By Herp News

Chewy the bluetongue lizard has returned home after a seven-month nap – only to find his spot has been filled by another family pet. read more

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By Herp News

Kookaburras, koalas and kangaroos—Australia is well known for its charismatic animals and vast, seemingly untamable, wild spaces. But throughout the country, the national parks and reserves that protect these unique animals and ecosystems have come under increasing threat. New rules and relaxed regulations, which bolster immediate economic growth, are putting pressure on Australia’s already-threatened biodiversity.

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By Herp News

On 9/11/13, Tortoise Energy Capital Fund's 3.95% Series C Mandatory Redeemable Preferred Shares (NYSE: TYY.PRC) will trade ex-dividend, for its monthly dividend of $0.0329, payable on 10/1/13. As a percentage of TYY.PRC's recent share price of $10.15, this dividend works out to approximately 0.32%. On an annualized basis, the current yield is approximately 3.86%, which compares to an average …

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By Herp News

On June 24th of last year, MaiMai Simba rebels, led by an elephant poacher known as Morgan, launched a devastating attack on the headquarters of the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in Epulu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The attack, which was reportedly in response to a crack down on poaching and illegal mining in the park, left buildings burned, equipment destroyed, and six people dead including two rangers. The militia also left with 28 women hostages, many of them minors. As if to add insult to injury, the militia didn’t leave until they shot dead all 14 captive okapis at the headquarters, which were used as wildlife ambassadors for the local community.

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By Herp News

A rehabilitation center for retired dancing bears sounds like a typo. Yet this is exactly what the animal rights NGOs Four Paws and Foundation Brigitte Bardot created 13 years ago in Belitsa, Bulgaria. For many Bulgarians the first childhood contact with a forest animal is seeing a ‘dancing bear’ on the street in their city. These chained brown bears (Ursus arctos) would stand on their back feet waving their front paws on hearing their gypsy master play the gadulka (a local musical string instrument). Children used to admire the dancing bears; little did they know of the tragic fate of these animals.

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By Herp News

Parametric Sound Corporation , a leading innovator of audio products and solutions, announced that on September 5, 2013 the U.S. Federal Trade Commission granted early termination of the statutory waiting …

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Check out this video “African tortoises,” submitted by kingsnake.com user pedroig_87.
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

For nearly 15 years, biologists around the world have been watching as millions of frogs succumb to an infectious fungus called chytrid. Now a group of students has discovered evidence of the deadly chytrid fungus in the Wichita area. This is the first report of chytrid in Kansas.

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By Herp News

The Suffolk County SPCA held the Reptile Amnesty Day where illegal alligators or other reptiles could be turned in, no questions asked.

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By Herp News

McDonald's proved it hadn't served up any leaping lizards, after preliminary lab tests laid to rest the reptile ruckus that erupted when a customer claimed to have found a baby lizard in her chicken sausage McMuffin.

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By Herp News

McDonald's Singapore hasn't served up any leaping lizards, the burger maker said, with preliminary lab tests laying to rest the reptile ruckus that erupted after a customer claimed to have received a Sausage McMuffin containing a baby lizard.

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By Herp News

TORONTO, Sept. 4, 2013 /CNW/ – For one weekend September 14 and 15th one of North America's largest LIVE reptile hobby shows is in Toronto at the International Center on Airport Rd. With over 85 000 square …

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By Herp News

LONG BEACH, Calif. — As dolphins and pelicans fed on schools of sardines and anchovies Thursday, rescue workers released an endangered olive ridley sea turtle back into the wild after

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By Herp News

A fungal outbreak in the eastern and Midwestern United States is infecting some populations of wild snakes. Snake Fungal Disease (SFD), a fungal dermatitis consistently associated with the fungus Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola, is showing recent spikes in occurrence according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC) and other diagnostic laboratories.

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No matter how much you love snakes, finding one in the toilet at Starbucks is gonna give you a shock.

From Fox4kc.com:

Snakes in unexpected places can startle anyone. For Bruce Ahlswede the unexpected place was a San Antonio Starbucks bathroom, where he had stopped on Tuesday after a business presentation.

He froze for a moment thinking the snake, lying across the toilet, was a toy left by a prankster.

Then it started to move. He backed out of the room and found a store employee.
“I said “Hey you’ve got a snake in your bathroom and she’s kind of freaking out,'” Ahlswede told CNN affiliate KSAT. Bruce, his wife and store employees all crowded into the bathroom and watched as the snake, perhaps just as surprised as the rest, slithered around the toilet bowl and disappeared, the station reported.

While originally identified as a python (of course), knowledgeable experts believe it was a rat snake. Read more here. …read more
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By Herp News

McDonald's Singapore hasn't served up any leaping lizards, the burger maker said, with preliminary lab tests laying to rest the reptile ruckus that erupted after a customer claimed to have received a Sausage …

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By Herp News

September 06, 2013 6:27 PM Preliminary lab test results have indicated that a McDonald's Sausage McMuffin burger which allegedly contained a lizard is “100 percent chicken”.        

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By Herp News

Tail of baby lizard found in Sausage Mcmuffin. (Facebook grab) McDonald's Singapore has sent a sample of the half-eaten Sausage McMuffin, in which a customer claims to have found a baby lizard, for a lab test.

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By Herp News

[Update on 6 September 2013, 10:20 am: Added updates from McDonald's Singapore] McDonald's Singapore has sent a sample of the half-eaten Sausage McMuffin, in which a customer claims to have found a baby lizard, for a lab test. According to … Continue reading →

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By Herp News

McDonald's Singapore faces a reptile ruckus after a customer claimed to have found a baby lizard in a Sausage McMuffin.

