By Herp News
Scientists in Brazil have described a new species of tree-dwelling porcupine in the country’s most endangered ecosystems. The description is published in last week’s issue of Zootaxa.
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By Herp News
Scientists in Brazil have described a new species of tree-dwelling porcupine in the country’s most endangered ecosystems. The description is published in last week’s issue of Zootaxa.
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By Herp News
New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC) is facing a backlash over plans to aerially drop a controversial poison, known as 1080, over the habitat of two endangered, prehistoric, and truly bizarre frog species, Archey’s and Hochsetter’s frogs, on Mount Moehau. Used in New Zealand to kill populations of invasive mammals, such as rats and the Australian long-tailed possum, 1080 has become an increasingly emotive issue in New Zealand, not just splitting the government and environmentalists, but environmental groups among themselves. Critics allege that the poison, for which there is no antidote, decimates local animals as well as invasives, while proponents say the drops are the best way to control invasive mammals that kill endangered species like birds and frogs and may spread bovine tuberculosis (TB).
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By Herp News
( University of California – Los Angeles ) A UCLA scientist and other researchers who have just sequenced the first turtle genome uncovered clues about how people can benefit from the shelled creatures' remarkable longevity and ability to survive long stretches without oxygen. Understanding the natural mechanisms turtles use to protect the heart and brain from oxygen deprivation may one day …
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The great age of the embryos is unusual because almost all known dinosaur embryos are from the Cretaceous Period. The Cretaceous ended some 125 million years after the bones at the Lufeng site were buried and fossilized.
Led by University of Toronto Mississauga paleontologist Robert Reisz, an international team of scientists from Canada, Taiwan, the People’s Republic of China, Australia, and Germany excavated and analyzed over 200 bones from individuals at different stages of embryonic development.
“We are opening a new window into the lives of dinosaurs,” says Reisz. “This is the first time we’ve been able to track the growth of embryonic dinosaurs as they developed. Our findings will have a major impact on our understanding of the biology of these animals.”
The bones represent about 20 embryonic individuals of the long-necked sauropodomorph Lufengosaurus, the most common dinosaur in the region during the Early Jurassic period. An adult Lufengosaurus was approximately eight metres long.
The disarticulated bones probably came from several nests containing dinosaurs at various embryonic stages, giving Reisz’s team the rare opportunity to study ongoing growth patterns. Dinosaur embryos are more commonly found in single nests or partial nests, which offer only a snapshot of one developmental stage.
To investigate the dinosaurs’ development, the team concentrated on the largest embryonic bone, the femur. This bone showed a consistently rapid growth rate, doubling in length from 12 to 24 mm as the dinosaurs grew inside their eggs. Reisz says this very fast growth may indicate that sauropodomorphs like Lufengosaurus had a short incubation period.
Reisz’s team found the femurs were being reshaped even as they were in the egg. Examination of the bones’ anatomy and internal structure showed that as they contracted and pulled on the hard bone tissue, the dinosaurs’ muscles played an active role in changing the shape of the developing femur. “This suggests that dinosaurs, like modern birds, moved around inside their eggs,” says Reisz. “It represents the first evidence of such movement in a dinosaur.”
The Taiwanese members of the team also discovered organic material inside the embryonic bones. Using precisely targeted infrared spectroscopy, they conducted chemical analyses of the dinosaur bone and found evidence of what Reisz says may be collagen fibres. Collagen is a protein characteristically found in bone.
“The bones of ancient animals are transformed to rock during the fossilization process,” says Reisz. “To find remnants of proteins in the embryos is really remarkable, particularly since these specimens are over 100 million years older than other fossils containing similar organic material.”
Only about one square metre of the bonebed has been excavated to date, but this small area also yielded pieces of eggshell, the oldest known for any terrestrial vertebrate. Reisz says this is the first time that even fragments of such delicate dinosaur eggshells, less than 100 microns thick, have been found in good condition.
