By Herp News

Golf, surf and sea creatures are among the attractions that beckon visitors to Turtle Bay Resort on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

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By Herp News

Huskies Appear To Be Rich In Guards After Napier Era Athens Christian didn't have much to lose, trailing by 20 points with less than five minutes left, facing the end of the season.        

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By Herp News

Surprising clatter cuts through the silence in the snowy forest shortly before sunrise. The powerful clicking sounds like a dropping Ping-Pong ball before culminating in a loud pop resembling the opening of a champagne bottle. This sound is heard clearly and far. Propped on a thick pine tree branch, with a peacock-fanned tale, relaxed wings and head pointing skyward, a western capercaillie is singing. The song terminates with a low-frequency sound similar to scraping a fork to the bottom of a frying pan. It’s exactly during those last few moments of singing that something unusual happens: the male bird goes temporarily deaf. Hence the species’ common name in Bulgarian—deaf bird.

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Hundreds of dead reptiles and amphibians originating in Madagascar, some of them endangered species, were discovered at a South African airport. More than 1000 animals were in bad condition but alive, and are being treated by veterinarians at a local zoo.

From the BBC:

Some of the animals were so tightly packed together that they were unable to move or turn around, local media report.

Many of the recovered animals were classified as endangered, vulnerable, or threatened, according to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).

Those on Cites appendix II protocol, meaning that they can be traded, but only with a special permit.

The Star newspaper reports that they did have the authorisation but local animal rights groups have called for an investigating into how the consignment came to arrive in South Africa.

The NSPCA and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries are further investigating the matter.

“The authorities suspect that there are South African agents involved [who work as middle men] and once investigations are finalised they would be charged with animal cruelty,” said Ainsley Hay, head of the NSPCA’s Wildlife Unit.

The department will be contacting authorities from Madagascar to discuss what should be done with the animals, until then they will be treated in some zoos locally.

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By Herp News

The reptile was reportedly spotted by a bus driver yesterday. The alarm was raised by Avon and Somerset Police Chief Constable Nick Gargan who said an officer had been 'flagged down' after the alleged sighting.

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By Herp News

It was a scene out of National Geographic.

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By Herp News

Tortoise MLP Fund, Inc. today announced that as of Jan. 31, 2014, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $2.0 billion and its unaudited net asset value

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By Herp News

Tortoise Pipeline & Energy Fund, Inc. today announced that as of Jan. 31, 2014, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $411.4 million and its unaud

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By Herp News

Tortoise Energy Independence Fund, Inc. today announced that as of Jan. 31, 2014, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $441.7 million and its unaudit

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By Herp News

Tortoise North American Energy Corp. today announced that as of Jan. 31, 2014, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $286.6 million and its unaudited

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By Herp News

Tortoise Power and Energy Infrastructure Fund, Inc. today announced that as of Jan. 31, 2014, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $236.5 million and

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By Herp News

Tortoise Energy Capital Corp. today announced that as of Jan. 31, 2014, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $1.2 billion and its unaudited net asset

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By Herp News

Tortoise Energy Infrastructure Corp. today announced that as of Jan. 31, 2014, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $2.3 billion and its unaudited ne

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By Herp News

Jose Salvador Albarengo, 37, a fisherman from El Salvador, told officials that he survived more than a year adrift in the Pacific Ocean, drinking turtle blood and catching fish with his bare hands. But the acting secretary of foreign affairs for the Marshall Islands, Gee Bing, said he was skeptical of Albarengo’s account.

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By Herp News

Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT), a 501c3 organization fighting human trafficking through the efforts of the trucking industry, has released a new video titled, “I am NOT a Lot Lizard.”

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University of Florida researchers have developed a simple immune-based screening test to identify the presence of a debilitating and usually fatal disease that strikes boas and pythons in captivity as well as those sold to the pet trade worldwide.

Known as inclusion body disease, or IBD, the highly infectious disease most commonly affects boa constrictors but pythons and other snake species in the boid family are also occasionally infected with the virus that causes the disease. IBD was first seen in snakes in the late 1970s, said Elliott Jacobson, D.V.M., Ph.D., a professor emeritus of zoological medicine at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine and co-author of a study that appeared in December in PLOS ONE.

“We don’t know the prevalence, but we see more of IBD in the United States because there are some 2 million boas being kept as pets in this country,” Jacobson said. “This simple blood test will help determine whether or not an animal has this disease and potentially will help clean up colonies of snakes that will ultimately be disease-free.”

