A robust build and a length of 16-17 inches (including the long tail) is a typical size for an adult giant ameiva.
For well over a half century Ameivas, the large, economy size of the whiptail/racerunner clan if you prefer, have been prominent in the hobbyist reptile trade. Of the 3 dozen or so species in the genus, 2 are by far the most commonly encountered. These are the giant and the dusky ameivas. For decades the two were considered diverse color phases of the giant ameiva, Ameiva ameiva, but they are now known to be 2 entirely separate species (but more on this later). Firstly, let’s take a look at the big, very pretty, and quite common “green phase” of the giant ameiva. In fact, although the amount of green may vary, the green phase is currently the only phase of this 15 to 20 inch long teiid lizard. Despite the color reference in its name, this neotropical lizard is not entirely green. It is olive-tan anteriorly, olive-lime posteriorly, sky blue in the groin, pale blue to sky blue on the lower sides fading to bluish white ventrally. Trying to describe the positioning of the black flecks and off-white ocelli would be an exercise in futility. It is far better (and much easier) if I simply refer you to the photos.

Like most teiids, ameivas (please note that when used as a common name the word is not italicized) are sun worshippers and can often be seen basking in full sunshine during the hottest part of the day. The examples on which the Miami population is based originated (or at least were shipped) from Barranquilla, Colombia in the 1950s. They are wary lizards and if startled will quickly retire to areas of ground vegetation or a home burrow. Omnivores, in the wild this lizard actively forages during the heat of the day, often scratching insects from beneath the surface of the ground. Besides insects this ameiva consumes all manner of small invertebrates as well as berries and other vegetation. Captives will accept pinky mice, and there is no reason to believe that those in the wild would not eat nestling mice or nestlings of ground nesting songbirds.

I have noticed that some care sheets mention a hot spot of 90F for these lizards. I submit that a brightly lit hot spot of 110-120F would be more appropriate, with the terrarium providing a a thermal gradient to a temperature of 75F on the cool end.

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It is difficult to protect endangered species without understanding how many individuals exist or where they’re located. However, learning this can be a daunting task when the species in question are rare and elusive carnivores — and all the more so when they live in areas that make tracking them difficult. The tropics is one such area. There, carnivores tend to be sparse and conditions humid, which make genetic samples like scat decay quickly. In a study recently published in Mongabay’s open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science, researchers investigated deploying scented hair-traps to gather population data in Peninsular Malaysia, home to 28 species of terrestrial carnivores, many with dwindling numbers. Since 1990, the use of hair traps has been rapidly expanding in wildlife biology, but mainly in cooler climates. Researchers set a trap that will collect hair from a wild animal if they touch or rub against it. Often appealing odors, like fatty acid or men’s cologne, lure the animals to the traps. By collecting hair samples, scientists can non-invasively collect DNA samples of wild animal populations. Using these samples, they can learn about the genetic diversity within animal populations and determine their habitat ranges. An example of one of the scent-baited hair traps used in the study, designed to target felids. Three past studies successfully used hair traps in the tropics. Two monitored several species of carnivores in Mexico, and one, as yet unpublished, monitored dingoes in Australia. For the present study, a team led by…

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This is a gorgeous corn snake in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user dallashawks ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here! No offense USPS!

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An unusual mountain lion shot in Idaho has spurred questions about its abnormalities. On December 30th a hunter killed a young male mountain lion after it was seen attacking a dog on a property in Weston, Idaho near the Utah border. When the hunter reported the kill to authorities, it became apparent that this was no ordinary mountain lion: the individual had a set of fully-formed teeth and whiskers growing out of the site of its forehead. The find stumped wildlife officials. “Idaho Fish and Game cannot definitively explain why this abnormality developed on this mountain lion,” said the agency in a statement. “Biologists from the southeast region of Idaho Fish and Game have never seen anything like this particular deformity before.” Photo released by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game showing a mountain lion with an unusual deformity-fully-formed teeth and what appears to be small whiskers were growing out of hard fur-covered tissue on the left side of the animal’s forehead The agency put forth two theories on the cause of the deformity. “It is possible that the teeth could be the remnants of a conjoined twin that died in the womb and was absorbed into the other fetus. It is also possible that deformity was a teratoma tumor. These kinds of tumors are composed of tissue from which teeth, hair, and even fingers and toes can develop.” It is unclear how the deformity may have affected the prospects of the mountain lion, which…

