By Herp News
The home to a number of slithering serpents and all kinds of creepy crawlies currently holds the world record for the most reptile species under one roof.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Reptile Gardens opens for its 77th season
Frankie Tortoise Tails – Spring Green
Frankie has a new best friend. I am not the new best friend because I moved him to Mobile. Up to this point Frankie is not happy about being in Mobile. It is going to get better. Yesterday it got a bit better. I’m back in Frankie’s Top Five Friend List as I did introduce him to his new best friend.
The day before he got to meet our down-hill next door neighbor. I know our uphill neighbor pretty well and see her a lot. The lower-on-the-hill neighbor works a lot of hours so five months later I still hadn’t met her.
Frankie and I were walking to a house two doors down the street where Frankie has permission to graze. It’s difficult getting to that house because Frankie has to walk past our down-hill next door neighbor’s spectacularly beautiful lawn loaded with tall, bright green, fresh, winter rye grass.
Frankie wants that grass so much that every time we walk past the green garden of delight house I have a 30 foot scrimmage to keep him out of his desired yard. I have a very strict rule that Frankie does not graze a yard without permission.
This means that since October of last year Frankie has been disallowed access to the sea of green he so longingly wishes to graze.
Until yesterday.
The day before we were our way back home, I was struggling to keep Frankie on the sidewalk and out of our down-hill neighbor’s grass when our neighbor pulls up into her drive way. I was a bit embarrassed that she witnessed his nibbling on the very edges of her lawn and me desperately trying to drag him back into our pitiful grass-lacking yard.
She waved at us as she got out of her car with purse, jacket and bag in hand and walked over to say hello.
“So, this is the Frankie I’ve heard all about. Wow, he is so BIG.”
Commence the Frankie questions: how much does he weigh, what species is he, where does he sleep, how long have you had him, were did you get him, what does he eat, and so on.
After the question and answer session (all the while struggling to keep Frankie away from her yard) I apologize to her mentioning that Frankie tries to be be respectful and I work to keep him off her beautiful lawn but he has nibbled some off the sides.
To this she exclaims that most certainly Frankie can graze on her grass, she doesn’t mind at all. Graze away! Less to mow on the weekends.
The invitation sounds too good to be true so I double check and ask if she is sure he can graze on her lawn. We get the please, do let Frankie graze!
So the next day, yesterday, I walked the hungry Frankie directly to the green yard of bountiful grass.
Oh my. …read more
Read more here: Turtle Times
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PlanetShoes.com Now Carrying Lizard Shoes
By Herp News
Lifestyle retailer PlanetShoes.com expands their ever-growing line of outdoor footwear to include Lizard shoes. (PRWeb March 29, 2014) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/03/prweb11684624.htm
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Herp Video of the Week: Boa Constrictor photo compilation!
Check out our Herp Video of the Week, submitted by kingsnake.com user boa2cobras.
Submit your own reptile and amphibian videos at http://www.kingsnake.com/video/, and you could see them featured here! …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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Why Supply Chain Leaders Should Aspire to be a Tortoise not a Hare
By Herp News
Remember the Aesop Fable, The Tortoise and the Hare? It is one of my favorites. Based upon my research, I think that it needs to be retold over and over again. It should be especially relevant for supply chain leaders. Why? I have been studying corporate balance sheet data for the […]
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Columbian boy discovers new frog species in swimming pool
Did you ever find anything cool when you were a kid? How about discovering an entirely new species in a swimming pool?
From National Geographic:
The 1.5-inch-long (4-centimeter-long) frog “is rather strange-looking—it’s quite fat with short legs and bright orange spots on its sides,” said Luis German Naranjo, WWF Colombia‘s conservation director.
Naranjo and a team of scientists were surveying wildlife in eastern Colombia’s Orinoco savanna, including animals found on a small farm.
Expecting to find little more than livestock, the team was surprised when the farmer’s seven-year-old son, whose name was given only as Camilito, called the group over to a pool. There, in the water, was the small spotted frog.
The team’s herpetologist, Daniel Cuentas, had never seen anything like it, and immediately set out looking for other examples.
