By Herp News

But most of the stolen creatures, including snakes and a baby alligator, have not been found.        

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By Herp News

York, PA – Lizard Lick Towing created a sensation Friday at the York Expo Center. Dozens of people stood in line waiting to meet Ron and Amy Shirley, two of the stars of the reality-TV show that runs weekly on cable's TruTV network and features the exploits of Ron Shirley and his crew as they

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The 5-foot-long lizard picked up along the frontage road of IH-35 on Wednesday was reunited with his owner Friday morning.

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A pair of lizards stolen from a NSW Central Coast reptile park last month have been reunited with their keepers.

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By Herp News

In a study of gray tree frogs, researchers discovered that females prefer males whose calls reflect the ability to multitask effectively.

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In the United States, most large scale “rescue” of reptiles means they’re seized from a bad or illegal situation and then killed. That’s been the case in Queensland, Australia, too — but no more.

Andrew Powell, Minister for the Environment and Heritage Protection of Queensland, overturned that policy, directing agencies that take in seized reptiles find them homes, whether in zoos or wildlife centers, or private homes by adoption.

From the Courier-Mail:

Mr Powell said the arrangement would save many animals from an uncertain fate.

“Every year our wildlife rangers are called on to help native birds and reptiles which, for a number of reasons, cannot be released into the wild,” he said.

“It may be because we can’t identify the area from which they came or that they were born in captivity.

“Some animals are the innocent victims of illegal activity, others are surrendered by wildlife carers whose circumstances have changed and they simply can no longer look after them.

“Historically they were offered to zoos and wildlife parks but, if they had no space, there was no alternative but to euthanise them.”

Although the growing No-Kill Movement has not frequently championed the cause of pets other than cats and dogs, the principles of animal rescue and sheltering it espouses apply to reptiles and other “non-cuddly” pets, too.

Far too many organizations that claim to be advocating for the “humane” or “ethical” treatment of animals resort to large-scale slaughter when it comes to reptiles, whether to make a court case stronger or simply because they lack awareness of, or connections to, existing reptile rescue networks run by seasoned herpers.

“What’s starting to happen here is a great step forward,” said Cindy Steinle of Small Scale Reptile Rescue in Wisconsin. “Reptile rescue has evolved greatly over the past decade to follow the lead of our counterparts working with other species of pet, and thankfully fewer animals are killed today, due to the partnership between rescues and the sheltering community.

“Just because an animal is not ‘cuddly’ does not make it undesirable as a pet, nor mean its life has no value.”

Photo: Jungle Carpet Python by Venom925

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By Herp News

Rescuers spot the disoriented, exhausted animal under a building, then gradually guide it back to the water

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By Herp News

A man is jailed for nine months for stealing a tortoise and a homeless man's mobile phone.

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By Herp News

Rescuers spot the disoriented, exhausted animal under a building, then gradually guide it back to the water

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By Herp News

In a large room that used to house aquatic mammals at the Minnesota Zoo, Erik Runquist holds up a vial and says, “Here are its eggs.” I peer inside and see small specks, pale with a dot of brown at the top; they look like a single grain of cous cous or quinoa. Runquist explains that the brown on the top is the head cap of the larva, a fact that becomes more clear under a microscope when you can see the encased larva squirm. I’m looking at the eggs of a Poweshiek skipperling, a species that is more imperiled than pandas, tigers, or bluewhales. Once superabundant, only several hundred Poweshiek skipperlings may survive on Earth today and the eggs I’m looking at are the only ones in captivity.

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By Herp News

While the olinguito looks like a wild, tree-climbing teddy bear with a cat’s tail, it’s actually the world’s newest mammalian carnivore. The remarkable discovery—the first mammal carnivore uncovered in the Western Hemisphere since the 1970s—was found in the lush cloud forests of the Andes, a biodiverse region home to a wide-range of species found no-where else. Dubbed the olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina), the new mammal is a member of a little-known, elusive group of mammals—olingos—that are related to raccoons, coatis, and kinkajous. However, according to its description in the journal Zookeys, the olinguito is the most distinct member of its group, separated from other olingos by 3-4 million years (or longer than Homo sapiens have walked the Earth).

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kingsnake.com is on the road to Daytona!

The kingsnake.com Zombiehunter truck is loaded up with “I Brake For Snakes” bumper stickers and RodentPro coupons and is en route to the National Reptile Breeders Expo in Daytona Beach, Florida.

To get your free kingsnake.com bumper sticker and RodentPro discount coupon, find us outside the Ocean Center Saturday and Sunday, parked outside the main entrance; you can’t miss us!

Since it’s been a while since kingsnake.com has been to Daytona, we’re going to do something special. We have about 60 kingsnake t-shirts left, the “My Snake Is Bigger Than Your Snake” shirts, and some “rare” “kingsnake racing” shirts that we’re going to bring to Daytona.

Everyone at the event who donates $10 to this years NRAAC Law Symposium can get one (while supplies last, of course!).