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Massive natural-gas leak forces California to declare a state of emergency [ABC] Since it was first reported in October 2015, a well owned by Southern California Gas Co., has been gushing up to 1,200 tons of methane a day, along with other gases. Experts say it will be months still before workers can contain the leak that now has California in a state of emergency. You’re only a download away from becoming a real life scientist [Penn State News] Chesapeake Commons, an environmentally focused app developer has partnered with Penn State to create a smartphone app called FISH. This app was developed to help nature enthusiasts to see how the health of local streams and the habitats around them are changing over time and to participate in data collection that is used to monitor these changes. The world’s largest-known population of giant Manta Rays gained another big supporter [Mongabay] Peru and Ecuador waters have the world’s largest known population of giant manta rays, according to conservation nonprofit Manta Trust. In 2010, Ecuador agreed to protect Manta rays, now a new regulation out of Peru will strengthen protection for the manta ray populations in the South East Pacific. A diver observing a giant oceanic manta ray. Photo by Elias Levy via Flickr. Surprisingly, climate change could have a greater impact on crops in developed nations [Globe and Mail] It makes sense that global food production is increasingly likely to be disrupted as a result of extreme weather driven…

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[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n late November, three South African judges lifted a ban on the domestic sale of rhinoceros horn in the African country, sparking controversy both at home and abroad. South Africa is at the dead center of a global rhinoceros-poaching crisis. Rhino horns are fed into a black-market pipeline leading to Vietnam and China, where they are used for their purported medicinal benefits. In an effort to protect its remaining animals, South Africa placed a moratorium on domestic trade in rhino horn, effective in early 2009. On November 26, judges Francis Legodi, Vivian Tlhapi, and Myron Dewrance of the Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa in Pretoria set aside the moratorium because of “substantial non-compliance” with the consultative and participatory process. Two South African private rhino owners — John Hume, who is the world’s biggest private owner of rhinos, and Johan Kruger — had launched the legal action to overturn the ban that the High Court decided. The country’s Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, appealed the judgment on December 8, suspending its operation and execution, according to a statement on the department’s website. “The moratorium on the domestic trade in rhino horn thus remains in place,” the statement reads, emphasizing that the ban on domestic trade does not relate to international trade in rhino horn, which remains prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). A white rhinoceros grazes in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.…

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Two months ago, on November 2, the San Diego Zoo Safari Park made the sad announcement that Nola, a 41-year old northern white rhino — one of only four left in the world — had passed away. “Nola, who lived here since 1989, was under veterinary care for a bacterial infection, as well as age-related health issues,” the announcement said. “In the last 24 hours, Nola’s condition worsened and we made the difficult decision to euthanize her. We’re absolutely devastated by this loss, but resolved to fight even harder to #EndExtinction.” According to the San Diego Zoo Global, a non-profit conservation arm of the zoo, three rhinos are killed every day, their horns hacked off so they can be sold on the black market. This post is by Rick Schwartz, national spokesperson for the San Diego Zoo Global, written in response to a conversation that started between him and parents on social media in the wake of Nola’s death. A photo of Nola taken on April 24, 2015. Photo by Jeffrey Keeton / Flickr. On Sunday, November 22, one of the last four northern white rhinos — a female named Nola — died at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Along with an outpouring of sympathy, sorrow, and messages of condolence, I received a number of emails from parents who were overwhelmed themselves and trying to share the news with their children. The death of a much-loved animal is hard. When it is one of the…

