By Herp News
CHICAGO, May 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ – Turtle Wax® has had enough of the extended winter and cold spring blanketing the country. With warmer temperatures forecasted this week, Turtle Wax is responding with …
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
I had never thought much about the color gray. I considered it a drab color, a color that I had come to associate with a few of the species that were not then very high on my herp “Iwannasee” list. But then I met a skink and I realized that beauty truly was in the eyes of the beholder, for not only was that skink gray, it was pretty. In fact, I thought it, with its orange highlights and smaller accents of fawn, to be one of the prettiest skinks I had until then encountered. And today, 50 years later, I still think this to be so.
Back in the 1960s when I first met this lizard, it was called the Algerian skink, Eumeces algeriensis. Today it is called the Berber skink (now the name “Algerian skink” is usually associated with the smaller Schneider’s skink, Novoeumeces schneideri) and like the Schneiders’ skink, the generic name is Novoeumeces. Small numbers of Berber skinks were imported between 1970 and 2000 but for the most part they have not been available and were but fond memories to those who had been lucky enough to actually see them in those earlier years.
I was lucky enough to have a few Berber skinks offered to me about 8 years ago. These heavy-bodied, foot long, omnivorous beauties are easy to maintain but have proven almost impossible to breed. They are known to be oviparous and like many skinks seem to be quite long-lived. Successfully breeding this terrestrial North African skink certainly remains a goal.
More photos under the jump…
Continue reading “Pretty in Gray: The Berber Skink” …read more
Read more here: King Snake
No products found.
Have you been enjoying the increasingly mild winters across much of the United States, particularly the Midwest, in recent years? Wildlife, including some reptiles and amphibians like the wood frog, pictured right, definitely haven’t.
From the University of Wisconsin:
In a report published May 2 in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison describes the gradual decay of the Northern Hemisphere’s “subnivium,” the term scientists use to describe the seasonal microenvironment beneath the snow, a habitat where life from microbes to bears take full advantage of warmer temperatures, near constant humidity and the absence of wind.
“Underneath that homogenous blanket of snow is an incredibly stable refuge where the vast majority of organisms persist through the winter,” explains Jonathan Pauli, a UW-Madison professor of forest and wildlife ecology and a co-author of the new report. “The snow holds in heat radiating from the ground, plants photosynthesize, and it’s a haven for insects, reptiles, amphibians and many other organisms.”
[…]
As is true for ecosystem changes anywhere, a decaying subnivium would have far-reaching consequences. Reptiles and amphibians, which can survive being frozen solid, are put at risk when temperatures fluctuate, bringing them prematurely out of their winter torpor only to be lashed by late spring storms or big drops in temperature. Insects also undergo phases of freeze tolerance and the migrating birds that depend on invertebrates as a food staple may find the cupboard bare when the protective snow cover goes missing.
The complete article is here.
Photo: Thomas Kitchin and Victoria Hurst/leesonphoto …read more
Read more here: King Snake
No products found.
This image of two Arrow Frogs, uploaded by kingsnake.com user stefan31, is our herp photo of the day!
Arrow Frogs, uploaded by kingsnake.com user stefan31″ />
Upload your own reptile and amphibian photos photos at gallery.kingsnake.com, and you could see them featured here! …read more
Read more here: King Snake
No products found.
By Herp News
A turtle-crossing sign on River Road in Bedminster. / NJ Press Media file 2010 BEDMINSTER — Township officials are looking to spend more than $210,000 on a series of tunnels that won’t be used by motorists, cyclists or pedestrians.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
Certain closed-end funds managed by Tortoise Capital Advisors declared the following distributions today:
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
As mama sea turtles begin arriving along area beaches to lay their eggs, area officials are reminding coastal residents that it's time once again to shield or turn off lights that can lead turtles astray.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
The beginning of sea turtle nesting season in Southwest Florida is upon us once again. May 1 marked the “official” start of nesting season, but Captiva was the lucky recipient of the first loggerhead nest on the west coast on Sunday, April 28.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
.150.jpg?w=250)
Ordinarily, invasive and exotic species are a grave threat to native wildlife: outcompeting local species, introducing parasites and disease, and disturbing local ecological regimes. A unique case in the Brazilian Pantanal, however, has turned the tables; here, an introduced mammal has actually aided the conservation of native wildlife.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
A new powerful video by the conservation program, APES, highlights the threat faced by many species: not being cute enough. The creative short video was produced pro bono by Ogilvy & Mather Chicago.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
A schoolteacher’s son has discovered a new species of toad in Qatar.
