By Herp News

The Asian Turtle Program was established in 1998 and incorporated into the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo/Cleveland Zoological Society’s Asia regional program in 2003.

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By Herp News

Four donors from around the world have pledged $80 million to cat conservation group, Panthera. The money will fund projects working to preserve tigers, lions, jaguars, cheetahs, leopards, snow leopards, and cougars over ten years.

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Just as distracting as a flea to a cat, so a new object in a yard draws the attention of a sulcata tortoise: specifically, Frankie the tortoise.

Frankie has finely deemed the back yard worthy. With warm and sunny days now abundant, Frankie has taken to walking his yard, every inch, every day, for hours on end. Frankie is completely familiar with his yard’s unique terrain, tree placement, where various objects sit, best basking spots in the morning, best basking spot in the afternoon, and the idea place to sit and cool off.

No one can see me. I look like wood.

If something is out of place Frankie will attempt to rectify the situation. To me, it just looks like Frankie is dragging tables and pushing over chairs. He calls it Property Management.

In the morning Frankie does property inspection and if all is well he will do his marathon walk all the way around the yard, reverse all the way around the yard, up and down the slopes, side to side on the slopes, and (if I am lucky) an accidental slide down the slope. Such feats of fortitude deserve tribute and rewards: A carrot, one a day, if at all possible.

Frankie visits the patio door which goes inside the house (where his staff resides). Frankie announces his presence at the back door by walking half on and half off the threshold dragging his shell against the door just in-case I have not noticed his presence. He walks face right into the back door window peering inside to see if there is any chance of carrots.

I can has carrot?

All this is nice to see as I could tell during the last few months that Frankie wasn’t quite sure this was his home or just a temporary stop. There is no question now: the backyard operates under the Frankie Rules.

Greg and I are not quite finished getting Frankie’s yard ready. I am still planting grass. Greg put up his weather station and is working on a second Frankie cam installation. Leaves are raked weekly. Drainage has to be improved. Busy work for Greg and I, and Frankie ever underfoot.

After every rain I have to clear debris from the fence line at the bottom of the slope. If I am lucky I work on my own but most of the time Frankie supervises. Frankie supervises by trampling trash bags full of debris. I switched to the orange bucket that Greta & LD bought for Frankie which he has ignored….until I filled the orange bucket with tree debris.

Frankie now uses the debris-filled orange bucket as a battering ram target. I’m not using it any more nor have I emptied the bucket out as I am afraid Frankie may …read more
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By Herp News

The reptile, discovered in the same layer of rock as the Titanoboa fossil in the Cerrejon coal mine of northern Colombia, has been named after the “demons of terror” Balrogs characters in the Lord of the Rings. “Much like that giant beast, Anthracosuchus balrogus was awakened from deep within a mine after 60 million years trapped within the rocks of tropical South America,” researcher Jonathan …

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Climate change may not be good for the wildlife we’ve still got, but the melting glaciers it’s causing are revealing some pretty cool fossils.

From HuffPo:

Dozens of nearly complete skeletons of prehistoric marine reptiles have been uncovered near a melting glacier in southern Chile.

Scientists found 46 specimens from four different species of extinct ichthyosaurs. These creatures, whose Greek name means “fish lizards,” were a group of large, fast-swimming marine reptiles that lived during the Mesozoic Era, about 245 million to 90 million years ago.

The newly discovered skeletons are from both embryos and adults. The creatures, likely killed during a series of catastrophic mudslides, were preserved in deep-sea sediments that were later exposed by the melting glacier, the researchers said in the study, published May 22 in the journal Geological Society of America Bulletin.

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Photo: Wolfgang Stinnesbeck/HuffPo …read more
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By Herp News

The ACT government will spend $1.5million to extend the grassland homes of the striped legless lizard and the golden sun moth.

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By Herp News

Ecotourism projects aimed to protect endangered marine species and help sustain community-based tourism enterprises are being developed on Turtle Islands, one of the world’s major nesting sites of marine turtles and located in the country’s southernmost frontier.

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By Herp News

The Public Health Agency of Canada is collaborating with Provincial public health partners to investigate an outbreak of salmonellosis related to snakes and rodents used to feed reptiles, such as mice, also known as feeder rodents. Outbreaks associated with reptiles and feeder rodents have been seen in Canada, the United States and countries throughout Europe. Reptiles and the rodents used to …

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By Herp News

On May 22nd, zoos and aquariums around the world creatively called for action on global warming. Dubbed ‘Show the Wild Face of Climate Change,’ the event involved over 70 institutions from 25 countries on all seven continents.