Photo: Adam Dixon, WWF …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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Kala: the face of tigers in peril
By Herp News
In 1864, Walter Campbell was an officer in the British Army, stationed in India when he penned these words in his journal: “Never attack a tiger on foot—if you can help it. There are cases in which you must do so. Then face him like a Briton, and kill him if you can; for if you fail to kill him, he will certainly kill you.” In a stroke of good fortune for the tiger, perceptions in India have changed drastically since Campbell’s time. Tiger hunting is now banned and conservationists are usually able to rescue the big cats if they become stranded while navigating increasingly human-occupied areas. But is this enough to save the tiger?
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Scientists reunite turtle fossils found at least 160 years apart (+video)
By Herp News
An amateur paleontologist discovered part of a limb bone of a huge sea turtle that lived some 70 million years ago. The other part of the same bone was first described in 1849.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Did you hear the one about the man who builds snake robots for a living?
This physicist doesn’t just spend his days working with sidewinder rattlesnakes, but he makes robots of them, too.
From Popular Science:
Daniel Goldman spends his days working with venomous rattlesnakes, baby sea turtles, and a dozen other types of animals. But he isn’t a zookeeper, or even a biologist. He’s a physicist, studying locomotion at Georgia Tech. In order to test his hypotheses, he builds robots that mimic the ways animals move. Jealous yet?
Popular Science: Why do you have so many sandboxes?
Daniel Goldman: No one has ever studied the complexities of a sidewinder rattlesnake’s movement on sand, its natural substrate. In principle, you can understand how a hummingbird stays aloft or how a shark swims by solving fluid-dynamics equations. We don’t yet have fundamental equations for complex terrain—sand, leaf litter, tree bark. To figure that out, we built giant sandboxes that are equipped with high-speed cameras and can tilt to mimic dunes.
PS: Which animals are the hardest ones to work with?
DG: The rattlesnakes were a lucky break. You put them in a sandbox, and they just start sidewinding—the sideways slithering they do to cross sand. But most animals don’t do what you want. Ghost crabs, for example, are ridiculously fast. In the laboratory, you can get about 10 good trials out of them: They’ll run away from you down a track, where high-speed cameras record them. After that, they seem to decide they are no longer afraid and start trying to pinch you.
Photo: kingsnake.com user Ryan-reptilian …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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Scientists reunite turtle fossils found at least 160 years apart
By Herp News
An amateur paleontologist discovered part of a limb bone of a huge sea turtle that lived some 70 million years ago. The other part of the same bone was first described in 1849.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Europe approves vet drug that killed off almost all of Asia’s vultures
By Herp News
When Europeans first arrived in North America, they exterminated three to five billion passenger pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius) in the short span of a century through a combination of habitat destruction and hunting. In 1914, the last living passenger pigeon perished at the Cincinnati Zoo. Despite the staggering scale of this extinction event, three species of vulture from Southeastern Asia retain the dubious distinction of having had the most rapid population crash of any avian fauna. They might not have begun with numbers as large as the passenger pigeon, but within the space of a single decade, their populations were reduced by 96 to 99 percent.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Paleontologists assemble giant turtle bone from fossil discoveries made centuries apart
By Herp News
A broken fossil turtle bone discovered by an amateur paleontologist in 2012 turned out to be the missing half of a bone first described in 1849. The surprising puzzle discovery has led paleontologists to revise conventional wisdom of how long fossils can survive exposed to surface conditions. It also provides insight into one of the largest turtle species ever known.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Two Parts Of Same Sea Turtle Fossil Found 160 Years Apart
By Herp News
[ Watch the Video: Two Turtle Bones Reunited After 160 Years ] Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Against insurmountable odds and after more than 160 years, an ancient sea turtle has finally been reunited – with itself. Fossil evidence of the massive turtle Atlantochelys mortoni was first discovered in 1849 in the form of one-half of an upper arm bone – called the humerus. The …
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Two halves of the same sea turtle fossil discovered 160 years apart
By Herp News
Brooks Hays March 25 (UPI) — The two halves of a sea turtle humerus, their discoveries separated by almost two centuries, fit perfectly together.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Turtle car points to the future
By Herp News
Thermoplastic exoskeleton could revolutionise car design.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Man finds ancient sea giant
By Herp News
Now that paleontologists have assembled a complete humerus bone from the sea turtle Atlantocheyls mortoni , they have more information about the species and its overall size.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Long lost mammal photographed on camera trap in Vietnam
By Herp News
In 1929, two sons of Theodore Roosevelt (Teddy Junior and Kermit) led an expedition that killed a barking deer, or muntjac, in present-day Laos, which has left scientists puzzled for over 80 years. At first scientists believed it to be a distinct species of muntjac and named it Roosevelt’s muntjac (Muntiacus rooseveltorum), however that designation was soon cast into doubt with some scientists claiming it was a specimen of an already-known muntjac or a subspecies. The problem was compounded by the fact that the animal simply disappeared in the wild. No one ever documented a living Roosevelt’s muntjac again—until now.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Ex-Animal Planet host sentenced for lizard sale
By Herp News
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The former host of Animal Planet's “Wild Recon” show has been sentenced to two years' probation and 200 hours of community service after admitting to trying to sell two endangered Iranian desert monitor lizards without a permit.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Evidence of 25 million year old venomous snake found in Africa
Researchers at Ohio University have found evidence that a venomous snake existed in Africa 25 million years ago.
