Reptoman

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   Feb 06

Iguanas stuffed in socks siezed at Heathrow Airport

Thirteen iguanas, one of them dead, were found crammed into a suitcase at Heathrow Airport in London. The surviving lizards are being cared for by veterinary specialists in the UK.

From Sky.com:

Officers found the reptiles in a case while carrying out customs checks at Terminal 5 on Monday.

Each one was wrapped in an individual sock – 12 survived their journey, one had died.

The iguanas arrived on a flight from the Bahamas taken by two Romanian women aged 24 and 26, who were arrested on suspicion of importation offences.

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Photo: Sky News …read more
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   Feb 06

Well before Pacific quest, castaway drank turtle blood

By Herp News

Chocohuital (Mexico) (AFP) – Well before his incredible tale of survival in a 13-month Pacific odyssey, fellow Mexican fishermen say Jose Salvador Alvarenga consumed the very things he claims saved him: raw fish and turtle blood. But a young man who accompanied him on the shark fishing trip in late 2012 died, and the victim's family wants Alvarenga to return to Mexico to explain what happened …

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   Feb 06

Tuatara ambassadors ready for the spotlight

By Herp News

The tuatara is an ancient reptile with three eyes and no penis. Its ancestors once walked with dinosaurs and it is often called a “living fossil”. These strange features are just a few reasons why Zealandia is celebrating this unique species during Tuatara February.

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   Feb 06

Well before Pacific quest, castaway drank turtle blood

By Herp News

Chocohuital (Mexico) (AFP) – Well before his incredible tale of survival in a 13-month Pacific odyssey, fellow Mexican fishermen say Jose Salvador Alvarenga consumed the very things he claims saved him: raw fish and turtle blood. But a young man who accompanied him on the shark fishing trip in late 2012 died, and the victim's family wants Alvarenga to return to Mexico to explain what happened …

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   Feb 06

Tuatara ambassadors are ready for the spotlight

By Herp News

The tuatara is an ancient reptile with three eyes and no penis. Its ancestors once walked with dinosaurs and it is often called a “living fossil”. We call it a “living treasure”. These strange features are just a few reasons why Zealandia …

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   Feb 05

Where Do Lizards Live In Qatar?

By Herp News

Pensoft Publishers The state of Qatar occupies a small peninsula of 11,500 km2 within the Arabian Peninsula . Both Qatar's population and economy have increased rapidly during the last decades, thus putting a strong pressure on native species. The commitment of the Qatari government towards sustainable development has triggered a variety of studies of its dwindling biodiversity. A recent lizard …

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   Feb 05

Alpine bumblebees capable of flying over Mt. Everest

By Herp News

The genus Bombus consists of over 250 species of large, nectar-loving bumblebees. Their bright coloration serves as a warning to predators that they are unwelcome prey and their bodies are covered in a fine coat of hair – known as pile – which gives them their characteristically fuzzy look. Bumblebees display a remarkably capable flight performance despite being encumbered with oversized bodies supported by relatively diminutive wings.

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   Feb 05

Studying sea snakes for underwater robot design

The fascinating body structures of sea snakes which adapt them for life in water are being studied by University of Adelaide researchers as inspiration for a marine robot – the first of its kind.

Postgraduate mechanical engineering research student Amy Watson and a team of engineering, environmental science and computer science researchers will use the sea snake body shape and swimming motion to generate a design for a ‘bio-mimetic’ sea snake robot.

“Biomimetics or biology-inspired design is a rapidly growing field which uses the results of millions of years of trial-and-error experiments through natural evolution to produce a machine that’s best-adapted for a particular environment,” says Ms Watson. “The success of the sea snake’s aquatic invasion is of interest to both evolutionary biologists and mechanical engineers.”

Sea snakes are the only fully aquatic reptiles in existence. They evolved about eight million years ago from an Australian terrestrial snake ancestor that bore live young (rather than egg-laying), and most sea snakes are still found in Australia and South-East Asia.

“From the more or less cylindrical body with a tapered tail of land snakes, the true sea snakes have become efficient swimmers with ribbon-like bodies and paddle-shaped tails,” says Ms Watson.

“In the transition from land-based to marine vertebrates, sea snakes have acquired remarkable swimming capacity. We want to capture and analyse the body shape and movement to generate information that will enable a more efficient design for underwater vehicles.”