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By Herp News

Tortoise MLP Fund, Inc. today announced that as of May 31, 2014, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $2.3 billion and its unaudited net asset value

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By Herp News

Tortoise MLP Fund, Inc. today announced that as of May 31, 2014, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $2.3 billion and its unaudited net asset value

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By Herp News

Tortoise MLP Fund, Inc. today announced that as of May 31, 2014, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $2.3 billion and its unaudited net asset value

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By Herp News

Tortoise MLP Fund, Inc. today announced that as of May 31, 2014, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $2.3 billion and its unaudited net asset value

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By Herp News

Tortoise Energy Independence Fund, Inc. today announced that as of May 31, 2014, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $504.3 million and its unaudite

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Australian researchers found that brightly-tailed lizards may lose their tails to bird attacks more frequently than their drab cousins do, but they’re protected from more serious attacks to the rest of their bodies.

From the Science Network of Western Australia:

Curtin University’s Dr Bill Bateman and Murdoch University’s A/Professor Trish Fleming say their findings support the hypothesis that while increasing the frequency of attack, brightly-coloured tails divert predatory attention away from the head and body, ultimately increasing a lizard’s chance of survival.

To test the theory, they created 48 models of a scincid lizard, half of which were coloured all brown, and half given blue tails.

Pairs of blue-tailed and all-brown lizards were placed in 24 locations, with pairs 300 metres apart, and individuals 25 metres apart, in semi-open conditions on white sand or leaf litter.

Over a week, the researchers assessed damage and damage location daily, recording attacks at 23 of 24 locations, with 65 incidences in total, 60 of which were attributed to birds.

The researchers found that all-brown models suffered an attack to the tail only twice, while blue-tailed models lost their tails on 11 occasions.

The all-brown models were also more frequently attacked on the head and body, which would likely be fatal for a real lizard.

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Photo: Rob Taylor/Science Network …read more
Read more here: King Snake

So Booger has always been a problem child in one way or another, despite his goofy, out going personality. He’s a bit of a bully when it comes to the females. When they were all still together he would find a way to hang out on top of Tammy and try to flip Teddy over. When it came to Pokey he didn’t bother her and I understand why now. You don’t mess with Pokey. LOL

Well when we removed Pokey out for the RI issues, he decided that was his chance to make the moves on Teddy. I’m not sure if she was a willing participant or not considering she was stuck in the corner of the tank at the time. But Booger found himself being relocated into a tub that included his favourite rock, some leaves to hide in and a dish of water big enough for him to soak in.

And then it got cold…again…and poor Booger and nose bubbles.

Now I would like to say in my defence that I was rather worried about Pokey at the time plus I’m not sure if the nose bubbles were from the onset of RI because of the sudden cold or because he had just chomped into a rather juicy piece of apple. But either way Booger found himself swept into the house and a towel replacing his leaves.

So Booger is now inside in his own little tub and after his little interlude with Teddy. Which also led to his name change as I started calling him a little booger butt and since he seemed to react to it more than Hotrod the name has stuck. Also since his little stunt I’ve been trying to find another home for him. So far I haven’t had much luck. I contacted the zoo who was very helpful in getting me in touch with the reptile guys who an add up at the local herp club. One person has contacted me about him and let them know he was still available and haven’t heard anything back since. That’s okay I don’t think I’d mind keeping booger. He likes to cuddle and by cuddle I mean lay on my forearm next to my elbow, lay his head on my upper arm and watch the world go by. Cute little bugger. …read more
Read more here: Turtle Times

By Herp News

TAMPA — A University of South Florida professor led a trio of paleontologists who have discovered and named the earliest of the pterodactyloids, a group of flying reptiles that became the dominant winged creatures of the prehistoric world.

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By Herp News

Unless you’ve already made plans, you’re probably not going to make it to Box Turtle Day on Saturday at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville. And that’s too bad.

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By Herp News

RIVER Murray turtle numbers are in crisis — they have experienced a 90 per cent decline in recent years and no one seems to know why.

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By Herp News

This notice provides stockholders of Tortoise Power and Energy Infrastructure Fund, Inc. with information regarding the distribution paid on May 30, 2014 and cumulative

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By Herp News

Researchers from the University of Sussex studied and compared the social behavior of two elephant herds: one that was severely affected by 1970 and 1980 culling operations and a herd that was relatively unaffected. In their results, the researchers found that the elephant herds that had experienced culling operations exhibited signs of post traumatic stress disorder.