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Making our return to Rattlesnake Friday with a bang with this stunning Tuxtlan jumping pitviper (Atropoides olmec) in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user PeteSnakeCharmer! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Painted dogs, also known as African wild dogs, are among Africa’s most endangered species. Habitat fragmentation and conflict with livestock and farmers are partly to blame — human encroachment across the dogs’ range has shown no signs of stopping. However, every dog has its day—and it seems Greg Rasmussen is the one to give it to them. Greg Rasmussen, founder of the Painted Dog Conservation Project (PDC) in Zimbabwe, now leading the Painted Dog Research Trust (PDRT), let the wild dogs have their day when he decided these endangered animals needed local support to survive. With snares, shootings, and road kills causing 95% of painted dog mortalities in the area in the early 1990s and little public support for conserving a species called wild dogs, Rasmussen was determined to give these dogs a better name – and a chance for survival. He tracks their movements to better understand their habitat use and population dynamics and has added special features to his tracking collars to mitigate rancher-dog conflict. WildTech interviewed ‘top dog’ Rasmussen to learn about some of the technological challenges and needs he has faced as a painted dog conservationist. Painted dogs defend their kill against a hungry yet outnumbered hyena in Botswana. Photo credit: George Powell You study an elusive species in rugged terrain. What are the biggest challenges that the project is facing and how might technology address them? One of the greatest challenges of field technology has been the reliability and cost of…

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Back in the field as this lovely Fire Salamander takes the spotlight in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user NYgaboon ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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The Concho water snake is a protected species.Although the two occur in different and non-contiguous drainages, the Concho water snake, (formerly Nerodia harteri paucimaculata, now Nerodia paucimaculata) is of very similar appearance to the Brazos water snake. N. harteri. As he had with the latter, Kenny had researched the locales and the probabilities of our finding and photographing the Concho water snake.

Like the Brazos water snake, the Concho has been considered federally threatened since the late 1900s and is primarily a snake of natural and man-made rocky riffles. It has adapted to a few areas of rock-edged quieter waters in reservoirs.

Rather small for an American water snake, the Concho is adult at 24 to 30 inches in length. The sandy dorsal ground color and 4 rows of poorly defined dusky darker blotches blends well with the substrate color on which this snake is found. The belly, usually immaculate but sometimes with a row of indistinct dark spots along each side, is of pink or orangish color.

We searched, we found, we departed. Other herp taxa of Texas still beckoned.

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Radiocarbon dating of atomic bomb fallout found in sea turtle shells can be used to reliably estimate the ages, growth rates and reproductive maturity of sea turtle populations in the wild, according researchers. The newly tested technique provides scientists with a more accurate means of estimating turtle growth and maturity and may help shed new light on the status of endangered sea turtles populations worldwide.

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A team of researchers has described 60 new species of dragonflies and damselflies from various parts of Africa, according to a recent study published in the journal Odonatologica. This is the most number of dragonfly species to be described at once in 130 years, researchers say. And with this discovery, the total number of known species of dragonflies has jumped from 700 to 760. Researchers write that most of the newly described species are colorful and easy to identify from photographs alone. “The current emphasis on molecular research in taxonomy creates the impression that undiscovered life is inconspicuous or hidden, but each of our new species is colorful and easy to identify,” lead researcher Klaas-Douwe B. Dijkstra, a member of the IUCN SSC Dragonfly Specialist Group, said in a statement. “It’s a matter of going outside and knowing what you’re looking for. It’s a biologist’s greatest importance today. Names introduce species to humanity. All awareness, conservation and research of nature starts with the question: which species is that?” Pale Cascader (Zygonyx denticulatus) male Photo by Jens Kipping. Naturalists Dijkstra, Jens Kipping and Nicolas Mézière scanned through swamps and streams in Africa and discovered the new species in varied — not especially remote – habitats. For example, they found new damselfly species called the Gabon Slim Sprite Pseudagrion dactylidium perching by muddy puddles in deep shade, a dragonfly called the Pale Cascader Zygonyx denticulatus hovering over sunny rapids, and the new Rock Threadtail Elattoneura lapidaria in the…

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What a wonderful field find! This in situ Indigo takes the spotlight in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user ACO3124 ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here! Have a safe New Years Eve!

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A new review provides intriguing insights on parthenogenesis, or virgin birth, in snakes.

