Despite their pacific name, praying mantises are ferocious top predators with powerful, grasping forelimbs; spiked legs; and mechanistic jaws. In fact, imagine a tiger that can rotate its head 180 degrees or a great white that blends into the waves and you’ll have a sense of why praying mantises have developed a reputation. Yet, many praying mantis species remain little known to scientists, according to a new paper in ZooKeys that identifies an astounding 19 new species from the tropical forests of Central and South America.
Seven sea turtles, named Hook, Jack, Emerald, Chris, Augustus, Jared and Pe’e, suffering from blindness caused by fibropapilloma tumors around their eyes, can see again, thanks toa Florida veterinarian Dr. Lorraine Karpinski.
From the Miami Herald:
The turtles didn’t know it, but their lives were in the hands of the sandal-wearing vet who has worked for 42 years on animals’ eyes — including those of Lolita the killer whale and thoroughbred Seattle Slew before he won the Triple Crown.
Bette Zirkelbach, manager of the nonprofit Turtle Hospital in the Middle Keys’ island town of Marathon, had contacted Karpinski a few months earlier “in desperation” to find a new treatment to help Hook and Jack avoid euthanization. As in the case of many turtles with the same condition, their eye tumors grew back about six weeks after being removed, a process that kept repeating itself.
“We can’t release turtles back into the wild if they don’t have vision in at least one eye,” Zirkelbach said.
Karpinski came up with the idea of trying Fluorouracil, an anti-cancer medication used in humans. Karpinski already had found success using it on horses with skin cancer and on a Malayan tapir at Zoo Miami with eye tumors. Maybe, she thought, it would work on the endangered sea creatures.
“Dr. Karpinski got creative,” Zirkelbach said. “And honestly, the turtles had nothing to lose.”
ATHENS—Do you want to learn to camp? Kayak? Fish? Cook gourmet campfire meals? Learn more about snakes and fish and birds? Outdoor Fools Day March 29 at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens will help you develop skills and increase your knowledge in all those areas by doing them yourself under the direction of a skilled expert. Outdoor Fools Day will run from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
We have always been intrigued by the Amazon rainforest with its abundant species richness and untraversed expanses. Despite our extended study of its wildlife, new species such as the olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina), a bear-like carnivore hiding out in the Ecuadorian rainforest, are being identified as recently as last year. In fact, the advent of efficient DNA sequencing and genomic analysis has revolutionized how we think about species diversity. Today, scientists can examine known diversity in a different way, revealing multiple ‘cryptic’ species that have evaded discovery by being mistakenly classified as a single species based on external appearance alone.
ROSEMONT, Ill., March 18, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Cartilage is the connective tissue found throughout the body. As a result of injury or disease, cartilage can become damaged or even wear away causing pain and discomfort. Unlike muscle, human cartilage does not have the ability to heal itself. As a result, millions of people suffer from pain and stiffness caused by damaged cartilage …
A pair of Kihanga reed frogs has been discovered in Eastern Tanzania.
From the Western Morning News:
The Whitley Wildlife Conservation Trust, which runs Paignton Zoo, Living Coasts in Torquay and Newquay Zoo in Cornwall, helped fund the fieldwork with rare amphibians in the mountains of Eastern Tanzania.
It has led to the discovery of two Kihanga reed frogs, a male and female, by Elena Tonelli, a PhD student at Manchester Metropolitan University whose work is part-funded by the trust.
The frogs are officially endangered and the two photographed by Ms Tonelli were recorded in the northern part of the Uzungwa Scarp Forest Reserve, some distance from their only previously known site – a small swamp in the centre of the reserve.
The student has since also found the species, which hadn’t been seen at all for a decade, at the original site.
Coachella, CA — After 10 months of construction, the eagerly awaited Tortoise Rock Casino in Twentynine Palms, California will celebrate its grand opening with a private reception on March 31st, 2014 …
COACHELLA, California — (PRESS RELEASE) — After 10 months of construction, the eagerly awaited Tortoise Rock Casino in Twentynine Palms, California will celebrate its grand opening with a private reception on March 31st, 2014 from 3pm to 5pm.
Moas were a diverse group of flightless birds that ruled over New Zealand up to the arrival of humans, the biggest of these mega-birds stood around 3.5 meters (12 feet) with outstretched neck. While the whole moa family—comprised of nine species—vanished shortly after the arrival of people on New Zealand in the 13th Century, scientists have long debated why the big birds went extinct. Some theories contend that the birds were already in decline due to environmental changes or volcanic activity before humans first stepped on New Zealand’s beaches. But a study released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) finds no evidence of said decline, instead pointing the finger squarely at us.
Not yet 30, Paul Rosolie has already lived a life that most would only dare dream of—or have nightmares over, depending on one’s constitution. With the Western Amazon as his panorama, Rosolie has faced off jaguars, wrestled anacondas, explored a floating forest, mentored with indigenous people, been stricken by tropical disease, traveled with poachers, and hand-reared a baby anteater. It’s no wonder that at the ripe age of 26, Rosolie was already written a memoir: Mother of God.
