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A Philadelphia man has offered a little gator aid — calling animal control authorities to help rescue a juvenile alligator he found near a sewer grate on his street.

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The eastern population of northern bald ibises (Geronticus eremita) has likely fallen to a single breeding bird, reports conservationists monitoring the dwindling flock. The population had believed to be obliterated starting from 1989 until a small group was discovered in 2002 in Syria. However, it now appears that this last group is vanishing one-by-one despite efforts by conservation groups to sustain the distinct population.

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In a chilly rain on Sunday, in a town just a few kilometers beyond the edge of a protected Sumatran rainforest, a young orangutan sat perched on a piece of plywood and grabbed the metal wires of his tiny cage.
He has sat in that cage for six months and, like dozens of other species on display in this ‘zoo’ in the town of Kadang in Aceh, he has a price tag. This packed assembly is an acknowledged front for illegal trafficking in wildlife.

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On April 21, 2013, the first flock of scarlet macaws (of many more to come) was released into the jungles of Aluxes Ecopark, nearby classified World Heritage Site Palenque National Park, as a part of a massive reintroduction project to restore the popular and culturally-significant bird to the well preserved rainforests of Palenque and the rest of its southern Mexico homeland—where the species has been extinct for close to 70 years.

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Borneo is a vast tropical island known for orangutans, rhinos, elephants, sun bears, proboscis monkeys, hornbills, and ubiquitous leeches. Conservationists have championed all of these species (aside from the leeches) in one way or another, but like many tropical regions Borneo’s freshwater species have long been neglected, despite their rich biodiversity and importance to local people. But a new organization, the Kinabatangan River Spirit Initiative, is working to change that.

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By Herp News

Darius Dio was in town visiting when he parked to go into the Hard Rock Hotel.

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A rare lizard left inside a car that was reported stolen has been reunited with its owner.

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Loggerhead turtles use visual cues to find gelatinous prey to snack on as they swim in open waters, according to new research.

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Karman Lubis’s body was found near where he had been working on a Sumatran rubber plantation. His head was found several days later a mile away and they still haven’t found his right hand. He had been mauled by a Sumatran tiger that has been living in Batang Gadis National Park and he was one of five people killed there by tigers in the last five years.

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By Herp News

From 2000-2009, scientists described on average seven new bird species worldwide every year. Discovering a new bird is one of the least common of any species group, given that birds are highly visible, mobile, and have been scrutinized for centuries by passionate ornithologists and birders. But descriptions this year already blows away the record year over the last decade (in 2001 when nine new birds were described): scientists working in the southern Amazon have recorded an incredible 15 new species of birds according to the Portuguese publication Capa Aves. In fact, this is the largest group of new birds uncovered in the Brazilian in the Amazon in 140 years.

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The takin (Budorcas taxicolor) is a goat-antelope species that lives in the Himalayan Mountains. Takins are social bovines and are often spotted traveling in packs of 15 or more. Packs tend to be composed of female takins as the male takin is largely solitary outside of the summer rutting season. The takin is listed as a Vulnerable species by the IUCN Red List and is considered to be Endangered in China.

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The Global Conservation Group is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the fatal beating of a snapping turtle at the Delbrook Golf Course in Delavan, Wisc., on June 10 between 7:30 and 9:30 a.m.

The female turtle, looking for a place to lay her eggs, was found lying in the sand in a bunker with holes in its shell. She was also struck in the right eye, a wound which appeared to have been from a golf club. Investigators looked for her eggs but were unable to find them.

Anyone with information about this case should call the DNR hotline at 1-800-TIP-WDNR or 1-800-847-9367. Callers can remain anonymous.

If you would like to contribute to the reward fund, you can do so here.
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A fungus that has killed snakes in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Illinois has been identified in timber rattlesnakes in Tennessee.

From Nashville NPR:

Infected snakes have been located in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Illinois has seen multiple fatalities over the last several years in a threatened snake species – the eastern massasuaga. While the total number of deaths is small, so is the total snake population in northern states like Illinois.

“Even a few individuals can be significant,” TWRA biologist Brian Flock writes in an email.

