By Herp News

Vitus Pango and Albogast Mkude harvest honey from a beehive fence in Tanzania. Photo courtesy of Alex Chang’a. This is a story about elephants, bees, trees, and a drink called Amarula. Amarula Cream is a liqueur distilled from the fermented fruit of the marula tree. The trees’ fruit is beloved by humans and animals alike — elephants and other animals feast on its sweet flesh, and humans use the fruit to make beer, oil, medicine and — of course — Amarula Cream. But now, elephants and humans are butting heads over the marula tree. In protected areas in South Africa, tourists and land managers worry that the concentration of the country’s elephant population into these limited areas could wreak havoc on the ecosystem’s iconic tree species. Swaddling a tree’s trunk in wire mesh can help it withstand an elephant’s attention, but now researchers are testing out an alternative technique, one with potential for a few sweet rewards beyond protecting trees. Back in 2002, Fritz Vollrath and Iain Douglas-Hamilton from Save the Elephants (STE) realized that elephants avoid trees with beehives living in them. That observation led researcher Lucy King to develop a novel technique to prevent elephants from raiding crops: fences with beehives suspended from the wires. Elephants Alive’s Program Manager, Michelle Henley was inspired by Lucy’s work and asked Robin Cook, a student at the University of the Witwatersrand, whether he would be interested in exploring whether hives could protect trees more effectively than wire…

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A stunning shot from Ghana of this Crowned Bullfrog steals the limelight in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user Slaytonp ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Hatchling and juvenile Baird’s rat snakes have prominent saddles
“Snake!”

Jake had grimmaced as I stopped again to photograph the ever-changing and increasingly beautiful West Texas sunset. Within minutes I was back on the road and traffic was still quite light. We dipped and had started up a gentle incline when a female striped skunk with 5 trailing kits started across the road. As I slowed the female bolted leaving 5 very confused skunklets milling around. I stopped and moved the kits from the pavement into the roadside grass. Whoops. Guess I got sprayed. Jake was really grimmacing now–and holding his throat and hanging out the window. This had all the makings of a great night.

I was back up to cruising speed now and still extolling the beauty of the sunset and the skunks when Jake hollered “snake.” It was a good thing that one of us was watching the road. I stopped, backed up and there sure was a snake–and it was a silver-blue beauty–3 feet of Baird’s rat snake, Pantherophis bairdi. This beautiful constrictor may attain an adult length of 5 feet, is the westernmost representative of the Pantherophis obsoletus complex, and is certainly one of the prettiest.
Continue reading “Baird’s Rat Snake, a Serpentine Beauty” …read more
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By Herp News

Vitus Pango and Albogast Mkude harvest honey from a beehive fence in Tanzania. Photo courtesy of Alex Chang’a. This is a story about elephants, bees, trees, and a drink called Amarula. Amarula Cream is a liqueur distilled from the fermented fruit of the marula tree. The trees’ fruit is beloved by humans and animals alike — elephants and other animals feast on its sweet flesh, and humans use the fruit to make beer, oil, medicine and — of course — Amarula Cream. But now, elephants and humans are butting heads over the marula tree. In protected areas in South Africa, tourists and land managers worry that the concentration of the country’s elephant population into these limited areas could wreak havoc on the ecosystem’s iconic tree species. Swaddling a tree’s trunk in wire mesh can help it withstand an elephant’s attention, but now researchers are testing out an alternative technique, one with potential for a few sweet rewards beyond protecting trees. Back in 2002, Fritz Vollrath and Iain Douglas-Hamilton from Save the Elephants (STE) realized that elephants avoid trees with beehives living in them. That observation led researcher Lucy King to develop a novel technique to prevent elephants from raiding crops: fences with beehives suspended from the wires. Elephants Alive’s Program Manager, Michelle Henley was inspired by Lucy’s work and asked Robin Cook, a student at the University of the Witwatersrand, whether he would be interested in exploring whether hives could protect trees more effectively than wire…

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By Herp News

As if life wasn’t hard enough during the last Ice Age, a new study has found Australia’s first human inhabitants had to contend with giant killer lizards. Researchers working in Central Queensland were amazed when they unearthed the first evidence that Australia’s early human inhabitants and giant apex predator lizards had overlapped.