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First came the horn From knee joints to human organs, and from prosthetics for pets to guns, it seems that the limits of 3D printing are bound only by imagination. Taking 3D printing to the next step are the founders of a start-up company, Pembient, who want to print synthetic rhino horns. The pointy, curved horn of a southern white rhino in Kenya looks tough compared to flamingos. Photo credit: Sue Palminteri Matthew Markus, one of Pembient’s founders, stated in an email interview with Wildtech that he has had the idea for making synthetic rhino horns for about two decades. “It originated from a wish that physical goods could be copied as easily as bits in a computer. Within the last couple of years, biotechnology has advanced to the point where fantasy is turning into reality. That’s why lab-grown leather (Modern Meadow), cow-free milk (Muufri), and chicken-free egg whites (Clara Foods) have all started to emerge. I view our undertaking as a natural extension of this movement to remove animals from commerce, a movement led by New Harvest.” So went the rhinos Currently, about 29,000 rhinos survive worldwide in the wild. Most are southern white rhinos, found in southern and eastern Africa; fewer than 3,500 rhinos remain in Asia. From nearly 500,000 rhinos across Asia and Africa at the beginning of the 20th century down to 70,000 in the 1970s, the population of these herbivores continues to plummet, mainly due to poaching. There is only one male northern white…

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The spring peeper’s species name, “crucifer,” is derived from the dorsal X (the crucifix).
In many areas spring peepers, Pseudacris crucifer ssp., a common chorus frog that ranges from eastern Texas to eastern Manitoba then eastward to Newfoundland to northern Florida is actually a spring breeder, but in the deep southeast it is a late autumn and winter breeding taxon. On wet years, in this latter area we expect to hear these harbingers of the northern spring chorusing from marshes, swamps, and roadside ditches by late November. They and other chorus frog species welcome in the seasonally cooler days and colder nights when our trees are still dropping their leaves rather than recovering from cloaks of snow and ice and greening with expanding buds. The strident peeps of the well named hylids (they are treefrog relatives), boisterous on warm nights, faltering when temps drop below 45F or so, are as eagerly listened for on our winter days as when the little “X backed”, tan harbingers of spring are making their appearance in the northland swamps and puddles.
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By Herp News

Eating increases the amount of damaging reactive molecules in the body, potentially shaping and constraining life history evolution across animal groups, new research on snakes shows.

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On Sunday, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo released 190 birds into the wild outside the Presidential Palace in Bogor, a suburb of Jakarta. “We have to protect the ecosystem,” the Indonesian president wrote on Twitter over the weekend. He did it in the name of preserving nature in urban areas, but some conservationists responded with one part dismay. The birds had been purchased at Pramuka, a notorious wildlife market in East Jakarta. “Our President means well in buying birds and releasing them, but all he is doing is supporting criminals who illegally sell wildlife at this terrible market,” said Gunung Gea, director of Scorpion, a wildlife trade monitoring group. “Our president should be closing down the market, not shopping in it.” https://twitter.com/jokowi/status/683513352857858048 No Asian country has more threatened bird species than Indonesia, according to TRAFFIC, another wildlife trade monitoring group, which conducted a comprehensive survey of Pramuka earlier this year. Posing as potential buyers, researchers counted 87 shops, 16,160 birds and 180 species in the market. The capture or trade of wild birds is generally banned in Indonesia, and 98 percent of the birds on display at Pramuka were said to be “harvested outside of the national harvest quota system or in direct violation of laws protecting select species.” Bird-keeping is an ancient tradition in Indonesia, especially among the Javanese, the country’s largest ethnic group. But Indonesia is depleting its songbird populations so fast it has begun to import from the rest of Southeast Asia. “It’s very encouraging to see the president of Indonesia taking note…

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Thailand officials have arrested two people in connection with the sale of critically endangered Burmese star tortoises on Facebook, according to an announcement by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The officials were first tipped off about the Facebook ads in October 2015. They began monitoring the profile of the person offering to sell the tortoises, and found that the suspect continued to post similar offers. On December 22, the officials raided the home of the suspect in Khon Khaen Province, in northeast Thailand, and found seven Burmese star tortoises (Geochelone platynota). Using a microchip reader, the authorities were able to identify three of the confiscated tortoises as among those stolen in October from a wildlife sanctuary in central Myanmar. This was possible because the stolen tortoises had identification numbers and religious markings on their shell, and microchips embedded in them. The authorities were, however, unable to confirm the origin of the four remaining tortoises. The apprehended suspect claimed that he had purchased the tortoises from someone else in a market. The authorities managed to arrest the second suspect too, who did not seem to possess any tortoises. But the authorities were able to arrest him after they found an orangutan in his possession, obtained illegally. Posting discovered on Facebook which helped to lead to the arrest of two suspects in Thailand in possession of Burmese star tortoises stolen from a sanctuary in Myanmar in October. Photo courtesy of WCS Myanmar. All seven confiscated tortoises are now under…