One of the leading researchers on the topic is wildlife veterinary Matthew Allender, who says the fungus that’s being discovered is often found on captive reptiles like bearded dragons. He told the University of Illinois News Bureau that finding infections in the wild is significant.

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By Herp News

A lizard the size of a German shepherd once roamed Myanmar, a new fossil analysis reveals.

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Hello my name is mary and I am 11 and i have a huge turtle problem. I have moved from FL to TN ans have taken along my beloved red eared slider trevor but it proves to be tricky buisness up here. Since my turtle was caught in florida by a freind he is used to warm climates and fresh food abaou twice a month, but since it is waaay colder in tennesse i can no longer keep him outside and my supply of fresh fish has gone bust.He now livesin a glass tank andeats repto mins all the time. he has grown sine but his shell is still the same size causing folds of skin and muscle to hang out the edges of his shell I have fed him cuttle fish bones but his shell still wont grow! i have also encountered another problem turtles are illegal here! iwas at petco buying supplies and the clerk said since we got him out of state he is considered legal but i am still unsure. please input your advice …read more

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By Herp News

A new study reveals the mechanisms behind trunk to tail transition in vertebrates.

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Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates, celebrated World Oceans Day last weekend by releasing a group of critically endangered hawksbill turtles to the Gulf of Oman.

From The National:

The global population of hawksbills, named for their narrow head and shape of their beak, has dropped by 80 per cent in just three generations despite international conventions banning hunting and trade.

They have been threatened in recent years by human encroachment, particularly construction and coastline activity that threaten coral reefs, one of the turtles’ natural habitats.

Other threats include fishing, pollution and eggs being stolen from nesting beaches.

The turtles released at the Mangrove Natural Reserve in Khor Kalba were found by members of the public and taken to Sharjah Aquarium, which has been running a programme to protect and rehabilitate the creatures for the past three years.

Ismail Al Bloushi, a marine biologist, has led a Sharjah Aquarium team rehabilitating turtles for their release.

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I have owned a Florida Cooter for nearly 10 years now and have had minor problems. Just recently he has become very overactive and has been doing things such as climbing the glass in his tank and splashing water around like crazy! I acquired scooter when I was young and didn’t have much knowledge on turtles. He lives in a 75 gallon tank that he got for his 9th birthday, so he’s lived in it for about a year now. I don’t think the size of his tank would cause him to act out in this way? His tank is in my bedroom so I’m now loosing sleep over his noisy ness and I can’t figure out what is wrong. The temp of the water is not abnormal and nothing is new to his setup or environment. I’ve never had a determination on whether “he” is a male or female so I’m kind of wondering if this is normal for either sex to be acting like this. (Mating season?) I will upload a photo but he now has a larger basking platform and filter in the tank as well. I wish I had a more recent photo. …read more

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By Herp News

An invasive but scarce lizard species is spotted in a Florida neighborhood. Source: FCN

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By Herp News

VALHALLA, N.Y., June 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ –  Turtle Beach , the leader in games audio, is announcing a new two-year partnership agreement with Activision Publishing, Inc. involving the blockbuster Call …

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LOS ANGELES, June 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ –  Turtle Beach , the leader in gaming audio, is unveiling new gaming headsets at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) featuring the latest audio technology and …

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By Herp News

On 6/12/13, 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 7/1/13. As a percentage of TYY.PRC’s recent share price of $10.12, this dividend works out to approximately 0.33%. On an annualized basis, the current yield is approximately 3.90%, which compares to an average …

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By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScienceA lizard the size of a German shepherd once roamed Myanmar, a new fossil analysis reveals.The lizard, one of the largest ever known, has been dubbed Barbaturex morrisoni in honor of The Doors’ singer Jim Morrison, who once wrote a song that included the lyrics, “I am the lizard king/I can do anything.””This is a king lizard, and he was the lizard king, so it just …

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By Herp News

A turtle on Highway 59 in Eagle, Wis., made it safely across the road with the help of a local man — who, unfortunately, got hit by a school bus in the process.