From Science World:
“In the Oligocene epoch, from about 34 to 23 million years ago, we would have expected to see a fauna dominated by booid snakes, such as boas and pythons. These are generally ‘sit and wait’ constricting predators that hide and ambush passing prey,” lead author Jacob McCartney, a postdoctoral researcher in the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, said in a news release.
The newly discovered species is named ‘Rukwabyoka holmani’ and was unearthed in the Rukwa Rift Basin of Tanzania. The species genus name comes from the Rukawa region with the Swahili word for snake. And the species name honors J.Alan Holman, a palaeontologist. The team found eight different types of fossil snakes varying in length from 2.6 mm to 5 mm.
Photo: Ohio University/Science World …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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Turtle Canyon Now Open at Newport Aquarium
By Herp News
Newport Aquarium’s newest exhibit Turtle Canyon opened to the public at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 22, following an Annual Passholder preview event. (PRWeb March 22, 2014) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/03/prweb11694336.htm
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Over 9,000 primates killed for single bushmeat market in West Africa every year
By Herp News
Over the past 25 years, West Africa’s primates have been put at risk due to an escalating bushmeat trade compounded with forest loss from expanding human populations. In fact, many endemic primates in the Upper Guinea forests of Liberia and Ivory Coast have been pushed to the verge of extinction. To better understand what’s happening, a recent study in mongabay.com’s open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science investigated the bushmeat exchange between these neighboring countries.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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A Reptile Dysfunction: Unlikely Sources of Salmonella
By Herp News
Salmonella may well be one of the most disreputable microbes in Western society. It’s infamous for its food-poisoning capabilities and has a well known history of wrecking the bonhomous vibe following a good summer barbecue, not to mention its singular ability to cast a sickly shadow over the breathtaking bounty of an all-you-can-eat buffet. While Salmonella infection is commonly associated with …
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Meet Iman: the Sumatran rhino’s newest hope for survival
By Herp News
Hopes for one of the world’s most imperiled megafauna rose this month when wildlife conservationists succeeded in catching a female Sumatran rhino named Iman in the Malaysian state of Sabah. The female, which experts believe to be fertile, has since been successfully transferred via helicopter to the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary where experts plan to mate her with the local male, Tam. Located in Tabin Wildlife Reserve, the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary is an uncompleted semi-wild enclosure and home to one of several last-ditch efforts to save the vanishing species from extinction.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Sea snakes chronically dehydrated because they can't drink salt water
Scientists always assumed yellow-bellied sea snake, like other sea-living creatures, could process the salt out of sea water to meet their needs for hydration without the negative effects of salinity.
Turns out they were wrong, according to researcher Harvey Lillywhite from the University of Florida.
From National Geographic:
Lillywhite started studying this species in 2009, at a site off the coast of Costa Rica. “We’ve looked at hundreds,” he says. “No sea snake we’ve observed has drunk any seawater.”
