By Herp News
Tortoise Energy Independence Fund, Inc. today announced that as of May 31, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $412.7 million and its unaudite
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Tortoise MLP Fund, Inc. Provides Unaudited Balance Sheet Information and Asset Coverage Ratio Update as of May 31, 2013
By Herp News
Tortoise MLP Fund, Inc. today announced that as of May 31, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $1.9 billion and its unaudited net asset value
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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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 May 31, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $2.0 billion and its unaudited net
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Threatened frogs palmed off as forests disappear
By Herp News
The study describes how forests converted to palm oil plantations are causing threatened forest dwelling frogs to vanish, resulting in an overall loss of habitat that is important for the conservation of threatened frog species in the region.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Scientists describe over 100 new beetles from New Guinea
By Herp News
In a single paper, a team of researchers have succinctly described 101 new species of weevils from New Guinea, more than doubling the known species in the beetle genus, Trigonopterus. Since describing new species is hugely laborious and time-intensive, the researchers turned to a new method of species description known as ‘turbo-taxonomy,’ which employs a mix of DNA-sequencing and taxonomic expertise to describe species more rapidly.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Scientists describe over 100 new beetles from New Guinea
By Herp News
In a single paper, a team of researchers have succinctly described 101 new species of weevils from New Guinea, more than doubling the known species in the beetle genus, Trigonopterus. Since describing new species is hugely laborious and time-intensive, the researchers turned to a new method of species description known as ‘turbo-taxonomy,’ which employs a mix of DNA-sequencing and taxonomic expertise to describe species more rapidly.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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'Reptile Guy' scheduled to appear in court
By Herp News
A man accused of animal neglect is scheduled to appear before a judge on Monday.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Why numbers matter when it comes to saving frogs
Want to do something about declining amphibian populations? It’s as easy as 1-2-3.
Karen Lips is an amphibian ecologist and tropical biologist. She recently wrote a Live Science op-ed about her experience tracking frog populations in Panama, and those of other scientists doing the same thing around the world, showing devastating declines in frog numbers.
She wrote:
What was most concerning was that even widespread species we thought were relatively stable were declining. This matches with the many stories I hear from concerned citizens who say that they don’t see or hear as many frogs in their backyards as they used to. Because those scientists spent the time to count amphibians, they were they able to detect the slow loss in those populations.
We need more studies like these that can go beyond the distribution of threats and can show us how amphibian populations respond to disease so that we can design appropriate conservation and management actions to protect those species.
For example, if population declines are slow and steady, we might have time to experiment with different management practices; but if populations are declining quickly, we might need to establish captive assurance colonies or take tissues for cryopreservation to protect evolutionary lineages.
Likewise, we need to know which age class, sex or subpopulation might be the limiting step in population recovery. If the problem is in the tadpole stage and none survive to become adults, then we might want to design a reintroduction program that adds more adults to the system. If adults are very rare, we might do better to add hundreds of eggs, tadpoles or juveniles to jumpstart recovery.
Numbers are also critical, she said, because the “IUCN Redlist makes decisions on the level of species endangerment based on the number of individuals and the number of populations, and how quickly those numbers are going up or down. The official listing of species is the first step in prioritizing research and conservation efforts to address those threats, and is used to dedicate funding and other resources.”
What can you do as an individual? Contribute data to online databases like http://www.inaturalist.org, or get involved in other citizen scientist projects, she advised.
“Whether the frogs are increasing or decreasing,” Lips wrote, “we need to know: Just how many frogs are there?”
Read the full story here.
Photo: Conservation International-Colombia/Marco Rada …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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Reptile had power to block economic progress
By Herp News
You know how some issues and things have legs?
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Herp Video of the Week: Perfect Bearded Dragon
Check out this video “The Perfect Bearded Dragon,” submitted by kingsnake.com user oregonsnakes.
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
Read more here: King Snake
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Turtle Beach Announces Acton As Distribution Partner In China
By Herp News
– Acton will help Turtle Beach meet the growing Chinese consumer demand for video game accessories VALHALLA, New York, June 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Turtle Beach( http://www.turtlebeach.com ), leading audio …
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Turtle Beach Announces Acton As Distribution Partner In China
By Herp News
– Acton will help Turtle Beach meet the growing Chinese consumer demand for video game accessories VALHALLA, New York, June 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Turtle Beach( http://www.turtlebeach.com ), leading audio …
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Turtle Beach Announces Acton As Distribution Partner In China
By Herp News
VALHALLA, N.Y., June 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ – Turtle Beach , leading audio brand in games, today announced the appointment of Acton as the exclusive distributor of Turtle Beach gaming headsets in China. …
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Turtle nesting season off to slow start in most of Collier, south Lee
By Herp News
Turtle nesting season took a hit in 2012 at the start of hurrcane season but ended up as a good year. This year, there is a low start.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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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 May 31, 2013 and cumulative
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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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 May 31, 2013 and cumulative
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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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 May 31, 2013 and cumulative
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Scientists unlock secrets of the turtle's shell
A fossil stored unnoticed in a museum may hold the secret to a question that’s plagued scientists for decades: How did the turtle get his shell?