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By Herp News

On 6/12/13, 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 7/1/13. As a percentage of TYY.PRC's recent share price of $10.12, this dividend works out to approximately 0.33%. On an annualized basis, the current yield is approximately 3.90%, which compares to an average …

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By Herp News

Since it's rattlesnake season and all, we'd thought we'd try to put a positive spin on reptiles, especially those who are looking for someone to love, not to eat. This coming Saturday, Petco i…

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Since it's rattlesnake season and all, we'd thought we'd try to put a positive spin on reptiles, especially those who are looking for someone to love, not to eat. This coming Saturday, Petco i…

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On the evening of May 30th, 26-year-old Jairo Mora Sandoval was murdered on Moin beach near Limón, Costa Rica, the very stretch of sand where he courageously monitored sea turtle nests for years even as risks from poachers rose, including threats at gunpoint. A dedicated conservationist, Sandoval was kidnapped along with four women volunteers (three Americans and one from Spain) while driving along the beach looking for nesting sea turtles. Sandoval was separated from the women—who eventually escaped their captors—but the young Costa Rican was stripped naked, viciously beaten, and finally shot in the head. Police found him the next day, face-down and handcuffed in the sand.

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A giant lizard, named after the Doors’ Jim Morrison, who was dubbed “The Lizard King,” once lived on Southeast Asia, sharing habitat and food sources with mammals.

From Science Daily:
A team of U.S. paleontologists, led by Jason Head of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, describes fossils of the giant lizard from Myanmar this week in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Their analysis shows that it is one of the biggest known lizards ever to have lived on land.

The creature’s scientific name is Barbaturex morrisoni — which means “Lizard King,” in honor of the aforementioned Doors singer.

At almost six feet long and weighing upwards of 60 pounds, the lizard provides new and important clues on the evolution of plant-eating reptiles and their relationship to global climate and competition with mammals.

In today’s world, plant-eating lizards like iguanas and agamids are much smaller than large mammal herbivores. The largest lizards, like the giant, carnivorous Komodo dragon, are limited to islands that are light on mammal predators. It is not known, however, if lizards are limited in size by competition with mammals, or by temperatures of modern climates, Head said.

But B. morrisoni lived in an ecosystem with a diversity of both herbivorous and carnivorous mammals during a warm age in Earth’s history — 36 to 40 million years ago — when there was no ice at the poles and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were very high. The creature was larger than most of the mammals with which it lived, suggesting that competition or predation by mammals did not restrict its evolution into a giant.

“We think the warm climate during that period of time allowed the evolution of a large body size and the ability of plant-eating lizards to successfully compete in mammal faunas,” Head said.
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Check out this video “Prairie Rattlesnake,” submitted by kingsnake.com user smetlogik.
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By Herp News

By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScienceA lizard the size of a German shepherd once roamed Myanmar, a new fossil analysis reveals.The lizard, one of the largest ever known, has been dubbed Barbaturex morrisoni in honor of The Doors' singer Jim Morrison, who once wrote a song that included the lyrics, “I am the lizard king/I can do anything.””This is a king lizard, and he was the lizard king, so it just …

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By Herp News

Incident in which police officers entered a woman's home while attempting to serve an arrest warrant on her landlord is being investiggated.

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Possible impact on beach restoration, inlet maintenance A federal proposal to protect 740 miles of beach for loggerhead sea turtles has generated criticism from all sides, ranging from the volunteers who guard turtle nests in Broward County to the government agencies responsible for restoring eroded beaches.        

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A giant lizard that lived 40 million years ago has been named in honour of Jim Morrison.

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Jim Morrison who famously slithered around in tight pants on stage, was known as The Lizard King. Now scientists have named an enormous lizard after the late great rock star. Continue reading →

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Rumors of the Hula painted frog’s extinction may have been premature.

The frog, declared extinct 60 years ago, has been discovered in Israel. From Science Daily:
The Hula painted frog was catalogued within the Discoglossus group when it was first discovered in the Hula Valley of Israel in the early 1940s. The frog was thought to have disappeared following the drying up of the Hula Lake at the end of the 1950s, and was declared extinct by the (International Union for Conservation of Nature) in 1996. As a result, the opportunity to discover more about this species’ history, biology and ecology was thought to have disappeared.