Not yet 30, Paul Rosolie has already lived a life that most would only dare dream of—or have nightmares over, depending on one’s constitution. With the Western Amazon as his panorama, Rosolie has faced off jaguars, wrestled anacondas, explored a floating forest, mentored with indigenous people, been stricken by tropical disease, traveled with poachers, and hand-reared a baby anteater. It’s no wonder that at the ripe age of 26, Rosolie was already written a memoir: Mother of God.
Tyrannosaurus rex didn’t just have tiny arms. He had a tiny cousin, too, say paleontologists Anthony Fiorillo and Ronald Tykoski of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas.
From CNN:
Researchers discovered the dinosaur’s remains in 2006 in the Prince Creek Formation on Alaska’s North Slope. At the same quarry, Fiorillo and Tykoski have previously uncovered other important finds, such as remnants of the horned dinosaur species Pachyrhinosaurs perotorum, whose discovery was announced in 2011.
“I find it absolutely thrilling that there is another new dinosaur found in the polar region,” Fiorillo said in a statement from the Perot Museum. “It tells us that the ecosystem of ancient Arctic was a very different place, and it challenges everything we know about dinosaurs.”
[…]
A Tyrannosaurus rex would have weighed between 7 and 8 tons, with a length of about 40 feet. By comparison, an adult Nanuqsaurus might have been only 25 feet long, with a weight of 1,000 pounds. The head was probably about 2 feet long, CNN affiliate WFAA reported.
“There were features in these specimens that were unique; you didn’t see them in other tyrannosaurs,” Tykoski told WFAA.
The African stink ant creates large underground colonies that are home to anywhere from hundreds to thousands of ants, and occasionally a frog or two. The West African rubber frog hides in the humid nests to survive the long dry season of southern and central Africa. However, the ant colonies are armed with highly aggressive ant militias that fight off intruders with powerful, venomous jaws. So how do these frogs escape attack?
Kate Mansfield, at her lab in the University of Central Florida, is holding a baby loggerhead turtle, smaller than her palm, painting manicure acrylic on its shell. When the base coat dries out, she glues on top a neoprene patch from an old wetsuit with hair extensions adhesive. Finally, she attaches a satellite tracker on top, the size of a two “party cheese” cubes, with flexible aquarium silicone, powered by a tiny solar battery. Now the little turtle is ready to be released back into the ocean.
Animals ‘do the locomotion’ every day, whether it’s walking down the hall to get some coffee or darting up a tree to avoid a predator. And until now, scientists believed the inner workings of movement were pretty much the same. But in a first-of-its-kind study on wild green anole lizards, biologists have discovered that the link between muscle function and movement is a lot more complicated than anyone realized.
Check out “Feeding Time,” a video submitted by kingsnake.com user variuss11.
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
Robin Sandusky was trying to incorporate more protein into her diet, but finding a surprise critter in her salad wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. Sandusky, who works in New York City’s theater industry, found the head and arm of a lizard in the…
A former Turtle Creek police officer accused in 2011 of impersonating an officer to obtain blank prescriptions for pain killers has been charged with leading a prescription drug ring following an investigation by a state grand jury.
A groundbreaking tinker frog breeding program in Australia seeks to save the species from extinction due to chytrid.
From News 7 Australia:
Two of the six species of tinker frog have already been wiped out, and researchers believe the lethal amphibian Chytrid fungus is to blame.
The one- to two-centimetre-long frog, which is native only to Queensland rainforests, gets its name from its unique call, according to Professor Jean-Marc Hero from Griffith University.
“The thing that really makes them stand out is their tinker, the sound they make is like the tinker of a glass jar with a metal pen or something,” he said.
Professor Hero says a new program on the Gold Coast has managed to breed the tinker frog for the first time.
“There are only six species – they are an ancient Gondwana group – and at least three of those are already gone,” he said.
“We are looking to recover and support the species that are remaining.”
Robin Sandusky says she found what looks like a lizard head in her kale salad. Robin Sandusky A woman in New York reportedly found what looks like the head of a lizard in her kale salad.
NEW YORK, March 12 (UPI) — A New York woman said she was shocked and “grossed out” to discover a lizard head in the kale salad she had delivered from a restaurant.
A Manhattan theatrical agent got a slithery surprise in her kale salad when she found a severed lizard head among the leafy greens Tuesday afternoon. Robin Sandusky, 31, said she…
Conservationists have succeeded in catching a wild Sumatran rhino in the Malaysia state of Sabah in Borneo, according to local media reports. Officials are currently transferring the rhino, an unnamed female, to a rhino sanctuary in Tabin National Park where experts will attempt to mate it with the resident male, Tam. The Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is one of the world’s most imperiled species with less than 100 individuals left.
If a first responder is on the scene of an accident or injury, and there’s a loose reptile present, or the injured person was bitten by one, will they know what to do? They will if they’ve been taught the basics by an expert.
That’s exactly the program being offered in one Canadian community.