The undulating locomotion of a snake-like robot will be much less invasive in the marine environment than a propeller-based machine and will be able to move through complex habitats more easily because of their streamlined shape, says Ms Watson.

“The first step in the process is to learn more about the anatomy of sea snakes and this project starts bone deep – with the spine,” she says.

She is investigating the biomechanics of the sea snake spine using high-resolution CT scanning at Adelaide Microscopy and 3D simulation models of vertebrae to test the movement.

The range of motion between pairs of vertebrae located at different positions along the spine will be compared along the spine of a single snake and between snakes of different species.

Ms Watson is presenting preliminary results and discussion around the implications for sea snake robot design at the University of Adelaide-hosted combined conference ACMM23-ICONN2014 on microscopy and nanoscience at the Adelaide Convention Centre this week. For further information see www.aomevents.com/ACMMICONN …read more
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   Feb 05

Will 'Turtle' Jackson Coming To UConn; Averages 30 At Ga. HS

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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   Feb 05

Hawaii's Turtle Bay Resort lives up to name

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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   Feb 04

Will 'Turtle' Jackson Coming To UConn; Averages 30 At Ga. HS

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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   Feb 04

How hunters have become key to saving Bulgaria’s capercaillie

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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   Feb 04

Hundreds of dead Madagascar reptiles and amphibians discovered at airport

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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Photo: Miona Jeneke/BBC News …read more
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   Feb 04

Bus driver spots six foot CROCODILE lurking in Bristol

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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   Feb 04

Shark snatching turtle startles tourists

By Herp News

It was a scene out of National Geographic.

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   Feb 04

Tortoise MLP Fund, Inc. Provides Unaudited Balance Sheet Information and Asset Coverage Ratio Update as of Jan. 31, 2014

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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   Feb 04

Tortoise Pipeline & Energy Fund, Inc. Provides Unaudited Balance Sheet Information and Asset Coverage Ratio Update as …

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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   Feb 04

Tortoise Energy Independence Fund, Inc. Provides Unaudited Balance Sheet Information and Asset Coverage Ratio Update …

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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   Feb 04

Tortoise North American Energy Corp. Provides Unaudited Balance Sheet Information and Asset Coverage Ratio Update as …

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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   Feb 04

Tortoise Power and Energy Infrastructure Fund, Inc. Provides Unaudited Balance Sheet Information and Asset Coverage …

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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   Feb 04

Tortoise Energy Capital Corp. Provides Unaudited Balance Sheet Information and Asset Coverage Ratio Update as of Jan …

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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   Feb 04

Tortoise Energy Infrastructure Corp. Provides Unaudited Balance Sheet Information and Asset Coverage Ratio Update as …

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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   Feb 03

Castaway Fisherman ‘Survives 13 Months’ at Sea on Turtle Blood and Fish

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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   Feb 03

New TAT video decries ‘lot lizard’ term

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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   Feb 03

New blood test for fatal disease of boas and pythons

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
Read more here: King Snake

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   Feb 02

Community supports Pleasant Grove landmark The Purple Turtle

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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   Feb 02

Community supports Pleasant Grove landmark The Purple Turtle

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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   Feb 01

Snake house: Rescued pythons continue to die

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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   Feb 01

Snake house: Rescued pythons continue to die

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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   Feb 01

Reptile consignment intercepted in South Africa

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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   Jan 31

Tortoise Power and Energy Infrastructure Fund, Inc. Provides Section 19(a) Notice

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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   Jan 31

Reptile consignment intercepted in South Africa – Quincy Herald-Whig | Illinois & Missouri News, Sports

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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   Jan 31

Reptile consignment intercepted in South Africa

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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   Jan 31

Herp Video of the Week: California Kingsnake Eggs & Laying!

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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   Jan 31

Texas Tech paleontologists discover ancient swamp monster

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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   Jan 30

Scientists discover new eagle ray imperiled by Japanese pest program (photos)

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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   Jan 30

Wonderful Creatures: meet the animal that has evolved a cushy, worry-free life inside an octopus

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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   Jan 30

Ugly endangered salamander-like axolotl may have vanished in the wild

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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Photo: Austin Statesman …read more
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   Jan 30

The Purple Turtle to reopen Friday

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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   Jan 29

FOOTBALL: Lazy Lizard have a whale of a time

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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