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By Herp News

McDonald's Singapore faces a reptile ruckus after a customer claimed to have received a Sausage McMuffin containing a baby lizard.

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By Herp News

A McDonald's Sausage McMuffin burger which a customer in Singapore claimed to contain a baby lizard has been sent to a laboratory for testing. The fast-food chain sent an employee down to the custome …..        

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By Herp News

The olive ridley sea turtle was underweight, hypothermic and barely breathing when it was discovered stranded by Marine Animal Rescue workers in early January.

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By Herp News

BOCA RATON – More than 500 sea turtle hatchlings were gently released by hand today onto sea beds off Florida’s Atlantic Coast, where the turtles have a better chance to survive.

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By Herp News

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — More than 500 sea turtle hatchlings were gently released by hand Thursday onto sea beds off Florida's Atlantic Coast, where the turtles have a better chance to survive.

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By Herp News

BOCA RATON, Fla. — More than 500 sea turtle hatchlings were gently released by hand Thursday onto sea beds off Florida's Atlantic Coast, where the turtles have a better chance to survive.

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When it comes to snakes, “protection” apparently equals “death.”

Check out the final paragraph of a news story out of Norway today, about just under 200 pythons who were seized in a police raid in Oslo:

The snakes and other reptiles were turned over to animal protection authorities at state agency Mattilsynet, but were expected to be put to death.

Setting aside the blistering ignorance about snakes evident from the rest of the police statements, and the massive over-reaction to the mere existence of these snakes, and even setting aside the culpability of anyone who smuggles and keeps illegal animals, what exactly did the snakes do to deserve death?

Will Norwegian officials attempt to find some non-lethal solution? Will they appeal to the international reptile community for help?

And if not, could they at least stop pretending these animals were being “protected”? …read more
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By Herp News

After hunting dogs, an electric fence and traps couldn’t get the job done, a German town looking to remove a snapping turtle from a lake has asked a blacksmith to create a giant rake to fish out the sharp-beaked reptile.

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By Herp News

Last month scientists unveiled a remarkable discovery: a new mammal in the order Carnivora (even though it mostly lives off fruits) in the Andean cloud forests. This was the first new mammal from that order in the Western Hemisphere since the 1970s. The olinguito had long been mistaken for its closest relatives, olingos—small tree-dwelling mammals that inhabit the lowland rainforests of South and Central America—however genetic research showed the olinguito had actually been separated by 3-4 million years from its cousins.

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By Herp News

TORONTO , Sept. 4, 2013 /CNW/ – For one weekend September 14 and 15th one of North America's largest LIVE reptile hobby shows is in Toronto at the International Center on Airport Rd. With over 85 000 square …

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By Herp News

The owners of a reptile zoo on Barton Street says they will take legal action to keep about 20 animals that the city says violate the animal control bylaw.

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By Herp News

Byline: The Lizard lifeboat was launched for the third time in three days on Friday afternoon, this time to a 25 metre commercial scalloping vessel that had suffered an engine fire, approximately 2 miles south of Lizard Point. Page Content: The lifeboat was launched with a crew of seven just after 4pm on Friday afternoon by Falmouth Coastguard, after the fishing vessel Vanquish with five people …

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A mysterious disease wiped out nearly all fire salamanders in the Netherlands, even those taken into captivity to protect them. Now scientists have identified the fungus responsible, and warned it could spread to amphibians around the world.

From Scientific American:

But now the cause of the fire salamanders’ rapid decline has been revealed. According to a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the fire salamanders in the Netherlands contracted a previously unknown fungus related to Bd, the fungus that causes chytridiomycosis. The paper dubs the new fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans spec. nov. It causes superficial erosions on the salamanders’ skin, followed by deep ulcerations and microscopic skin necrosis. Captive-bred amphibians which the scientists exposed to the fungus died in as little as seven days.

“At this moment we don’t know the origin of the fungus,” says the paper’s lead author, An Martel of the Department of Pathology, Bacteriology and Avian Diseases at Ghent University. “It can be an endemic species that became virulent or it can be an invasive species that was introduced in the Netherlands. Worldwide monitoring can give us an answer to this question. But still, if the fungus would spread a lot of amphibian populations are at risk.”

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By Herp News

A fast food customer in Singapore had the shock of her life when she discovered the tail of a baby lizard sticking out of her half-eaten Sausage McMuffin on Wednesday. A photo of the half-eaten burger was snapped and sent … Continue reading →

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By Herp News

Leapin’ lizards! Hunters in Mississippi broke a state record for the heaviest alligator ever bagged, kicking off the season with two monster catches. Dustin Bockman of Wisconsin and two hunting buddies bagged the 727-pound 13-foot-long beast on Sunday, beating the previous year’s record-setter by 26 pounds, according to the…

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By Herp News

Authorities say they found found evidence of a live loggerhead sea turtle and unhatched sea turtle eggs at Kim Raymond Feaste's home.

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By Herp News

Tortoise Energy Independence Fund, Inc. today announced that as of Aug. 31, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $431.9 million and its unaudit

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By Herp News

Tortoise Pipeline & Energy Fund, Inc. today announced that as of Aug. 31, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $380.7 million and its unaud

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By Herp News

Tortoise MLP Fund, Inc. today announced that as of Aug. 31, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $1.9 billion and its unaudited net asset value

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By Herp News

Tortoise Power and Energy Infrastructure Fund, Inc. today announced that as of Aug. 31, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $230.8 million and

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