From Simcoe.com:
Andre Ngo, director of research and curriculum at Reptilia, a Vaughan-based reptile zoo, gave an informative presentation to almost 25 police, firefighters and bylaw officers in Stayner Friday afternoon.
“It was an excellent training opportunity for us,” Clearview fire chief Colin Shewell said. “We got some real insight in terms of what to do when we encounter a reptile or are dealing with someone harmed by one.”
Huronia West OPP officers, Clearview firefighters, representatives from Clearview bylaw and firefighters from Springwater, Adjala-Tosorontio, Mulmur/Melancthon, Blue Mountains and Oro-Medonte attended the training session, held at the Joint Emergency Services Facility on Highway 26.
“My goal with you is to teach you how to secure a scene and stay safe,” Ngo said.
He started off by reviewing the major groups of reptiles and identified commonly encountered species. He also talked about safe handling practices.
A Manhattan theatrical agent got a slithery surprise in her kale salad when she found a severed lizard head among the leafy greens Tuesday afternoon. Robin Sandusky, 31, said she…
A Manhattan theatrical agent got a slithery surprise in her kale salad when she found a severed lizard head among the leafy greens Tuesday afternoon. Robin Sandusky, 31, said she…
Really, really haven’t had much to write about. Frankie’s been mad at me and when a sulcata tortoise is mad there is not much fun to write about.
February was so cold. More freezing nights. Freezing nights mean Frankie stayed inside. Staying inside in a very small gecko room means Frankie didn’t get to walk around. Frankie got desperate to walk so he would repeatedly ram the door insisting on going outside. Outside was freezing cold. Frankie outside means Frankie walks as slow as cold.
A slow-as-cold sulcata tortoise is a pitiful sight. Frankie wants to walk but he can barely lift himself off the floor. He wants to move forward but his feet just aren’t getting much of a forward lift. The back feet drag across the floor like an agonizing slow soft shoe shuffle. When a back foot drags too slow a front foot moves forward too soon and Frankie’s walk looks a bit like a drunk-on-beer wobble.
Frankie pins the blame squarely on me: I moved him here under false pretenses. Winter is supposed to be warmer in Mobile but clearly it is not. Frankie’s new yard should be full of green grass but hard freezes killed everything. There are no squirrels. There is no Petco.
There was a sun ray of hope this last weekend. Temperatures were above 80
Although whales are the biggest animals on the planet, scientists have found in difficult to count them. But a new study in PLOS ONE may change this: researchers tested the idea of counting whales using high resolution satellite imagery. Employing a single image from the WorldView2 satellite, scientists went about counting a pod of southern right whales in the Golfo Nuevo off the coast of Argentina.
Although whales are the biggest animals on the planet, scientists have found in difficult to count them. But a new study in PLOS ONE may change this: researchers tested the idea of counting whales using high resolution satellite imagery. Employing a single image from the WorldView2 satellite, scientists went about counting a pod of southern right whales in the Golfo Nuevo off the coast of Argentina.
Australia is world famous for its venomous critters, including its many highly venomous snakes.
The snake that holds the popular title of “world’s most venomous” is the inland taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus), an inhabitant of Australia’s arid interior. Astonishingly, a single bite from an inland taipan is capable of delivering enough venom to kill 250,000 lab mice.
The venom of the inland taipan has attracted considerable research interest and the toxins responsible for its extreme toxicity have been identified. Effective antivenom also exists for the treatment of bites.
What we don’t know, though, is why the inland taipan needs such toxic venom. We know almost nothing about the evolutionary selection pressures that have refined and enhanced the toxins present in the venom of this iconic species of snake.
Snakes vs humans
Historically, the focus of snake venom research worldwide has been anthropocentric – examining the impact the venom has for humans. Large species of venomous snake, those that are known to be potentially dangerous to humans, have received the lion’s share of attention.
Most attention has been given to the development of antivenom and to studying the building blocks of toxic proteins found in snake venoms. This has allowed us to learn more about human physiology and to search for compounds that may be useful in drug design, such as the toxin from the venom of a pit viper from which the blood pressure medication Captopril was developed.
‘Milking’ snakes for antivenom.
These are important goals for venom research, but the result of this bias toward human interest is that we still know very little about the ways in which snakes use their venom in nature. We also do not know how diet influences its composition – the ecology of venom is an almost completely neglected area of research.
Indonesia’s Islamic clerics drew praise from conservation groups last week after the top clerical body in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country issued a fatwa, or religious decree, against poaching and wildlife trafficking. The Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) announced the fatwa on Tuesday, declaring the illegal wildlife trade to be haram, or forbidden under Islamic law. The fatwa forbids Indonesia’s Muslims from “all activities resulting in wildlife extinction” and is meant in part to help support existing national laws protecting endangered species, which are poorly enforced and have done little to prevent poaching.
South African conservationists on Monday announced that they have enlisted the help of a Belgian Shepherd dog to help track the country's most endangered land-based tortoise. Two-year-old Brin is the first dog to help with animal tracking and conservation in South Africa, said Justin Lawrence of the group CapeNature. After six months of training the dog started working full time late last year …