From the Gulf Times:
It turned out to be a hitherto unrecorded species: the African Common Toad or Guttural Toad (Amietophrynus gutturalis). Easily recognisable from its pale dorsal stripe.
New species of fauna turn up in Qatar all the time – this dry desert country supports a surprising range of wildlife.
Animals that can adapt to the harsh weather conditions and the lack of water do well. These include reptiles, and mammals such as the Arabian Red Fox, the Ethiopian Hedgehog and the tiny Lesser Jerboa.
But toads? What is a creature that has a damp clammy skin and needs to spend part of its life in water doing in a land that, until recently, had no surface water at all?
Since the transformation of Qatar over the last few decades and the establishment of large sewage effluent lagoons, it’s become possible for amphibians to survive, even in the scorching summer months when they bury themselves deep in the mud. But the mystery is how they got here in the first place.
Read the full story here. …read more
Read more here: King Snake
No products found.
This image of a Blue Aru Island type Green Tree Python, uploaded by kingsnake.com user crocodilepaul, is our herp photo of the day!
Blue Aru Island type Green Tree Python, uploaded by kingsnake.com user crocodilepaul” />
Upload your own reptile and amphibian photos photos at gallery.kingsnake.com, and you could see them featured here! …read more
Read more here: King Snake
No products found.
Check out this video “Catching Crocodiles,” submitted by kingsnake.com user Crocguy.
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
No products found.
By Herp News
An endangered lemur has a larger range than originally believed but is still at risk due to forest fragmentation and land clearing, reports a study published in the journal Primate Conservation.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
I am mother to a teenage sulcata tortoise.
I brought out a carrot for Frankie and called to him, “Treat! Wanna carrot?! Carrot. Treat! Treat! Frankie, do you want a carrot? I got a carrot. Come get your carrot.”
I got no response.
Frankie’s been living outside now for a couple of weeks. His yard is full of fresh new green grass and dandelions and summer weeds. He is getting hours of sun. Temperatures hover in the 70’s. After a full hour basking in the sun Frankie can take a leisurely walk all the way around his very big yard, some of which he hasn’t seen since last year.
I got a carrot (his favorite treat) and I am standing in plain sight of Frankie. I’m waving the carrot around to catch his eye.
“Look, Frankie, I got a carrot! Carrot. Carrot. Come get your carrot! Come on, Frankie.”
Frankie is giving no indication that he has seen me or heard me. He is about fifteen feet from where I stand and he is grazing away. When he looks up so he can swallow (sometimes it’s frightening when he chews and shallows for three minutes straight and never breath) he seems to just ignore me.
Maybe he is blind in that eye.
I walk over so I am six feet directly in front of Frankie. “Look, Frankie, a carrot! You want a carrot? Carrot. Carrot. Treat! Treat!”
He just grazes.
Fine!
I get down on my knees in front of Frankie and start waving the carrot eight inches from his nose so one of his two eyes will have to see the carrot.
Frankie looks up. He chews on his grass. He stares past the carrot like its air. “Sup.”
Sup!? I get a sup?! I just wanna know if you want a carrot.
He finely sees the carrot. It may as well be air. Calmly he reaches out to bite it. He misses the carrot and gets nothing.
And just like a teenager who is just told “pick up all your dirty clothes off the floor, NOW,” Frankie just walks past me, and the carrot, and heads out to do something else.
My relationship with the teen Frankie has been whittled down to “sup.”
Walks around the block, Halloween costumes, parades, birthday cakes and Frankie-songs. Mom’s favorite activities may become tragic victims of a moody teenage tortoise.