Although snakes infected with IBD may display neurological signs, such as head-tilting, chronic regurgitation or disequilibrium, there is also a population of snakes that are subclinical, meaning they are infected but otherwise appear healthy.

“That’s a big problem, because healthy-seeming animals that are affected with IBD are being sold and sent around the world,” he said. “However, they may develop the disease sometime later and may be the source of infection for other snakes.”

On Jacobson’s research team at the UF veterinary college were his former graduate student, Li-Wen Chang, B.V.M., Ph.D., the principal investigator in the study, and Jorge Hernandez, D.V.M., Ph.D., a veterinary epidemiologist.

To develop the test, the researchers studied a monoclonal antibody produced in response to a unique protein that accumulates in cells of snakes having IBD. They then sequenced the protein in an effort to further understand the nature and cause of the disease. Although the cause of IBD is unclear, the UF team found genetic links of this unique protein are associated with a family of viruses that primarily infect rodents but may infect humans. However, there is no evidence to indicate that the virus that causes IBD can infect people.

When Chang joined the study in 2008, she realized the limited availability of snake databases and potential causative agents of the disease presented additional challenges.

“It took us almost a year to finally produce this antibody, and three more years to validate its performance for immuno-based diagnostic tests,” Chang said.

University of California-San Francisco researchers identified the Golden Gate virus in 2012 and scientists now consider it to be a potential cause of IBD.

UF’s findings supplement that theory, although more studies of disease transmission need to be conducted to confirm the role of Golden Gate virus in the development of IBD, Jacobson said.

The research was performed at the UF’s Interdisciplinary Center for …read more
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By Herp News

PLEASANT GROVE — Onion ring and milkshake lovers got a scare last Saturday when a fire threatened Pleasant Grove's popular restaurant, the Purple Turtle.

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By Herp News

PLEASANT GROVE — Onion ring and milkshake lovers got a scare last Saturday when a fire threatened Pleasant Grove's popular restaurant, the Purple Turtle.

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By Herp News

Reptile specialists are continuing their uphill efforts to nurse more than 170 malnourished and ill snakes back to health after they were pulled from a house in Santa Ana where a grade school teacher lived amid a clutter of mice, rats and pythons – many of them dead.

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By Herp News

Reptile specialists are continuing their uphill efforts to nurse more than 170 malnourished and ill snakes back to health after they were pulled from a house in Santa Ana where a grade school teacher lived amid a clutter of mice, rats and pythons – many of them dead.

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By Herp News

JOHANNESBURG – South African animal inspectors say they have intercepted a large consignment of reptiles smuggled from Madagascar and destined for the exotic pet trade in the United States.

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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 Jan. 31, 2014 and cumulativ

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By Herp News

JOHANNESBURG (AP) – South African animal inspectors say they have intercepted a large consignment of reptiles smuggled from Madagascar and destined for the exotic pet trade in the United States.

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By Herp News

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African animal inspectors say they have intercepted a large consignment of reptiles smuggled from Madagascar and destined for the exotic pet trade in the United States.

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Check out this video “California Kingsnake Eggs & Laying” submitted by kingsnake.com user boa2cobras.
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

Texas Tech paleontologists unearthed and identified a new species of prehistoric, swamp-going reptile this week. The new species was named Machaeroprosopus lottorum, after it was discovered on a plot

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By Herp News

Scientists have described a new species of eagle ray in the northwest Pacific Ocean, which they have named “narutobiei” (Aetobatus narutobiei) after its local name in Japan. While the new species has long been known by scientists, it was clumped together with the longheaded eagle ray (Aetobatus flagellum) for over two hundred years. Splitting the two species has large-scale conservation impacts, according to the paper describing the new species in PLOS ONE.

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By Herp News

The range of habitats that animals have come to occupy is nothing short of staggering. Take the dicyemids for example. They are among the simplest animals on the planet, with a tiny, worm-like adult body that consists of between 10 and 40 cells. They have no organs, body cavities or even guts—a structural simplicity which is a consequence of where and how they live. The only place you will find adult dicyemids is inside the bodies of cephalopods, typically octopuses and cuttlefish where large numbers of them cling to the inner wall of the mollusc’s kidney.

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He’s considered one of the world’s ugliest animals, and the salamander-like axolotl is also one of the most threatened.
From the Austin Statesman:

It’s disturbing news for an admittedly ugly creature, which has a slimy tail, plumage-like gills and mouth that curls into an odd smile.