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Let’s kick off the day with this gorgeous Furcifer pardalis Ambilobe in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user BIONCENTER! Be sure to tell them you liked it here! Have a safe New Years Eve!

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In 1996, researchers discovered a deadly cancer in Australia’s Tasmanian Devils. The transmissible cancer jumps from one Tasmanian Devil to another, and is often fatal to the animals. Since its discovery, the contagious cancer has wiped out over 90 percent of Tasmanian Devils in some areas. Now, researchers have discovered a second contagious cancer in these endangered marsupials, according to a study published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. This second cancer, first detected in a devil in south-east Tasmania in 2014, is genetically distinct from the first one, researchers from the University of Tasmania, Australia, and the University of Cambridge, UK, have found. “The second cancer causes tumors on the face that are outwardly indistinguishable from the previously-discovered cancer,” lead-author Ruth Pye from the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania, said in a statement. “So far it has been detected in eight devils in the south-east of Tasmania.” The new contagious cancer produces large facial tumors in Tasmanian Devils, much like the first form of cancer. Photo by Gregory Woods, Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania. Normally, cancers are not contagious. Only four forms of transmissible cancers have been found in nature so far, in Tasmanian Devils, dogs, Syrian hamsters and soft-shell clams. In the Tasmanian devils, the cancer spreads when the devils bite each other’s faces during fights for food, and at the time of mating. But the recent discovery of a second…

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Much like the adult Alligator in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user CDieter , take no prisoners today! Be sure to tell them you liked it here! Have a safe New Years Eve!

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Tortoise and turtle fossils, the first from the Miocene epoch found in Bolivia, suggest the Altiplano, near Quebrada Honda, was likely less than a kilometer above sea level 13 million years ago. Fossils of leaves and other animals support the suggestion.

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Some reptiles such as crocodilians and some turtles are known to display temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), where the ambient temperature of the developing eggs determines the individual’s sex. An international joint research team has determined that the thermosensor protein TRPV4 is associated with TSD in the American alligator.

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In the Indian Himalayas, threatened Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus) are frequently drawn to energy-rich human food sources such as apple orchards and other crops. This resource-driven movement frequently brings bears and humans into close contact, increasing potential risks for either side that can end in retaliatory killings of bears by local people. Because of this, bears are often relocated to less-populated areas. But some scientists are saying this conventional technique may be doing more harm than good. Asiatic black bears are found across a wide swath of Asia, from southeast Iran to northeast China, and fossils indicate they once ranged as far west as central Europe. However, despite their expansive distribution, the species is classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN. One of the bears’ biggest threats is habitat loss from the clearing of forests, making their current distribution very patchy. The bears must also contend with widespread illegal hunting, driven in part by the lucrative market of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). In China and Southeast Asia, these bears are often exploited for the bile in their gall bladders, which TCM purports – and scientific evidence refutes – have medicinal properties. The mountainous Dachigam landscape in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is recognized as harboring one of the densest populations of Asiatic black bears in India. Confrontations with bears in this region appear to be on the rise, and local researchers say managing bear-human conflict has become challenging for the state’s wildlife protection department. Asiatic black bears have…