“A find such as the Lufeng bonebed is extraordinarily rare in the fossil …read more
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By Herp News
After facilitating large-scale logging and conversion of large areas of rainforest habitat, the government of Sarawak says it will protect a population of up to 200 of the world’s rarest Bornean orangutans recently identified during field surveys by conservationists, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
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By Herp News
Scientists have uncovered a rare, brilliantly-striped bat in the South Sudan that has yielded new secrets after close study. Working in Bangangai Game Reserve during July of last year, biologist DeeAnn Redeer and conservationist Adrian Garsdie with Fauna & Flora International (FFI) came across an unmissable bat, which has been dubbed by various media outlets as the “badger bat” and the “panda bat.”
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By Herp News
TURTLE deaths at Plane Creek, near Sarina, may not have been caused by polluted water, the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection said.
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By Herp News
Byline: The Lizard RNLI launch to channel collision Page Content: The Lizard RNLI lifeboat was launched at lunchtime today, Wednesday 18 March 2009) to assist a French yacht, feared sinking following a collision with a merchant vessel. Fortunately the incident was not as critical as first thought and the lifeboat was soon stood down. The two man crew of the yacht had recently picked up the newly …
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Frankie hates baths.
I didn’t realize he hated baths. I thought he loved them.
Frankie needed a bath for Walk for Autism. That’s what Greg told me: “Frankie stinks. He stinks bad! Maybe you don’t think he stinks but he does.”
Beaten by Keeper’s Nose again! I can’t tell Frankie stinks. Sure his shell and feet are dirty but I can’t tell he smells.
“He smells like animal sewage.” Okay, okay. I get the point, Greg. Frankie gets a bath today.
I gather up a bucket and fill it with warm water. I fetch a tooth brush, soap dispenser, bucket and a sponge. Frankie is outside sunning so I head out to where he is sitting.
Apparently Frankie can identify what a tooth brush, soap dispenser, a bucket and a sponge look like. Not only can he identify those objects but can accurately deduct what a a tooth brush, soap dispenser, bucket and a sponge mean in his small little world
When he saw me with the tooth brush, soap dispenser, bucket and sponge Frankie took off running.
I’ve seen Frankie actually run a few times. This is the first time he’s run from me.
I really wanted to bath him on the driveway to avoid getting mud and wetness all over me but Frankie is running toward the backyard. I catch up and stop Frankie by the fence. The minute I stand up to arrange the instruments of torture Frankie dug his head deep into the corner of the fence.
Fine, I decide. We are doing this the hard way.
Isn’t funny that this is exactly what Frankie was thinking. Fine, Frankie thinks, we were going to do this the hard way.
I can’t get to Frankie’s front because he is dug deep into the corner of the fence. Fine, I will start on the back end.
Sulcata tortoises can lower themselves really close to the ground. There is no way I am gonna get to feet or under carriage. I proceed to soap and rub his shell clean with the sponge. On tough spots I scrub with the tooth bush. Every time I get near his feet or tail end he digs in deep.
I try to move to the front of his shell. Frankie abruptly rotates his back end so I can’t reach it. I swing to the other side of Frankie and he simply rotates his rear end around so I can’t past him.
Fine. We’re gonna do this the hard way.
So, with great difficulty and fighting a nearly impossible evolutionary developed shell that says no-you-can’t turn-me-over and a kicking madly all the way tortoise I manage to get Frankie turned over on his back. …read more
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By Herp News
In the remote Russian far east, amid pine forests and long winters, a great cat may be beginning to make a recovery. A new survey estimates that the Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) population has risen to as many as 50 individuals. While this may not sound like much, it’s a far cry from the a population that may have fallen to just 25 animals. Sporting the heaviest coat of any leopard, the Amur leopard largely hunts hoofed animals, such as deer and boar, in a forest still ruled by the Siberian tiger.
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Seems unborn lizards are not helpless when predators threaten.