They only stick to the fresh stuff, but the amount they drink varies throughout the year. These snakes live in a place that goes through drought from November to May. If they were captured during these dry spells, they betrayed their thirst by sipping heavily from fresh water; if they were caught in wetter months, they barely drank. “If the snake drinks fresh water, it’s thirsty,” says Lillywhite. “If it’s thirsty, it’s dehydrated, and if it’s dehydrated, it’s not doing what the textbooks said.”
The team also found that the snakes had significantly less water in their bodies than in the dry months than in the wet ones. Despite having a salt gland and being surrounded in water, the snakes are thirsty and dehydrated for months on end. Lillywhite thinks that they cope by having an unusually high amount of water in their bodies to begin with. They might also have adaptations that help them to lose water slowly, and to withstand the effects of dehydration.
In the wild, it is possible that the snakes use deep springs or estuaries, but they are incredibly widespread and Lillywhite has never found any evidence of them congregating in specific sites.
Instead, rain brings them salvation.
Photo: Wikipedia …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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Sea snakes chronically dehydrated because they can't drink salt wter
Scientists always assumed yellow-bellied sea snake, like other sea-living creatures, could process the salt out of sea water to meet their needs for hydration without the negative effects of salinity.
Turns out they were wrong, according to researcher Harvey Lillywhite from the University of Florida.
From National Geographic:
Lillywhite started studying this species in 2009, at a site off the coast of Costa Rica. “We’ve looked at hundreds,” he says. “No sea snake we’ve observed has drunk any seawater.”
They only stick to the fresh stuff, but the amount they drink varies throughout the year. These snakes live in a place that goes through drought from November to May. If they were captured during these dry spells, they betrayed their thirst by sipping heavily from fresh water; if they were caught in wetter months, they barely drank. “If the snake drinks fresh water, it’s thirsty,” says Lillywhite. “If it’s thirsty, it’s dehydrated, and if it’s dehydrated, it’s not doing what the textbooks said.”
The team also found that the snakes had significantly less water in their bodies than in the dry months than in the wet ones. Despite having a salt gland and being surrounded in water, the snakes are thirsty and dehydrated for months on end. Lillywhite thinks that they cope by having an unusually high amount of water in their bodies to begin with. They might also have adaptations that help them to lose water slowly, and to withstand the effects of dehydration.
In the wild, it is possible that the snakes use deep springs or estuaries, but they are incredibly widespread and Lillywhite has never found any evidence of them congregating in specific sites.
Instead, rain brings them salvation.
Photo: Wikipedia …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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Geo-tagging, turtle hatchery to boost local conservation
By Herp News
Turtle conservationist Kevin Muhammed, left, of the Grande Riviere Nature Tour Guides Association (GRNTGA) with Nigel Darlow, CEO, Atlantic. Atlantic has partnered with the Turtle Village Trust since 2008, and is the sole sponsor of the National Sea Turtle Tagging and Monitoring Programme.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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TURTLE camp aims to improve lifestyle choices
By Herp News
The two-day camp held four times yearly is for American Indian children.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Panola hosts Reptile Day
By Herp News
Reptile Day at Panola Mountain Snake Park
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Hasty: Reptile expert shares the love
By Herp News
WHITEVILLE – The woman who once exhibited a definite soft spot for an alligator was at it again last week.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Turtle carcasses found in Sabah
By Herp News
KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia – An academic studying the economic behaviour of Sabah's northern communities stumbled upon 60 decomposing turtle carcasses on a remote island. Universiti Malaysia Sabah's Dr James Alin, an economist, said he was carrying out research at Pulau Tiga – an island under the proposed Tun Mustapha marine park in Northern Sabah when he smelt a stench. “The smell was so strong …
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Mangalore: Stomach this – Dead lizard found in food at Wenlock hospital
By Herp News
Mangalore Mar 21: In a stomach-churning incident, a patient who was admitted to Wenlock Hospital found a dead lizard in the food provided by the hospital.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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'Turtle Canyon' opens Saturday at Newport Aquarium
By Herp News
On Friday's FOX19 Morning News, we'll get an inside view of the new turtle exhibit at Newport Aquarium. Kelly Rippin will be live there from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Herp Video of the Week: Tadpole to Frog!
Check out our Herp Video of the Week, submitted by kingsnake.com user Minuet.