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Check out this video “Water Dragon,” submitted by kingsnake.com user Minuet.
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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By Herp News

Species monitoring can be a very invasive form of research. However, the use of non-invasive techniques made possible through advancements in technology has been on the rise. A new study published in Ecological Informatics examined one such technique: an innovative and inexpensive non-invasive monitoring tool, known as acoustic surveying.

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By Herp News

Meeting to be held in New York on May 29 hosted by Needham.

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By Herp News

Next week, the rainforests of Southeast Asia are going live. On June 2nd, 11 organizations in the region will be posting lives video, photos, and wildlife sightings over 24 hours on Facebook and Twitter (see #rainforestlive). Dubbed Rainforest: Live, the initiative hopes to raise awareness of quickly vanishing ecosystems and species.

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By Herp News

The apprehension of Chinese poachers in our waters by the Philippine Coast Guard occurs so often that it does not readily make headline news.

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By Herp News

Iwan Susanto, from Tangerang in Indonesia, photographed this tree lizard as it climbed up another lizard's tail in order to get to a high branch.

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By Herp News

Dozens of nearly complete skeletons of prehistoric marine reptiles have been uncovered near a melting glacier in southern Chile. These creatures, whose Greek name means “fish lizards,” were a group of large, fast-swimming marine reptiles that lived during the Mesozoic Era, about 245 million to 90 million years ago. “They look a lot like dolphins today,” said Wolfgang Stinnesbeck, a …

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By Herp News

Take a look inside the mysterious world of Jekyll Island's endangered sea turtles through a program called Ride with Night Patrol.

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Who wouldn’t want to see snake venom turn a dish of blood to jelly? Fortunately io9.com has you covered:

See it here… …read more
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By Herp News

Tortoise Capital Advisors today announced that stockholders of its MLP closed-end funds Tortoise Energy Infrastructure Corp. , Tortoise Energy Capital Corp. and Tortoise North American Energy Corp.

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By Herp News

Another promising step has been made toward developing a universal antidote for snakebite. The results of this pilot study revealed findings that support the team’s idea that providing fast, accessible, and easy-to-administer treatment can increase survival rates in victims of venomous snakebite.

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By Herp News

The RSPCA is trying to trace the owners of an iguana found wandering down a street in Cardiff.

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By Herp News

SAN DIEGO, May 28, 2014 /PRNewswire/ – Turtle Beach Corporation (NASDAQ: HEAR), a leading innovator of audio products and solutions, today announced the addition of IAVI as a distributor for its HyperSound® …

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Would you find it a relaxing experience to have pythons crawl all over you? That’s the latest spa treatment at the Cebu City Zoo in the Philippines.

Read about it here… …read more
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By Herp News

New Caney tow truck driver Slinky Knox got the call about 1:30 a.m. May 26, and helped Montgomery County Precinct 5 deputy constables remove an 8-foot alligator off San Jacinto River Bridge on Texas 242. He released the reptile back into the water.

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By Herp News

Ecuadorian scientists have discovered a gem-looking new species of shade lizard in cloudforests of northwestern Ecuador. DNA data suggest that the closest relative of the new species is a widespread species living along the Pacific lowlands in Ecuador and Colombia.

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By Herp News

SAN DIEGO, May 27, 2014 /PRNewswire/ – Turtle Beach Corporation (NASDAQ: HEAR), a leading innovator of audio products and solutions, has announced it has changed its name from Parametric Sound Corporation, …

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South Dakota’s Reptile Gardens has made the big time: The Guiness Book of World Records has named it the world’s largest collection of reptiles.

From The Rapid City Journal:

Years ago, Reptile Gardens Public Relations Director Johnny Brockelsby, son of the founder, sent documentation to Guinness of the more than 200 species housed at the attraction. But he never heard a word.

This month, someone mentioned that the 260-page 2014 edition of the venerable record book featured Reptile Gardens and Brockelsby immediately ran out and bought a copy.

“I was shocked but absolutely thrilled,” Brockelsby said Thursday. “We have always claimed we were the world’s largest, but everybody claims they are the biggest this or the biggest that. But when the new book came out naming us the largest reptile collection in the world, it immediately gave us credibility.”

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Photo of Reptile Gardens’ Peni the perentie monitor, taken by Cindy Steinle …read more
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By Herp News

Tropical rainforests are the most species-rich ecosystems in the world. Each square kilometer has hundreds of tree species, birds and mammals, and countless other creatures. The idea that these forests could be devoid of animal life therefore seems ludicrous. Still the disappearance of birds, mammals and other species is what is happening in Indonesian forests. The ‘empty forest’ syndrome is becoming an increasing reality in this country.

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