From ScienceNOW:
Talk about hatching an escape plan. Unborn lizards can erupt from their eggs days early if vibrations hint at a threat from a hungry predator, new research shows. The premature hatchlings literally “hit the ground running—they hatch and launch into a sprint at the same time,” says behavioral ecologist J. Sean Doody, who is now at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
[…]
That curtain began to lift a bit a few years ago, when Doody and student Philip Paull of Monash University in Australia began studying a population of delicate skinks (Lampropholis delicata) in a park near Sydney. There, the common lizards laid white, leathery eggs the size of aspirin capsules in rock crevices. The eggs generally incubate for 4 to 8 weeks before hatching, but Doody got a surprise in 2010, when he and Paull were plucking eggs from the crevices to make measurements. “They started hatching in our hands, at just a touch—it shocked us,” Doody recalls. “It turned into a real mess, they were just hatching everywhere.”
Soon, Doody launched a more systematic study of the phenomenon. In two lab experiments, the researchers compared the hatching dates for skink eggs exposed to vibrations with those of eggs that weren’t shaken. And in three field experiments, they poked and prodded eggs with a small stick, or squeezed them gently with their fingers to measure how sensitive the eggs were to the kinds of disturbances a predator, such as a snake, might cause. They also measured how far the premature hatchlings could dash.
Together, the experiments offer “compelling evidence” that embryonic skinks can detect and respond to predator-like signals, the authors write in the March 2013 issue of Copeia. The vibrated laboratory eggs, for instance, hatched an average of 3.4 days earlier than the unshaken controls. And in the field, the hatching of disturbed eggs was “explosive,” they note; the newborns often broke out of the egg and then sprinted more than one-half meter to nearby cover in just a few seconds. “It’s amazing,” Doody says. “It can be hard to see because it happens so quick.”
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By Herp News
No need to alert animal rights groups, Redneck turtle burgers are not made from turtles. So relax. Instead, turtle burgers are crafted from the three greatest meats known to man, ground beef, bacon and hot dogs.
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By Herp News
It's been a long, long winter
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It started in still-frigid New England, hit half a dozen aquariums on the way, and ended up on the beaches of Jacksonville, Florida, carrying 52 cold-stunned sea turtles back to warmer climes after a period of rehabilitation at each aquarium.
It was dubbed the Great Sea Turtle Trek. From the National Aquarium’s WATERblog:
The #SeaTurtleTrek release was a great success!
After leaving Baltimore last night and driving through the night, our team and staff from New England Aquarium made it to the beach in Florida with 52 endangered sea turtles.
Upon their arrival in Jacksonville, health samples were taken from each turtle.
Soon, it was time for the big beach release! The turtles were released by group in the following order: South Carolina Aquarium, Virginia Aquarium, Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, National Marine Life Center, University of New England, National Aquarium and finally, New England Aquarium!
Read the whole saga in reverse chronological order here!
Photo: Chet, a Kemp’s ridley turtle at the National Aquarium, getting ready for his road trip. …read more
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By Herp News
A small, boneless creature, that lives underground, with a “hundred” legs, and a rather powerful sting; some of these creatures are drab, but some are so beautiful and brightly colored that they can startle. Centipedes. There is more to a centipede than its many legs, and its habit of darting out of dark places. One of the first lifeforms to turn up on land, some centipede fossils date back to about 450 million years ago. They have been evolving steadily since, with some estimates showing about 8,000 species today. Not even half of these species have been taxonomically described.
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By Herp News
WWF-Indonesia had considered the impact of the publication of finding traces of Sumatran rhinos in Kalimantan. In the two-month period before it was published, WWF-Indonesia had coordinated with various parties, including the local government, the Forestry Ministry, rhino experts, local university and other related parties to set up strategies and to ensure commitment to full protection of the rhino.
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By Herp News
In less than 40 years, drinking wine could have a major toll on the environment and wildlife, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The study finds that climate change will likely force many vineyards to move either north or to higher altitudes, leading to habitat loss, biodiversity declines, and increased pressure for freshwater. Some famous wine-growing areas could be lost, including in the Mediterranean, while development of new wine areas—such as those in the Rocky Mountains and northern Europe—could lead to what the the scientists describe as “conservation conflicts.”