However, a team of Israeli, German and French researchers now report in the scientific journal Nature Communications on an in-depth scientific analysis of this enigmatic amphibian.
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While perusing Facebook a few days ago, an entry on the page of the Turtle Hospital at Marathon, FL, caught my eye. I first glanced at it then read it again:

This cute little guy was washed ashore and found floating in a bed of Sargassum weed inside a marina at The Sea Breeze Trailer Park in Islamorada. Because there was a large saltwater crocodile in the marina too the turtle was netted and turned over to the Turtle Hospital for rehabilitation. At just over 10cm long, Crush qualifies as juvenile Hawksbill and is probably less than a year old.

Hawksbill researcher Larry Wood had told me that although they were rare on the mainland, only a few miles to the east of Palm Beach, amidst the sargassum, hawksbills gathered and grew, probably for years, before dispersing. Each year some would disperse and a new cohort would appear.

Bette Zirklebeck, the Turtle Hospital manager, thought “it was likely that strong currents pushed this turtle (dubbed Crush) the wrong way and he floated in to shore.” Zirklebeck continued “Crush appears to be in pretty good shape and staff plans to give him plenty of squid bits and make sure behavior is normal before his release in just a week or two!”

Prior to the advent of fancy plastics, hawksbills were hunted for their shells and the intricately colored carapacial scutes were made into fancy jewelry and glasses frames. Hawksbills are an endangered turtle species and are rigidly protected over most of their wide range.

We wish Crush a lifetime of good luck.

(More photos under the jump!)
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By Herp News

Australia’s leading scientific expert on the endangered Leadbeater’s possum has publicly lambasted the Victorian state government, claiming it is the first ever domestic administration to take “calculated actions” that it knew could wipe out a threatened species. In a letter published in the respected journal Science, Prof David Lindenmayer, of the Australian National University, states that “government-sanctioned legal logging of the reserve system will significantly increase the chance of extinction of Leadbeater’s possum.”

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By Herp News

Though the species is named after twentieth century rock star Jim Morrison, the Doors front-man, it lived in the jungles of Southeast Asia 40 million years ago. The ancient lizard king was a gentle creature who ate only plants.

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The reptile exhibit at Zoo Atlanta is the oldest area in the facility. But the reptiles will soon have a shiny new exhibit, designed to display the animals in a more natural habitat and focus on giving children a herp’s-eye-view at the same time.

From the Zoo’s media release:

Something spectacular is coming to Zoo Atlanta, and the evolution officially began on June 4, 2013. At a gathering of elected and appointed officials, community partners and Zoo Atlanta leaders and staff, ceremonial shovels broke ground on Scaly Slimy Spectacular: The Amphibian and Reptile Experience, scheduled to open in late 2015.

Scaly Slimy Spectacular will represent the largest fundraising effort in the Zoo’s history. Zoo Atlanta has raised just under $22 million as part of an ongoing capital campaign to fund the roughly 14,000 square-foot experience, with a goal of raising an additional $1.4 million over the next few months.

“We’re standing on the cornerstone of a new era for Zoo Atlanta. Our community has shown willingness to make a significant investment in the future of the Zoo,” said Raymond B. King, President and CEO. “We hope that as the public aspect of our capital campaign continues, Zoo Members, families and guests will also want to play a personal role in seeing history being made with what will truly be a world-class experience for Atlantans and Georgians.”

Winter Johnson Group, a partnership of the Atlanta-based Winter Construction and Johnson Construction Services, has been selected as general contractor; Scaly Slimy Spectacular will be the company’s 22nd construction project. Project architects are Torre Design Group Consortium, Ltd.

Scaly Slimy Spectacular will replace the 51-year-old World of Reptiles, the Zoo’s oldest building still in use for public exhibits. The new complex will be erected on a separate site which has not been accessible to the general public in decades.

There are more than 450 reptiles and amphibians at Zoo Atlanta, but a sizable portion of these animals have not been on exhibit as a result of space constraints in the World of Reptiles. Scaly Slimy Spectacular will provide naturalistic new homes for members of the existing collection while introducing large crocodilians and other exciting new arrivals. The complex will feature interactive indoor venues and state-of-the-art exhibits showcasing the amazing extremes in size, speed, color and behavior that make reptiles and amphibians such compelling animals to observe, study, and protect.

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