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While the top environmental stories of the year include more than a few bummers, it wasn’t all doom and gloom for the planet in 2015. Here we take a look at some of the more positive developments, from the Paris Agreement to the Yellowstone of the Amazon and the “mystery whale” that was finally documented in the wild. 1. The world is finally getting serious about tackling climate change. In case you missed it somehow, 195 countries reached a historic agreement to address climate change in Paris this December. The Paris Agreement has its share of critics, many of whom point out that the commitment made by all those countries to keep global temperature rise “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels is non-binding. Which means nearly 200 countries basically just promised to try really hard to lower emissions, but not to accept any penalties if they don’t meet their goals — which aren’t actually ambitious enough to limit global warming to 2C anyway. But, as ClimateProgress pointed out, just because it’s non-binding doesn’t mean the agreement is meaningless. And many climate experts say that, for all the agreement’s shortcomings, they are hopeful about the fact that the nations of the world have finally come together and established a set of shared goals to combat global warming. “I think this Paris outcome is going to change the world,” Dr. Christopher B. Field, founding director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, told the New York…

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We hope this Timor Python in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user carlovandun! Be sure to tell them you liked it here! Have a safe New Years Eve!

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Douglas McCauley began his career as a fisherman but later transitioned to marine science. He now serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Sloan Research Fellow in the Ocean Sciences. McCauley studies how marine ecosystems function and what management practices best support ocean health. Earlier this year, he and several colleagues reviewed the past and future of marine life in the global oceans. Aquaculture for rearing salmon in the Faroe Islands. Photo courtesy of Erik Christensen. 1. The end of wild fish? For the first year in history, the people of the world ate more farmed-raised fish than wild fish, according to a report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. On land, the balance between the consumption of wild meat and farmed meat shifted thousands of years ago in most areas. Caution is needed to ensure that this new shift doesn’t mean that the oceans lose their capacity to serve up free-range fish for dinner, as happened long ago in many of our forests, prairies, and savannas. 2. Undersea gold rush In 2015 companies staked mining claims in more than 1 million square kilometers of deep-sea ecosystems in international waters. Contractors from countries like China, India, the United Kingdom, the Cook Islands, and Russia participated in the rush to claim areas from which they hope to extract gold, manganese, copper, and rare earth metals. This year a group of international scientists called for a halt…

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A hatchling loggerhead musk turtle.
Carl called across the river “Remember, they look like acorns.”

What, I wondered was he going on about now?

Then it dawned on me. We were only a few minutes from docking and Carl was likening the hatchling loggerhead musk turtles, Sternotherus m. minor, for which we were then searching to a submerged acorn. Well, it’s true that they are darn near small enough, and when the roughened carapace is muddied by the perpetually silted water in which we were then searching the tiny turtles are almost acorn colored. So as far as it went his comment was a fair analogy. But turn one upside down and you’ll find 4 black spotted olive-tan legs, and a similarly colored head, neck, and tail, protruding from a very unacornlike, flat, rich orange-red, cross-shaped, plastron.

Finally, just before docking the canoes, Carl saw one of the acorns. And just about at the same time I happened upon an adult, which, by the way, looks nothing at all like an acorn and is much duller in color than the hatchling, but is still enjoyable to find. Give it a try sometime. The search can be a whole lot more fulfilling than sitting home and taking a selfie!

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[dropcap]R[/dropcap]eef fish may take longer to recover from overfishing than previously thought. While smaller fish with short life spans tend to rebound quickly in protected reefs, larger, slow growing fish may need more than 100 years of strong protection to fully recover, a new study concludes. The study was published online this month in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Tim McClanahan, senior conservationist for the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Nick Graham, a researcher with James Cook University in Australia, analyzed fish survey data from 324 coral reef sites in the Indian Ocean, spanning eight countries. They classified the study sites into six management categories ranging from large, uninhabited, remote protected areas down to reefs open to fishing with no restrictions on gear, which included destructive dragnets and explosives. For the fish at each site, the researchers evaluated family-level life history characteristics, such as body length, growth rate, age of maturation, and mortality. Previous research into reef-fish recovery rates primarily investigated biomass — the collective weight of fish in a given area — and tended to conclude that fish communities in protected reefs had recovered when their biomass leveled off, often after about 20 years. But many life-history metrics of a reef community continue to change for decades after biomass levels off, the study found, and the full recovery process may take over a century. Reef fish in the Maldives, where some sites examined in the present study were located. Photo by Malcom Browne.…