The axolotl is known as the “water monster” and the “Mexican walking fish.” Its only natural habitat is the Xochimilco network of lakes and canals — the “floating gardens” of earth piled on reed mats that the Aztecs built to grow crops but are now suffering from pollution and urban sprawl.

Biologist Armando Tovar Garza of Mexico’s National Autonomous University said Tuesday that the creature “is in serious risk of disappearing” from the wild.

Describing an effort last year by researchers in skiffs to try to net axolotls in the shallow, muddy waters of Xochimilco, Tovar Garza summed up the results as “four months of sampling — zero axolotls.”

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By Herp News

The owner of the Purple Turtle restaurant in Pleasant Grove restaurant isn't letting a fire keep him out of business for…

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By Herp News

FREE-SCORING Lazy Lizard continued their excellent form in the only game to survive the wet weather in the Weymouth Sunday League Premiership.

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By Herp News

Researchers have developed a simple immune-based screening test to identify the presence of a debilitating and usually fatal disease that strikes boas and pythons in captivity as well as those sold to the pet trade worldwide.

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By Herp News

A multi-million dollar underground trade of Tokay Gecko is flourishing fast along bio-diversity rich Indo-Bhutan border region with the locality as source of the traded item.

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By Herp News

In the new book, In Predatory Light: Lions and Tigers and Polar Bears, authors Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Sy Montgomery, and John Houston, and photographers Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson share with us an impassioned and detailed appeal to appreciate three of the world’s biggest predators: lions, tigers, and polar bears. Through lengthy discussions, combining themes from scientific conservation to local community folklore, In Predatory Light takes us step by step deeper into the wild world of these awe-inspiring carnivores and their varied plight as they facedown extinction.

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By Herp News

On December 17th, officials first discovered a massive oil spill in the Caribbean-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. Since then, a series of oil spills have been discovered, coating beaches, sullying mangrove forests, and very likely decimating wildlife in Trinidad’s Gulf of Paria. The oil spills have been linked to the state-owned oil company, Petrotrin, which has claimed that sabotage is behind at least two of the spills. However Trinidad and Tobago’s Environmental Management Authority has recently slapped the company with a $3.1 million fine by for the damage, while some politicians have called for an independent investigation into the slew of spills.

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The Sands Casino Resort in Bethlehem, Penn., is adamant that there are not now and have never been any snakes in their casino. Any rumors to the contrary, said a spokesperson, are just the result of a Facebook rumor related to the just-ending Chinese Year of the Snake; the only snake eyes at Sands are on the dice.

From LeighValleyLive.com:

State police, who operate the Sands Casino Station inside the South Side Bethlehem facility, report “absolutely zero snakes in this place,” Trooper William Ortiz said.

The rumor, as passed on to The Express-Times, indicates someone went to the doctor with what was believed to be a bite; the doctor said it’s a snakebite and asked immediately whether the patient had been to the Bethlehem casino.

Sands Bethlehem, owned by Las Vegas Sands Corp., issued a statement today saying, “There have been no reported incidents of snakes on our property. We do not allow any animals on property with the exception of service animals.”

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By Herp News

Hermann Frank is pleased lizards have a place they can call home in South Canterbury – but he has bigger plans in store.

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By Herp News

SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va.—The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources revealed a new Reptile and Amphibian Regulations brochure. The brochure is available online and can be found on the WVDNR home

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Can you help a long-time herper who needs a new heart?

West coast herp photographer and kingnake.com community member Dave Northcott has been notably absent from his usual place at herp events and shows over the last two years, suffering from heart problems that have progressively worsened. Now Dave’s doctors have given him more bad news: he needs a new heart.

Dave, a fixture in the community whose photographs of reptiles and amphibians have graced the covers and pages of countless reptile and amphibian magazines as well as dozens if not hundreds of books, faces months of rehab and recovery, and countless medical bills.

Faced with mounting medical costs that even with insurance will likely end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, his daughter Kait Northcott has set up a fundraiser at GoFundMe to raise money to help offset their rising medical bills.

As part of this fundraising effort to get Dave a new heart, kingsnake.com has donated $1000.00 and is asking other businesses in the reptile community to match our donation at the GoFundMe site.

If your business would like to match our donation, or if you would like to contribute as an individual, please visit http://www.gofundme.com/6g1rak. …read more
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By Herp News

Hunters and trappers have killed 2,567 gray wolves in the U.S.’s lower 48 states since 2011, according to recent data. Gray wolves (Canis lupus) were protected by the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for nearly 40 years before being stripped of their protection status by a legislative rider in 2011. Last year total wolf populations were estimated at over 6,000 in the region.

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