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By Herp News
Less than 100 Sumatran rhinos survive in the world today, according to a bleak new population estimate by experts. The last survey in 2008 estimated that around 250 Sumatran rhinos survived, but that estimate now appears optimistic and has been slashed by 60 percent. However conservationists are responding with a major new agreement between the Indonesian and Malaysian governments at a recent summit by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC).
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By Herp News
Brevard Zoo has been awarded a $39,800 grant to open a new Sea Turtle Hospital that will treat sick and injured endangered sea turtles .
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By Herp News
A newly-hatched western pond turtle is small enough to be eaten by a bullfrong, one of many perils it faces.
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By Herp News
Brevard Zoo has been awarded a $39,800 grant to open a new Sea Turtle Hospital that will treat sick and injured endangered sea turtles .
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By Herp News
The black-and-brown reticulated boa constrictor slithered from one of Eric Sheets’ arms to the other while his children, Mackenzie, 15, and Evan, 19, oohed and aahed over the black Eastern Kingsnake their dad just bought for $100.
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I had Tilly my turtle outside sun bathing today in a gaint pond insert and the dog was chained up and i didn’t relize that she could get to it. But some how my dog got the turtle out of the pond insert.Tilly is doing just fine i think. He is eating and acting normal ( as much as you can just being attack by a dog. LOL) However his shell is pretty bad no punckcher hole or cracks. The dog just manly knawed around the entier shell. The bleedind has stopped but there is alot of area that is red and looks bad. I put him in one of those rubber made bins with a towel and heat lamp. I also got this conditioner stuff to help harden his shell but not sure if i should wait to rub it on till his shell has healed. please help. …read more
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By Herp News
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online Researchers at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Dresden have discovered that a freshwater turtle species declared extinct has not died out as experts had previously believed – in truth, it never existed. The Seychelles mud turtle Pelusios seychellensis was originally described in 1906 as a species endemic to Mahe island, but despite an …
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Hello, and thanks for reading!
This is Yertle, in which I don’t have anymore.
I have one three-toed box turtle named Mack. When I got her I didn’t know how to tell apart genders, so that explains her boy’s name. I had wanted a turtle really badly and I finally did for my birthday and he was a red-eared slider. He was very tiny and I had him for about a week when he passed. It had turned out the website I had got him from commonly had sick turtles. His name was Yertle, after the book Yertle the Turtle. My grandmother later gave me the box turtle I have now. I named her Mack after, again, the book Yertle the Turtle, which by the way is the best book on turtle stacking. I later learned that Mack was a girl and couldn’t bare to change her name. That brings me up to now.
Mack is now about 7 (I think) and I really need a new indoor aquarium, hers is too small but good thing it’s almost summer!
During the summer Mack lives in a wooden enclose that has a chicken wire hinged lid. It has holes on the bottom for drainage and is over all great for my little boy girl (oops). Today, we started on a new one because the last on was both too small and the wood began to rot. We have decided on 20inches by 40inches, for one little 3.5 inch box turtle! I’m really excited because I recently learned I seemed to be doing everything wrong, so now I can make it up to her. C: I plan on growing dandelions, hostas, veggies, fruits, grass,plus othersand then planting them in the tank. Then I’m going to find a larger waterbowl and put that in too as well as his log! It will also be up off the ground and painted every year so it won’t rot. I also hope tocover it willa tarp during winter to keep the deep snow off of it.
I will try to get pictures posted of the tank as it comes together! 
I also looked a good picture of Mack in my room, but all I found was 20 bucks. I cool with that thought 
Thanks for reading and I will try to post more photos later. …read more
Read more here: Turtle Times
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By Herp News
Judah DuBois, 4, left, and Chavy DuBois, 6, right, pet a crested gecko during the reptile exhibit at the World of Wonders Science Museum Saturday afternoon.
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By Herp News
Judah DuBois, 4, pets a crested gecko during the reptile exhibit at the World of Wonders Science Museum Saturday afternoon.
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By Herp News
Chase Guin, 8, pets a Columbian tego that Don McLeister is holding.