I’m gonna have to get used to it.
Sup. …read more
Read more here: Turtle Times
No products found.
By Herp News
The Turtle Tidal Wave, yet another good-natured fundraiser sponsored by the Vacaville Rotary Club, washed over Vacaville on Saturday.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
One of Turtle Bay Exploration Park’s featured animals will get nationwide exposure this month when he appears on the Fox comedy “New Girl.”
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
Thanks to the power of kids, the endangered Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle is now the top turtle in the great state of Texas.
From The Houston Chronicle:
The Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle, an endangered species that nests between South Padre Island and Chambers County, was approved as the state’s official sea turtle by the Texas Senate Thursday. The resolution had already garnered approval by the Texas House.
Students at Galveston’s Oppe Elementary School, a coastal studies magnet campus, brought the bill to Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, after studying the animal, which is the smallest sea turtle in the world.
“They were told that the best way they could help is by simply making the public aware of how important the sea turtle is,” Taylor said.
kingsnake.com is also headquartered in Texas, so it’s official, Kemp’s Ridley Turtle: We salute you!
Read more here.
Photo: Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle (Courtesy: NOAA)
…read more
Read more here: King Snake
No products found.
By Herp News
Ricardo Valdez, left, and Brian W. Seibert in “Turtle Hill, Brooklyn.” During a party near the end of “Turtle Hill, Brooklyn,” a bunch of buddies soaking in a pool wonder what the name of the titular neighborhood means. No one is quite sure; then they laugh; then the subject changes.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
In “Turtle Hill, Brooklyn,” a gay couple are unsettled emotionally, as are many of their party guests, for varied reasons.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
The Greater Mekong region of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand and Vietnam will lose a third of its remaining forest cover by 2030 unless regional governments improve management of natural resources and transition toward a greener growth model, warns a new report issued by WWF.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
The most popular movies among NYTimes.com readers. $Buy Tickets by clicking on a linked showtime. Enter your ZIP code or city to view tickets and showtimes in your area.
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
Hobbyists have always had an interest in locality-specific corn snakes, Pantherophis guttatus guttatus. References to Miami phase, Okeetee phases, Florida Key phases, and others are commonplace in the hobby. But there are in Florida alone several other locales in which corn snakes, although variable to a degree, are of characteristic colors and patterns. One such is Levy County, a rather sparsely populated area located on Florida’s Gulf Coast west, and a bit south of Gainesville.
The corn snakes of that area are typically rather small, being adult at 30 to 40 inches in length. But what they may lack in size they make up for with beauty.
On these pretty corn snakes, the dorsal and lateral ground color is usually a cinnamon-buff. The rich orange-red dorsal saddles are well spaced, edged anteriorly and posteriorly with black markings about a half a scale wide, and are usually about as wide as the areas of ground color that separates them. The orange-red lateral spots are small and usually edged with only one to four half black scales. The spearpoint atop the head is bright orange-red and may or may not be partially edged with black. The belly is white and checkered with pale orange, hazy black, or both.
If you think this description sounds pretty in print, you should see one of these corn snakes in the long red rays of the setting sun as it moves across an open patch of sandy soil or is surprised on a dirt or tarmac road. Such a sighting is nearly unforgettable.
More photos under the jump…
Continue reading “Levy County (Florida) Corns” …read more
Read more here: King Snake
No products found.