Submit your own reptile and amphibian videos at http://www.kingsnake.com/video/, and you could see them featured here! …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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Panda lemur making a comeback
By Herp News
One of the world’s biggest populations of greater bamboo lemurs (Prolemur simus)—sometimes known as the panda lemur—has doubled in just three years, giving conservationists new hope that the species can be kept from extinction. With the recent arrival of twenty babies, a community conservation project run by the Aspinall Foundation has boosted the local population to over 100 individuals in Andriantantely, one of Madagascar’s only surviving lowland rainforests. Greater bamboo lemurs are currently categorized as Critically Endangered, though they were once believed extinct until hidden populations were uncovered in the 1980s.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Oldest fossil evidence of modern African venomous snakes found in Tanzania
By Herp News
Scientists have found the oldest definitive fossil evidence of modern, venomous snakes in Africa. The newly discovered fossils demonstrate that elapid snakes — such as cobras, kraits and sea snakes — were present in Africa as early as 25 million years ago. Elapids belong to a larger group of snakes known as colubroids, active foragers that use a variety of methods, including venom, to capture and kill prey.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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They're not making gigantic prehistoric lizards as big as they used to
Way back in the 50s — the 1850s, that is — a scientist named discovered fossils of an Australian lizard he dubbed Megalania prisca. Measuring around 20 feet long, and suspected of living at the same time as early humans arrived on Australia, he was one big scary lizard.
Or not.
From the NatGeo blog of self-described “fossil killjoy” Brian Switek:
…Megalania ain’t what it used to be. For one thing, the lizard’s bones are so similar to those of other monitor species – belonging to the genus Varanus – that paleontologists have taken to calling it Varanus priscus. And while it seems likely that the big lizard was venomous, recent size estimates have shrunk this “dragon in the dust.”
Let’s have a look at the traditional baseline first. In 2004, working with the relationship between vertebrae size and body length, paleontologist Ralph Molnar proposed that mature Varanus priscus could have been between 23 and 26 feet long, depending on the anatomy of the tail. But other researchers think such sizes are major overestimates. In a 2002 study that critiqued “the myth of reptilian domination” in prehistoric Australia, anatomist Stephen Wroe reanalyzed old body size data and calculated that the lizard probably averaged about 11 feet in total length and, citing earlier estimates from Molnar, wouldn’t have grown much longer than 15 feet.
Size estimates in a 2012 paper by paleontologist Jack Conrad and colleagues came out in between the extremes. While describing a new, large Varanus species that once lived in Greece, the researchers also took a look back at Australia’s ever-contentious lizard. Without the tail, the Varanus priscus specimen in their study had an estimated body length of almost seven feet, meaning that this individuals total length was almost certainly longer than the 11 foot average Wroe suggested. Especially large specimens, Conrad and coauthors noted, could have had bodies almost 10 feet long with the tails trailing behind, although these animals still would have been smaller than the monstrous lizards paleontologists used to reconstruct.
Photo: Cas Liber/NatGeo
…read more
Read more here: King Snake
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Slither your way to Repticon
By Herp News
Repticon Reptile and Exotic Animal Conventions happen all over the U.S., and the organization called Savannah home in the early 2000s. Now, Repticon is returning to Savannah for 2014, and event coordinator Skip Peel gives us the dirt behind the show.
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Sneak peak: 'Turtle Canyon' coming to Newport Aquarium
By Herp News
A new turtle exhibit is coming to the Newport Aquarium. The cameras were rolling on Wednesday afternoon as FOX19 got a sneak peak at the new exhibit.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Tracking endangered leatherback sea turtles by satellite, key habitats identified
By Herp News
Most satellite tagging studies of leatherbacks have focused on adult females on their tropical nesting beaches, so little is known worldwide about males and subadults, the researcher point out. But now, tagging and satellite tracking in locations where leatherbacks forage has allowed the scientists to get a much richer picture of the leatherback’s behavior and dispersal patterns on the open ocean.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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5th Mai Khao Turtle Release Set For Songkrans April 13, 2014
By Herp News
The 5th Mai Khao Turtle Release is scheduled for April 13, 2014 on Phuket’s beautiful Mai Khao Beach.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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