We never released the “kingsnake racing” shirts and only made a limited number (fewer than 50). The “My Snake Is Bigger” shirts are available in large, with only a couple 3XLs. The “kingsnake racing” shirts are available in XL and 2XL. Sorry, no smalls or mediums, these are the last of the last. Once they are gonel kingsnake.com t-shirts will only be available through our Cafe Press store.

Also, to help fund this year’s Reptile and Amphibian Law Symposium in Washington D.C., the proceeds of all kingsnake.com display ad (banner) purchases or renewals from now until September 30 will be donated to NRAAC! With the symposium rapidly picking up size and speed as the date nears, and the goal to have 50 panelists and speakers lined up for this November’s meeting, now you can help do your part in supporting this important event and get something in return!

To buy display banners on kingsnake.com and help support the Reptile and Amphibian Law Symposium at the same time, go to http://banner.kingsnake.com

For more info on this year’s free Reptile and Amphibian Law Symposium at George Washington University, check out the NRAAC website. To register, please click here! …read more
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By Herp News

Police in Assam have arrested five out of six persons for smuggling the rare Tokay Gecko lizard, thought to cure cancer.

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By Herp News

Byline: Local cafe owner Jacci Jourdan and son Hector, who run the Fat Apple Cafe at Porthallow, like to raise money for local charities through a weekly book swap held in their cafe, and recently they presented a cheque to The Lizard lifeboat station. Page Content: These important funds allow the lifeboat to launch and assist a broken down fishing vessel. They invited The Lizard lifeboat …

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Biologists with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) have suited up the continent’s most endagered toad with a little backpack in an effort to prevent the species from going extinct.

The backpack holds a radio transmitter that will be used to track the toads in their range.

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By Herp News

Posted Aug. 14, 2013, at 11:36 a.m. Last modified Aug. 14, 2013, at 4:36 p.m. Police caught an exotic lizard, identified as a South American Tegu, Tuesday afternoon near the Megunticook River in Camden.

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By Herp News

Aug. 15, 2013, 7:25 a.m. Australian Reptile Park keeper Nick Wilson with three baby Tasmanian devils, born at the Devil Ark four months ago. Photo: MAX MASON-HUBERS

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By Herp News

Police in Indonesia’s Aceh province are investigating the killings of three critically endangered Sumatran elephants, as conflicts with humans led to a series of elephant deaths across the province last month. Five elephants have died in Aceh since late June, including two orphaned calves, highlighting the need to mitigate conflicts between elephants and local communities as deforestation drives the animals into villages and plantations in search of food.

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By Herp News

In 1985, Li Hua visited a valley in the foothills of the Tibetan plateau. The area was better known for its panda population, but the oenologist realized that its high altitude, hours of sunshine, sandy soil and low precipitation also offered ideal conditions for growing grapes.

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By Herp News

My list includes a reptile expo at the Holiday Inn, movies at the library and in Memorial Park, a history program at McMenamins, and activities for the 55-and-older crowd at the community center.

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It turns out well-managed golf courses are better turtle habitat than some farms and parks.

At least, that’s the word from National Geographic, not normally prone to pro-golf hysteria. (If golf can be said to inspire anything like hysteria even among its devotees.)

In “Turtles Flourishing in Golf Course Ponds,” NatGeo reports on two studies by University of Kentucky herpetologist Steven Price, published in the Journal of Herpetology:

Price and his colleagues sought to understand the fate of turtles in the Charlotte, North Carolina, metropolitan area, where galloping growth has swallowed 60 percent of the undeveloped land in some counties.

The researchers set out nets baited with tins of sardines in 20 local ponds. Some ponds were on golf courses, others in cattle pastures or neighborhood parks. The scientists checked the traps every other day, extracting any occupants by hand.

The surveys showed that two common species—the painted turtle and the slider—were just as abundant in golf course ponds as in farm ponds … while neighborhood ponds placed a distant third.

And golf course ponds boasted a richer variety of turtle species than farm and neighborhood ponds, because the area around golf course ponds tended to have better connections to other green space, the scientists report in an upcoming issue of the journal Landscape and Urban Planning.

It’s not clear why more kinds of turtles hang out near the fairways than down at the local park. Perhaps it’s because golf courses often boast multiple ponds and even lakes or streams. And the courses’ large stretches of grass and field are good for turtle nests.

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By Herp News

Primatologists and researchers have devised a wide-ranging plan to protect Madagascar’s most endangered lemurs from extinction.

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By Herp News

A photo taken by a Brooklyn resident shows a roughly three-foot lizard in the backyard. It may be a monitor lizard, but animal experts have not been able to see it in the flesh to identify it. It showed up in the backyard of a townhouse on Osborne Street.

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By Herp News

In another sign that the rhino poaching crisis has gone out-of-control, Kenyan officials announced late last night that a pregnant rhino was poached in Nairobi National Park, which sits on the edge of Kenya’s capital. Home to lions, leopard, giraffes and hippos in addition to rhinos, the park is known for its views of iconic wildlife flanked by Nairobi’s skyline.