By Herp News
Bears do it, bats do it, and now we know lemurs do it too: hibernate, that is. Since 2005, scientists have known that the western fat-tailed dwarf lemur hibernates, but a new study in Scientific Reports finds that hibernation is more widespread among lemurs than expected. At least two additional lemur species—Crossley’s dwarf lemur and Sibree’s dwarf lemur—have been discovered hibernating. So far lemurs, which are only found on the island of Madagascar, are the only primates known to undergo hibernation, raising curious questions about the relationship between lemur hibernation and more well-known deep sleepers.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
Bears do it, bats do it, and now we know lemurs do it too: hibernate, that is. Since 2005, scientists have known that the western fat-tailed dwarf lemur hibernates, but a new study in Scientific Reports finds that hibernation is more widespread among lemurs than expected. At least two additional lemur species—Crossley’s dwarf lemur and Sibree’s dwarf lemur—have been discovered hibernating. So far lemurs, which are only found on the island of Madagascar, are the only primates known to undergo hibernation, raising curious questions about the relationship between lemur hibernation and more well-known deep sleepers.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
Rest easy, everyone. Texas now has an official state sea turtle.Thanks to a unanimous vote Thursday by the Texas Senate, the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle — a most-endangered native species that ranges from South Padre Island to Chambers County near Beaumont — will join a list of official state animals.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
What happens to animals when their forest is cut down? If they can, they migrate to different forests. But in an age when forests are falling far and fast, many species may have to shift to entirely different environments. A new paper in Folia Primatologica theorizes that some 60 primate species and 20 wild cat species in Asia and Africa may be moving from rainforests to less-impacted environments such as swamp forests, mangroves, and peat forests.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
What happens to animals when their forest is cut down? If they can, they migrate to different forests. But in an age when forests are falling far and fast, many species may have to shift to entirely different environments. A new paper in Folia Primatologica theorizes that some 60 primate species and 20 wild cat species in Asia and Africa may be moving from rainforests to less-impacted environments such as swamp forests, mangroves, and peat forests.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
Illegal trafficking of two critically endangered tortoise species from Madagascar has reached epidemic proportions.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
Equatorial Guinea is not a country that stands very large in the American consciousness. In fact most Americans think you mean Papua New Guinea when you mention it or are simply baffled. When I left for Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea, I also knew almost nothing about the island, the nation, or the Bioko drills (Mandrillus leucophaeus poensis). The subspecies of drill is unique to Bioko Island and encountering them was an equally unique experience. I initially went to Bioko as a turtle research assistant but ended up falling in love with the entire ecosystem, especially the Bioko drills as I tagged along with drill researchers.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
A snake slithered into a Florida wedding ceremony, then curled into the shape of a heart in an apparent blessing on the couple’s nuptials.
From First Coast News:
A snake slid its way into the wedding ceremony at a Jacksonville Beach hotel, twice. The first time it slithered its way to the flower girl’s feet.
“And she looked down and she yelled ‘snake’ and threw her hands in the air and before you know it everyone was running around,” said Gubbini.
Gubbini says the snake disappeared and then came back right after the rings were exchanged, but not to object, the newlyweds think it had a message.
“It was circling around us into a little circle…as it was doing that somebody was taking a snapshot and it made a heart,” added Gubbini.
The snake looks like it shaped itself into a heart, an unforgettable wedding day, just like the day Gubbini says he proposed.
Read the full story, and watch the video, here. …read more
Read more here: King Snake
No products found.
By Herp News
Tortoise Energy Independence Fund, Inc. today announced that as of April 30, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $409.9 million and its unaudi
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
Tortoise MLP Fund, Inc. today announced that as of April 30, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $1.9 billion and its unaudited net asset valu
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
Tortoise Pipeline & Energy Fund, Inc. today announced that as of April 30, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $387.9 million and its unau
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
Tortoise North American Energy Corp. today announced that as of April 30, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $259.7 million and its unaudited
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
Tortoise Power and Energy Infrastructure Fund, Inc. today announced that as of April 30, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $237.2 million an
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
Tortoise Energy Capital Corp. today announced that as of April 30, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $1.0 billion and its unaudited net asse
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
Tortoise Energy Infrastructure Corp. today announced that as of April 30, 2013, the company’s unaudited total assets were approximately $2.0 billion and its unaudited n
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
Turtle nesting season has begun in Florida and there are some things you'll need to know to avoid inadvertently harming the animals.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.
By Herp News
After 13 years of searching for the Formosan clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa brachyura), once hopeful scientists say they believe the cat is likely extinct. For more than a decade scientists set up over 1,500 camera traps and scent traps in the mountains of Taiwan where they believed the cat may still be hiding out, only to find nothing.
…read more
Read more here: herpetofauna.com
No products found.