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The Komodo dragon–that giant monitor lizard inhabiting a few islands in Eastern Indonesia–is an exception. Biologically-speaking, of course, it is the world’s largest lizard, and a last survivor of monster lizards (bigger even than the Komodo) that once roamed a good portion of both Indonesia and Australia. But the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), is also an exception in conservation, both locally and globally. This became especially clear to me when I visited the islands of Flores and Komodo last spring. On arriving at the new airport in Labuan Bajo, I couldn’t help but marvel over the giant dragon replica sitting proudly for all arrivals to see. Clearly, the local government and developers were announcing the importance of dragons to the region. Many of the world’s top predators are gravely endangered and in decline. In addition, most of Indonesia’s large-bodied animals (including orangutans, elephants, rhinos and tigers) seem to be falling closer to extinction with every year that passes. But, the Komodo dragon is not. It is largely a conservation success story in a country where such examples are practically non-existent right now, and in a world where such tales for top predators are rare. So what makes the Komodo dragon different? And why have conservationists largely succeeded here when they are struggling to protect other big animals across the country? A world-class park devoted to a dragon For a long time, the Komodo dragon existed only in rumor to the wider world. Then in 1912 an intrepid Dutch army man,…

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By Herp News

As 2015 comes to a close, Mongabay is looking back at the year that was. This year saw President Obama reject the Keystone pipeline as historic droughts and a vicious wildfire season wracked the western US and Canada. The world committed to climate action in Paris as Southeast Asia was choking on the worst Indonesian haze in years, Shell aborted its plans to drill in the Arctic for the “foreseeable” future, and ExxonMobil is being investigated for lying to the public about climate risks. Here, in no certain order, are the top 15 environmental stories of 2015. 1. The world committed to climate action in Paris in what will almost definitely be the hottest year on record. In what was surely the biggest news of the year, negotiators representing nearly 200 countries reached a historic agreement to address climate change in Paris this December. The Paris Agreement commits countries to curbing greenhouse gas emissions with a goal of limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) relative to pre-industrial levels. All signatories are required to take action toward meeting that goal by some combination of becoming more energy efficient, reducing deforestation and forest degradation, and burning less fossil fuels. That includes rich, industrialized nations like the United States and China as well as small, poor countries that are already struggling with the impacts of rising sea levels and temperatures. Some elements of the agreement are legally binding, but most language related to emissions reductions is voluntary,…

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While the threat of extinction looms closer than ever for many species, 2015 was not all gloom. Scientists discovered thousands of new species this year, some seen and classified for the first time and completely novel to science. This includes 74 species of beetles that were discovered on a single Hawaiian volcano. Others, like the African golden wolf, were identified as “new” species thanks to advanced genetic analysis. Below are Mongabay’s top picks for species discoveries in 2015. Note: for each entry, the publication and author are listed in parentheses. 1. Two new primate species  White-cheeked macaque (Mongabay, by Morgan Erickson-Davis) New monkey species, the white-cheeked macaque, was spotted in Tibet. Photo courtesy of Cheng Li et al 2015. Scientists discovered these monkeys in a remote and under-explored part of Tibet. Caught only on camera, the monkeys have an odd distinctive feature that sets them apart from four other monkeys in the region: these macaques have differently shaped and colored penis and scrotums. The researchers classified and named the white-cheeked macaques (Macaca leucogenys) based on photographs alone. But experts say that analysis of the macaque’s DNA would be necessary to confirm their “novel” status. The newly described monkey is threatened by local hunting and construction. Urubamba brown titi monkey (Mongabay, by Jeremy Hance) Photograph of the Urubamba brown titi monkey, © Proyecto Mono Tocón Jan Vermeer had long suspected that a specimen of a titi monkey at the American Museum of Natural History had been…

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We love this shot of a Scorpion Mud Turtle found in the field in the Yucatan Pennisula in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user cbreps! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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The other day a friend came by and I showed him my recently hatched Super Genetic Banded Albino Pied Ball Pythons. He just about lost it when he saw them. He told me that he thought the pictures I had posted were just photo shopped. As a result I decided to take a picture with both the Abino Pied and a Banded Albino so that people could see the difference.