From Boston.com:
It’s a question so obvious a schoolchild can ask it, but for more than a century, consensus has eluded the paleontologists and evolutionary biologists who study the reptiles and their bony carapaces. Now, a group of scientists at Yale University and the Smithsonian Institution argue that a reptile fossil that’s been gathering dust in museum collections is actually a turtle ancestor, and that its reduced number of ribs, distribution of muscles, and T-shaped ribs could help settle the question once and for all.
In a new paper published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, they unveil the argument that a 260 million-year-old creature called Eunotosaurus africanus was a turtle ancestor, hoping to help resolve a debate that has split the scientific community for decades.
Read all about it here.
Photo: Tyler Lyson/Boston.com …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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Lizard found in banana box in Devon
By Herp News
A lizard from the Caribbean is found alive at a Devon farm in a box of bananas imported from the Dominican Republic.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Frankie Tortoise Tails – I Did This!
It was a long hard day in the house cleaning and cleaning. And cleaning. Cleaning. You get the picture. And I did two loads of laundry. That’s enough.
I go into the kitchen and grab a carrot so I can have a leisurely visit with my favorite shelled wonder: Frankie. Right off I see him on the upper end near the fence. I go over to him.
Crap!
“Frankie! Did you eat the forsythia bush because it took three years to get it big enough to bloom?” I look at Frankie, “You nit-wit.”
Frankie looks at me like he knows a buffalo jumped over the fence and ate the forsythia bush. “I didn’t do that.”
I walk around back to make sure everything is clear and safe. I come across a……well it used to be a knee high pile of branches and twigs….now it’s a strewn across the grass.
“Frankie! Did you do this?”
Frankie observes the broken scatted twigs and branches.
“I didn’t do that.”
Right.
I find the bird bath turned over. I filled it this morning.
“Frankie! Did you do this?”
Frankie approaches the turned over bird bath and proceeds to walk right over it. “Nope. Didn’t do it.”
Then I see the Frankie’s kiddy pool that is supposed to last through this summer. A new rip has appeared that may just speed the end of this pool for Frankie.
“How about this? Did you rip your pool?”
Frankie ignores the obvious. “Didn’t do that.”
I should have seen it. I was looking at the pool and missed the three wooden fence segments I have….had leaning against the chain link fence so Frankie doesn’t push through wire. If that isn’t bad enough the compost barrel filled with Frankie poop was caught in the fence-falling-frenzy and is now on it’s side and all the contents spilled on the lawn. And while we are at it let’s count the wooden boards crashed and thrown down from their cinder block from being toppled over.
“How about this?”
Frankie walks past me and steps up on the nearest fence that lies partially on the ground and partially on the the compost barrel. Frankie walks to the highest point on the fallen fence (about 18 inches high).
Proud as one can be, like a man reaching the very top of Mount Everest, “I did this!” …read more
Read more here: Turtle Times
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Croaking chorus of Cuban frogs make noisy new neighbors
By Herp News
Scientists have shown the adverse impact of invasive frog species’ songs.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Endangered painted turtle tussles for survival in Abbotsford's Mill Lake
By Herp News
Abbotsford's Reptile Guy Mike Hopcraft shows off an invasive turtle, the red eared slider, that's putting serious pressure on the endangered native species at Mill Lake. The sliders, tossed into the lake as unwanted pets, are competing with the western painted turtle for food, nesting space and habitat.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Endangered painted turtle tussles for survival in Abbotsford's Mill Lake
By Herp News
Abbotsford's Reptile Guy Mike Hopcraft shows off an invasive turtle, the red eared slider, that's putting serious pressure on the endangered native species at Mill Lake. The sliders, tossed into the lake as unwanted pets, are competing with the western painted turtle for food, nesting space and habitat.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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How did the turtle get its shell?
By Herp News
How did the turtle get its shell? It’s a question so obvious a schoolchild can ask it, but for more than a century, consensus has eluded the scientists who study the reptiles and their bony carapaces.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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How did the turtle get its shell?
By Herp News
How did the turtle get its shell? It’s a question so obvious a schoolchild can ask it, but for more than a century, consensus has eluded the scientists who study the reptiles and their bony carapaces.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
How did the turtle get its shell?