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By Herp News

The world’s species are in worse trouble than widely-assumed, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), which reevaluates how scientists estimate extinction rates. The new model takes into account the impact of forest fragmentation on extinction rates for the first time, filling in a gap in past estimates. Much of the world’s tropical forests, which house the bulk of the world’s species, have been whittled down to fragments: small forest islands that no longer connect to larger habitat. According to the paper, species confined to fragments have a higher likelihood of vanishing.

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By Herp News

Irvine, California based Premier Business Centers , the largest privately owned executive suite and alternative workspace operation, has entered into a Lease Agreement with the TC PROPCO II, LP to operate an executive suite in the Two Turtle Creek Village.

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A Florida police officer saw some baby sea turtles in trouble, and decided to give them a hand.

From Yahoo News:

Sarasota Officer Derek Conley was on patrol at 1 a.m. Saturday when he saw sea turtle hatchlings crawling toward the front door of the Lido Beach Resort. A passerby also told Conley that several dozen other baby turtles were walking around the hotel’s parking lot.

Conley, along with some resort guests, scooped up the hatchlings in a box and released them into the water.

“I began collecting hatchlings from the street and stopped traffic several times to do so,” wrote Conley in a report.

A news release says that Conley spotted three dead turtles, and he estimates that 90-100 turtles were saved.

Conley also called two area marine rescue groups.

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By Herp News

A regular attraction at Charlottetown's Old Home Week is the source of extra discussion this year following a tragedy that saw two boys killed by an African rock python in New Brunswick.

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By Herp News

Authorities have drained a lake in southern Germany to search for a turtle, after an eight-year-old boy's ankle was bitten while he was swimming last week. The boy's Achilles tendon was cut through twice, and the risk of another attack has made the search urgent.

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By Herp News

On 8/13/13, 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 9/3/13. As a percentage of TYY.PRC's recent share price of $10.18, this dividend works out to approximately 0.32%. On an annualized basis, the current yield is approximately 3.90%, which compares to an average …

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By Herp News

Flying Lizard Motorsports won today's Orion Energy Systems 245 at Road America with its No 45 Venezuela / eSilicon Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car, driven by Spencer Pumpelly and Nelson Canache Jr., with Dion von Moltke and Seth Neiman bringing the sister PR Newswire / eSilicon No 44 home in 5th place. … Keep reading

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By Herp News

Around twelve thousand of years ago, the Amazon was home to a menagerie of giant creatures: the heavily armored glyptodons, the elephant-sized ground sloth, and the rhino-like toxodons among others. But by 10,000 B.C. these monsters were largely gone, possibly due to overhunting by humans or climatic changes. There’s no question that the rapid extinction of these megafauna changed the environment, but a new study in Nature Geoscience posits a novel theory: did the mass extinction of big mammals lead to nutrient deficiency, especially of nitrogen, in parts of the Amazon rainforest?

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By Herp News

Researchers have decoded a previously unknown molecular mechanism in the fertilization process of vertebrates. The team of scientists have identified a specific protein in frog egg extracts that the male basal bodies need, but that is produced only by the reproductive cells of the female. This “teamwork” between the egg and sperm is what makes embryo development possible.

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By Herp News

Scientists have completed the genome sequencing and analysis of the endangered Chinese alligator (Alligator sinensis). This is the first published crocodilian genome, providing a good explanation of how terrestrial-style reptiles adapt to aquatic environments and temperature-dependent sex determination.

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By Herp News

TRIPLETT, N.C. (AP) — The way Eustace Conway sees it, there's the natural world, as exemplified by his Turtle Island Preserve in the Blue Ridge Mountains. And then there's the “plastic, imitation” world that most other humans inhabit.

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By Herp News

IN THE PUBLIC EYE: Eagle Vines Vineyards and Golf Club in American Canyon, Calif.

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By Herp News

Landlocked in the navel of South America, the forests, wetlands and savannahs of Paraguay boast rich biodiversity and endemic species, yet the unique landscapes of Paraguay also face increasing threats, primarily from agricultural expansion. Controlled burns and clear cutting have become common practice as wildlands are converted for soy and cattle production. In some areas this land conversion is rapid: the Paraguayan Chaco, for instance, is being lost at a rate of 10% per year. One organization is working to reverse this trend. Para La Tierra (PLT) is a small NGO dedicated to the conservation of threatened habitats in Paraguay. Located on the Reserva Natural Laguna Blanca, in-between two of South America’s most threatened habitats: the Atlantic Forest and the vast topical savannah known as the cerrado, PLT is in a unique position to champion conservation.

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By Herp News

Germans have drained a lake in a determined search for a turtle blamed for an attack on a young swimmer.

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By Herp News

• Click here for step by step directions • Click here for our interactive map of all the walks Distance 7 miles (11km) Classification Moderate Duration 3 hours Begins Kynance Cove OS grid reference SW6813 Walk in a nutshell A rangy circuit resembling the outline of a bat that will take you along sandy beaches and stony clifftop paths around the very end of the Lizard peninsula. Why it's special …

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Check out this video “Basic Reptile Incubator,” submitted by kingsnake.com user PigZilla50317.
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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