudatus. We now know that they are just a southern color variant.

We had flipped this girl at this spot about two months prior, but now, because she was still here, we guessed that it was because she was gravid. Well, at this point, we could clearly see that she was gravid.

The timber rattlesnake Crotalus horridus has a wide distribution in the United States, and although some populations in the midwest and the northeast are in decline, they are still abundant in undisturbed habitat here in the southeast. We want to keep it that way so, after a few photographs, we slowly lowered the board and left her as undisturbed as possible.

We checked the sight one more time in October, but by that time she was long gone. Hopefully we will see her again at this spot. …read more
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Some scientists predict we are heading toward a mass extinction event.

From the Guardian:

A stark depiction of the threat hanging over the world’s mammals, reptiles, amphibians and other life forms has been published by the prestigious scientific journal, Nature. A special analysis carried out by the journal indicates that a staggering 41% of all amphibians on the planet now face extinction while 26% of mammal species and 13% of birds are similarly threatened.

Many species are already critically endangered and close to extinction, including the Sumatran elephant, Amur leopard and mountain gorilla. But also in danger of vanishing from the wild, it now appears, are animals that are currently rated as merely being endangered: bonobos, bluefin tuna and loggerhead turtles, for example.

In each case, the finger of blame points directly at human activities. The continuing spread of agriculture is destroying millions of hectares of wild habitats every year, leaving animals without homes, while the introduction of invasive species, often helped by humans, is also devastating native populations. At the same time, pollution and overfishing are destroying marine ecosystems.

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By Herp News

At the start of December, a notorious hacker gang named “Lizard Squad” issued a threat: it would take down over Christmas the PlayStation and Xbox Live networks, the online services that some video games need in order run from a home console. Despite most hackers being “in it for the lulz” — a hacker term meaning “doing it for fun” — some did not take kindly to threats of disruption to their …

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A pre-Jurassic era fossil of a carnivorous marine reptile has been found on a beach in south Wales.

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London, Dec 21 (IANS) A pre-Jurassic era fossil of a carnivorous marine reptile has been found on a beach in south Wales.

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BACK TO THE WILD: Ben Nadler from Australian Seabird Rescue releases Shelayne the green sea turtle at Flat Rock. Cathy Adams

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Ssonoma, Calif.– K-PAX Racing, the only team campaigning McLaren sports cars in North America, is partnering with Flying Lizard Motorsports to manage its racecar program for the 2015 Pirelli World Challenge season. K-PAX will draw upon Flying Lizard’s diverse, international racing and logistics expertise throughout the upcoming season. K-PAX and Flying Lizard will compete under the … Keep …

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A 7-foot-long, fossilized skeleton of an extinct marine reptile has been discovered in the U.K. Jonathan Bow, a 34-year-old computer programmer, found what's believed to be an ichthyosaur fossil as he walked along Penarth Beach in South Wales with his brother, Wales Online reported Friday . “Something this large and complete is a once in a lifetime find,” Bow, an amateur fossil hunter, said of …

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Seemingly every year scientists set a new record with the number of species they describe. 2014 will be no exception. Below are some of the ‘new species’ highlights from the past year. The list includes species whose descriptions were first published in 2014. Some of the ‘discoveries’ occurred in years prior.

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One turtle previously unable to move was able to roll around with the help of a LEGO wheelchair.

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2K and Turtle Rock Studios announced today that the Open Beta test for the much anticipated 4v1 shooter, Evolve™, is coming exclusively to Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, January 15 – 19, 2015.

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Fitch Ratings assigns 'AAA' ratings to the following senior unsecured notes issued by Tortoise Energy Infrastructure Corp :

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In March 2014, West Virginia enacted the Dangerous Wild Animal (DWA) law, which was lobbied for heavily by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and its affiliated WV organizations.

Similar bills had previously failed in WV, dying in legislative committee and once progressing far enough to be vetoed by WV’s Governor. Although the state’s Governor vetoed a similar DWA bill in 2012, which veto occurred after the Zanesville animal release in 2011, he signed the 2014 DWA bill.

The Zanesville Connection

WV’s 2014 DWA Bill (HB 4393) is frequently justified by the 2011 release of 50 animals in Zanesville, Ohio (consisting of lions, tigers, bears and wolves). As covered in Esquire, the released animals had been accumulated via purchase and “rescue” by Terry Thompson and were housed in outdoor cages on his 73-acre farm.

Forty-nine of the released animals were killed by law enforcement on or near the farm on the evening of the release, and the remaining tiger was killed on the farm the next morning. It has been reported that officers closed the doors of several cages in which a few large cats had remained, only to discover that every cage had been cut open in addition to having its door left open. Thompson’s partially eaten body was discovered on the farm with bolt cutters and a pistol lying nearby.

The police theorized that before shooting himself in the head, Thompson cut open the sides of all the cages, as well as, opening all the cage doors. In Thompson’s house, however, two monkeys, three leopards and a small bear remained alive in cages.