By Herp News
How did the turtle get its shell? It’s a question so obvious a schoolchild can ask it, but for more than a century, consensus has eluded the scientists who study the reptiles and their bony carapaces.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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How turtles got their shells: Fossil of extinct South African reptile provides clues
By Herp News
Through careful study of an ancient ancestor of modern turtles, researchers now have a clearer picture of how the turtles' most unusual shell came to be. The findings help to fill a 30- to 55-million-year gap in the turtle fossil record through study of an extinct South African reptile known as Eunotosaurus.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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How turtles got their shells: Fossil of extinct South African reptile provides clues
By Herp News
Through careful study of an ancient ancestor of modern turtles, researchers now have a clearer picture of how the turtles' most unusual shell came to be. The findings help to fill a 30- to 55-million-year gap in the turtle fossil record through study of an extinct South African reptile known as Eunotosaurus.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Reptile Guy encourages restrictions on selling turtles
By Herp News
Mike Hopcraft says red-eared slider turtles are being released into the wild, damaging ecosystems
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Reptile Guy encourages restrictions on selling turtles
By Herp News
Mike Hopcraft says red-eared slider turtles are being released into the wild, damaging ecosystems
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Scientists discover that turtles began living in shells much earlier than once thought
By Herp News
Unique among Earth’s creatures, turtles are the only animals to form a shell on the outside of their bodies through a fusion of modified ribs, vertebrae and shoulder girdle bones. The turtle shell is a unique modification, and how and when it originated has fascinated and confounded biologists for more than two centuries. Scientists have recently discovered that the beginnings of the turtle shell started 40 million years earlier than previously thought.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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How the turtles got their shells
By Herp News
Through careful study of an ancient ancestor of modern turtles, researchers now have a clearer picture of how the turtles’ most unusual shell came to be. The findings help to fill a 30- to 55-million-year gap in the turtle fossil record through study of an extinct South African reptile known as Eunotosaurus.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Lizard Spotted On Mars?
By Herp News
A blogger claims to have spotted a lizard in a photograph of Mars. While studying a picture of the Red Planet taken by the Curiosity…
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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How the turtle got its shell
By Herp News
The turtle has been in no rush to give up the secret of its shell but new research led by Yale's Tyler Lyson sheds light on a structure unique in the history of life.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Saving Gorongosa: E.O. Wilson on protecting a biodiversity hotspot in Mozambique
By Herp News
If you fly over the Great African Rift Valley from its northernmost point in Ethiopia, over the great national parks of Kenya and Tanzania, and follow it south to the very end, you will arrive at Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique. Plateaus on the eastern and western sides of the park flank the lush valley in the center. Dramatic limestone cliffs, unexplored caves, wetlands, vast grasslands, rivers, lakes, and a patchwork of savanna and forest contribute to the incredible diversity of this park. What makes this place truly unique, however, is Mount Gorongosa—a towering massif that overlooks the valley below.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Saving Gorongosa: E.O. Wilson on protecting a biodiversity hotspot in Mozambique
By Herp News
If you fly over the Great African Rift Valley from its northernmost point in Ethiopia, over the great national parks of Kenya and Tanzania, and follow it south to the very end, you will arrive at Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique. Plateaus on the eastern and western sides of the park flank the lush valley in the center. Dramatic limestone cliffs, unexplored caves, wetlands, vast grasslands, rivers, lakes, and a patchwork of savanna and forest contribute to the incredible diversity of this park. What makes this place truly unique, however, is Mount Gorongosa—a towering massif that overlooks the valley below.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Tortoise Hypothesis: How The Opposition Will Re-Elect Jonathan In 2015 By Bolaji Eletta
By Herp News
By Bolaji Eletta, PhD The opposition players and activists in Nigeria are campaigning for GEJ! If my permutations on the workings of the heart of the average Nigerian is right (I have not been wrong on too many occasions), I can authoritatively declare that Goodluck Jonathan will remain President of the Republic until May 2019. My theory is hinged on what I call the Tortoise hypothesis. Tortoise …
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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Giant tortoise found wandering in neighborhood
By Herp News
JACKSONVILLE, Fla.– A giant reptile was spotted in an Arlington neighborhood Tuesday evening. It took some collaboration to get it to shelter, but the question now is: where did it…
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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The Turtle and the Hare
By Herp News
We got modest final Q1 GDP data (the Turtle) and weaker fresh weekly claims data (the Hare). Does this stop the Taper Sooner crowd in its tracks?
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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A Striped Visitor
I derive great pleasure from feeding wild birds. The squirrel-proof hanging feeder has been in the same place in a tall crepe myrtle shrub outside my office window for years, and many common and a few uncommon birds visit it daily or occasionally.
One day, a couple of years ago, I swiveled my chair to watch the feeder, wondered why there was no bird activity, and saw that the feeder had a second watcher. Coiled in a tree crotch within easy striking distance of the feeder was a 30 inch long yellow rat snake, Pantherophis obsoletus quadrivittatus. I guess he was hoping for a bird dinner but the sharp-eyed avians had spotted the snake and temporarily boycotted the feeder.
Well, my freezer is never without a couple hundred mice, so I chose and thawed one of appropriate size, grabbed some forceps and mouse and visited the snake-shrub. Although I moved slowly, as I neared the shrub the snake began flickering its tongue and drew its head back into its coils.
Continue reading “A Striped Visitor” …read more
Read more here: King Snake
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