Ball Python people know that all albinos are not created equal. This Genetic Banded gene I work with is a real color enhancer and pattern reducer, especially when in the super form. Of course, the Pied gene has an effect on color and pattern mixing as well. It is true that the Banded Albinos will lighten with age, but it is also true that Pieds darken with age and are lighter as babies. It will be interesting to see how these Super Genetic Banded Albino Pieds color up as adults. …read more
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A young female Sri Lankan tree viper.
For many years Patti and I kept and bred a couple of dozen species of tree vipers of several genera. Among my favorites was the Sri Lankan species, Trimeresurus trigonocephalus. They were of moderate size (usually 2 to 3 ½ feet) , usually of reasonably equable disposition, always of beautiful color, and since they are both dimorphic and dichromatic they are an easily sexed taxon. Males, the smaller gender usually have much more black in the lateral and dorsal pattern than the primarily green females. Additionally, this taxon does not require brumation or other pronounced temperature manipulations to be successfully bred. And when and if bred these long-lived arboreal pit vipers bear living young (neonates are7 ½ to 9 inches long) that usually feed readily on thawed pinkies. Litters of 20 to 25 have been reported but the females we kept usually birthed 5 to 10 babies once a year. This taxon is light-bodied enough to allow a keeper to incorporate sturdy vining plants (Epipremnums and/or Philodendrons) and horizontal tree branches into beautiful terrarium designs. How much easier and fulfilling could keeping a venomous snake be?

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Isn’t this a gorgeus Water Dragon in our Herp Photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user arkherps ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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By Herp News

Aerial photograph of the Balbina archipelago, showing some of the thousands of islands created by the dam that isolated wildlife, leading to a disastrous biodiversity crash. Photo by Caio Pamplona [dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen the Balbina Dam was completed in 1986, it flooded primary forest in the state of Amazonas along Brazil’s Uatumã River, forming a massive reservoir speckled by 3,546 flood-induced islands. In 1990, the Reserva Biológica (REBIO) do Uatumã was established, protecting the entire 443,700 hectare (109,6427 acre) reservoir, dubbed Balbina Lake, along with the adjacent mainland — the largest such reserve in the country at around 940,000 hectares (232, 2834 acres). But nearly three decades on, science has shown that these protective measures haven’t helped most species much — if at all. That discovery by researcher Maira Benchimol and her colleagues could have major repercussions for the 43 large dams planned for the Amazon’s Tapajós River Basin, and for hundreds of other proposed tropical dams throughout Latin America. Benchimol, an environmental scientist focused on ecology and conservation, did her graduate work at the University of East Anglia, and has now done groundbreaking research on the impacts of Balbina’s fragmented habitats on wildlife. She began by studying primates in 2009; animals that especially suffer after water isolation due to poor swimming skills. Then she became curious as to how other Amazonian life was faring on the forested islands of the reservoir. A few adult Howler monkeys survived on Babina reservoir islands, but didn’t exist…

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A diver has captured extraordinary footage of a giant squid swimming near the water surface in a Japanese harbor, reports CNN. According to a manager at the Mizuhashi Fisherina marina in Toyama Bay, a 3.7-meter-long (12 foot) giant squid was sighted swimming under some boats on the morning of December 24. “It was the first time that we saw a live giant squid here, where water depth is only about 2.5 to 3 meters,” Tatsuya Wakasugi, a manager at the marina, was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal. Wakasugi said that around a dozen giant squid have gotten caught in nets since the beginning of the year. Giant squid normally live at depths exceeding 650 meters (2,000 feet), making sighting of live individuals rare. One diver responded to the unusual event by jumping into the water with the squid. Akinobu Kimura, owner of Diving Shop Kaiyu, filmed the creature. “My curiosity was way bigger than fear, so I jumped into the water and go close to it,” Kimura told CNN. “This squid was not damaged and looked lively, spurting ink and trying to entangle his tentacles around me. I guided the squid toward… the ocean, several hundred meters from the area it was found in, and it disappeared into the deep sea.” At 3.7 meters, the Toyama squid may have been a juvenile. Giant squid are believed to reach a length of up to 13 meters (43 feet).

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