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Check out this video “Do Tortoises Eat Toes?” submitted by kingsnake.com user rugbyman2000.
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A 7ft skeleton of a carnivorous marine reptile is found on a beach in south Wales

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SAN DIEGO, Dec. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ – Turtle Beach Corporation (NASDAQ: HEAR) today announced that the Chief Executive Officer, Juergen Stark and Chief Financial Officer, John Hanson will be presenting …

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A viral YouTube video showing a tortoise pushing another back on its feet may be a case of aggressive courtship, expert says.

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By comparing camera trapping findings with genetic samples taken from feces, biologists have determined that the density of ocelots on Barro Colorado Island in Panama is the highest yet recorded. There are over three ocelots per every two square kilometers (0.77 square miles) on the island.

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Can you sing The Twelve Days of Christmas without two turtle doves? Well, that just might be the future of the holiday classic. Populations of the iconic birds have plummeted in the past few decades, falling 77 percent in Europe since 1980 and 96 percent in the United Kingdom since 1970.

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A strange marine reptile from the age of dinosaurs that was recently unearthed in China may shed light on how life recovered after the greatest mass extinction in Earth's history, researchers say. The creatures were odd-looking predators that grew to about 6 feet (2 meters) in size, and have so far only been found in the province of Hubei in central China. “Hupehsuchia is a group of bizarre …

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The peeps were deafening. We were standing on the edge of a rain-filled drainage ditch that paralleled a busy North Central Florida highway.

The rain, a deluge a few minutes earlier continued to fall in a fine but steady sprinkle. Rather than frightening and silencing the singers, the sounds of the streaming traffic, rubber on the wet roadway, seemed to stimulate the peeping chorus.

Jake and I, headlamps aglow, moved stealthily to the water’s edge. There were so many chorusers that we found it was almost impossible to home in on one set of peeps and follow it to the source. In fact, we soon found that it was much easier and more productive to simply scan the emergent grasses.

By doing that one after the other, we found the callers – each a tiny, one inch long toad sitting with forequarters propped above water by forefeet firmly planted on a blade or two of grass. Periodically a chorusing male would balloon a proportionately immense sausage-shaped vocal sac and voice a series of loud chick-like peeps. Between peeps, the vocal sacs would deflate a bit then re-balloon as another peep was produced.

Because of lingering drought conditions, it had been years since we had happened upon a population of oak toads, Bufo quercicus, this large. This tiny toad is North America’s smallest toad species and the only one that has an easy to identify shrill peeping voice.

The question now was, could we get photos without the still-falling rain shorting the cameras out? Before electronics, never had these potential problems ruled the world!
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A newly identified poison dart frog is already threatened.

From mongabay.com:

“Many scientists are surprised about this discovery. People thought that it was difficult to find a new species of poison frog in this region of the country,” stated Abel Batista. “In Panama almost all areas are well investigated, and finding a such bright colored frog, gives us the impression that in Panama still a lot of research is needed, principally to investigate those remote areas, that nobody is going to do research.”

“Much of the western slope of the Panamanian Caribbean has been poorly studied and is difficult to access,” Jaramillo further explained, “also, these frogs are very small, making them difficult to observe.”

The scientists celebrated the new species by naming it, Andinobates geminisae, after Marco Ponce’s wife, Geminis Vargas, due to her unwavering support of his studies in Panamanian herpetology. However, celebration surrounding the discovery of this new species was short-lived as attention immediately shifted toward determining a special conservation plan to ensure the species’ survival.

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By Herp News

Beijing, Dec 18 (IANS) A new species of short-necked marine reptile called Hupehsuchia from the Triassic period has been discovered in China.

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A new species of short-necked marine reptile from the Triassic period has been discovered in China.

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( PLOS ) A new species of short-necked marine reptile from the Triassic period has been discovered in China.

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A group of women is fighting to protect the habitat of Blanding’s turtles from development.

From keysnet.com:

“We started out with as six little old ladies,” laughs Cheryl Anderson. “Now we’ve got eight little old ladies.”

But, she adds quickly, they’ve managed to rally support from across the county — and the country — to chip in with donations toward the estimated $220,000 legal cost of the case.

They’re trying to protect the point — a former military exercise area that for decades has been left to the birds, bees, bats, butterflies and reptiles.

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Marking the first pilot order from network president Kevin Reilly

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The Florida panhandle is one of our favorite places. Even in months like December when much of the rest of the country is feeling the icy grip of winter, the panhandle experiences much milder conditions and on warmer days we’re even able to see a few snakes and other reptiles.

So there we were, December 23, two days before Christmas hiking through palmetto and thick scrub when a glossy,red, black and yellow snake crawls into full view right in front of us.

North Florida has three tricolored snakes, the scarlet kingsnake (Lampropeltis elapsoides) , the northern scarlet snake (Cemophora coccinea cope) and the venomous eastern coral snake (Micrurus fulvius) . This particular snake was a coral snake.

The eastern coral snake is a primarily fossorial elapid that uses its powerful neurotoxic venom and small fangs to subdue its’ prey which consists chiefly of smaller snakes, skinks and glass lizards.

The warm,humid weather must have brought this eighteen inch long female to the surface to poke around for a meal.

By the end of the afternoon we had also uncovered (quite literally) the other two species of tricolors found in the region, both under artificial cover. …read more
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