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By Herp News
A new sea turtle hospital has just been announced for Brevard County. Right now several injured or
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By Herp News
An exotic lizard that can grow up to four feet long has been spotted just outside of Winter Haven. T
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By Herp News
The annual Reptile Roundup is slithering into World of Wonders Science Museum today from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The WOW Museum is teaming up with local reptile stores and museums to offer a hands-on day of fun with live reptiles .
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By Herp News
DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — An African leopard tortoise thought to be stolen from an Iowa museum was actually trapped behind paneling in her enclosure, and a misguided employee who found her lied to keep up the story about her theft, the museum announced Friday.
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By Herp News
An eastern Iowa tortoise originally thought to be stolen – then returned – was only hiding. Officials at the National…
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Scientists continue to study the genome of the painted turtle, seeking clues in its amazing ability to survive and thrive in difficult environmental conditions that might help human victims of stroke, heart attack, and hypothermia.
From 680News.com:
The shelled reptile, named for the bright yellow stripes that adorn its body, is a fresh water species that can freeze solid and return to life when thawed.
It can also hold its breath for up to four days at room temperature without suffering oxygen deprivation and up to four months when hibernating, said Brad Shaffer of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and one of the lead authors of the study published in the latest edition of the journal Genome Biology.
“Those are fascinating ecological, physiological features that have evolved in turtles … so as a biologist those are fascinating things to learn more about, more about the genes that allow them to do that,” Shaffer said.
Shaffer and his colleagues hope solving the DNA puzzle may one day lead to innovations in treating hypothermia, frostbite, heart attacks or strokes.
The DNA confirmed for scientists that the turtles have evolved at a … turtle’s pace, and have in fact changed little in design over the past 210 million years.
“Turtles are nothing short of an enigma,” Richard K. Wilson, director of Washington University’s Genome Institute and one of the authors, said in a statement. “We could learn a lot from them.”
In addition to their ability to freeze and thaw without suffering organ or tissue damage, they have longevity and continue to reproduce at advanced ages, he said.
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By Herp News
Scientists have decoded the genome of the western painted turtle, one of the most abundant turtles on Earth, finding clues to their longevity and ability to survive without oxygen during long winters spent hibernating in ice-covered ponds.
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The disastrous ExxonMobil oil spill in an Arkansas residential neighborhood is threatening reptiles and other local wildlife.
From The NY Daily News:
The evacuation of almost two dozen homes after an oil pipeline ruptured in Arkansas has left an eerie sight in one neighborhood — and many unanswered questions.
“That neighborhood was like a scene from ‘The Walking Dead,’” state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said Wednesday after visiting the Little Rock suburb of Mayflower. “There were still Easter decorations on homes, but there was not a soul in sight other than people in Hazmat suits.”
ExxonMobil is investigating what caused its Pegasus pipeline, which carries oil from southern Illinois to the Texas Gulf Coast, to burst open March 29.
[…]
Officials say at least 16 oily birds, seven turtles, nine reptiles, a beaver and a muskrat have been recovered for treatment. At least seven ducks died as the result of the spill.
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By Herp News
A Seychelles freshwater turtle species declared extinct after decades of futile searches, in fact never existed, scientists said Thursday.
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By Herp News
Last Saturday, an oil pipeline carrying tar sands oil from Canada ruptured in Mayflower, Arkansas spilling between 3,500-5,000 barrels of crude (at most 210,000 gallons) into neighborhood streets and lawns. Families from 22 homes have been evacuated while clean-up crews have scrambled to contain the spill. ExxonMobil, which runs the 65-year-old Pegasus pipeline, has stated it will pay for any damage, however critics say the oil spill is more evidence that the Obama Administration should turn down the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
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By Herp News
Last Saturday, an oil pipeline carrying tar sands oil from Canada ruptured in Mayflower, Arkansas spilling between 3,500-5,000 barrels of crude (at most 210,000 gallons) into neighborhood streets and lawns. Families from 22 homes have been evacuated while clean-up crews have scrambled to contain the spill. ExxonMobil, which runs the 65-year-old Pegasus pipeline, has stated it will pay for any damage, however critics say the oil spill is more evidence that the Obama Administration should turn down the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
…read more
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