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Sumatran Rhinoceros photographed in Gunung Leuser National Park (inside Leuser Landscape). Photo courtesy of Leuser International Foundation and the Gunung Leuser National Park Researchers have identified what could be the last safe havens for the Critically Endangered Sumatran rhinos (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis), according to a new study published in the journal PLoS One. Only about 100 such rhinos remain in the wild, mostly on the Island of Sumatra. “Our study provides hope for the survival of the Sumatran rhino,” Wulan Pusparini, lead author from WCS-Indonesia and a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Mongabay. Between 2007 and 2011, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the Leuser International Foundation (LIF), the Sumatran Tiger Trust, and government staff members surveyed three Sumatran forests — believed to be rhino strongholds — for signs of the animals. These forests included the Leuser Landscape, Way Kambas National Park and Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Sumatra. On analyzing the data, the team found that Sumatran rhinos seem to occupy only about 13 percent (~382,500 hectares or 1,477 square miles) of the forests surveyed. Bina at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary. Photo by Tiffany Roufs Within the small forest patches where these rhinos do occur, the researchers have identified and mapped five sites where conservation efforts could be prioritized. “We’ve identified the core areas (most are inside national parks), and we’ll intensify our efforts to strictly protect these areas with government and NGO partners,” Pusparini said. These priority areas can be…

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This American Alligator is peeking out and looking forward to it’s future in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user mwright82 ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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By Herp News

Since seabirds rely on healthy oceans to feed and thrive, scientists consider them excellent indicators of the marine ecosystem’s health. But a recent study found that global seabird populations appear to be rapidly dwindling, a possible sign of overall marine ecosystem decline. Seabirds “travel far and wide to forage… and, unlike most marine species, return to terrestrial colonies where their population sizes tell us a lot about the health of the world’s oceans,” Michelle Paleczny, a zoologist at the University of British Columbia and the lead author of the new paper, told mongabay.com. The present study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, showed that marine systems are apparently becoming gradually less able to support seabirds. Researchers collected data on seabird population sizes from a variety of primary sources, including books, academic journals, and unpublished reports. They focused on populations that scientists had monitored at least five times between 1950 and 2010, which accounted for 19 percent of the world’s seabird population, encompassing 162 species. Populationof the world’s monitored seabirds between 1950 and 2010. The total population in 2010 was about 30 percent of the population in 1950, representing a loss of nearly 70 percent. (Dashed lines represent 95-percent confidence intervals.) Image by Paleczny et al. (2015). The researchers then tracked the birds’ population sizes over time by applying a modeling system to their database that extrapolated missing population data and estimated errors in the collected data. This model allowed the researchers to obtain a comprehensive look…

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Just in time for World Rhino Day comes an announcement out of South Sumatra, Indonesia. Way Kambas National Park will soon be celebrating the arrival of a new rhino calf that will be joining the other 5 rhino residents of the national park’s Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary. Ratu, whose name means, “queen,” is estimated to have been born in 1999 in Way Kambas National Park. She is the second youngest female Sumatran Rhino living in the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary. The mother is expected to give birth to her new calf in May. Her first calf, Andatu, was born at the sanctuary in 2012. Both calves were fathered by Andalas, born at the Cincinnati Zoo and was moved from the Las Angeles Zoo to Indonesia in 2007. Andatu, the first Sumatran rhino born at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary, takes tentative first steps on his first day of life in 2012. Andatu is Ratu’s first child. Ratu is currently pregnant with her second calf — due in May 2016 — and the new calf will resemble its older brother. Photo courtesy of the International Rhino Foundation. This announcement gives special significance to World Rhino Day as this new pregnancy offers new hope for the endangered species. “One birth doesn’t save a species, but it’s one more Sumatran rhino on Earth,” said Dr. Susie Ellis, executive director of the International Rhino Foundation, in a press release. “The new calf affirms that there is expertise in Indonesia to breed Sumatran rhinos. This pregnancy comes at…

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kingsnake.com gallery photo by Eve
In the animal kingdom, just like the disco, the flashiest males often have more luck attracting a mate but when your predators hunt by sight, this makes them more of a target according to a new study published in Ecology and Evolution. Using models that replicated the coloration of male and female lizards, they found that the male lizard models were less well camouflaged and more likely to fall prey to bird attacks.

“In females, selection seems to have favoured better camouflage to avoid attack from avian predators. But in males, being bright and conspicuous also appears to be important even though this heightens the risk of being spotted by birds,” Kate Marshall, University of Cambridge

Using visual modelling, Marshall and her colleagues tested around 300 color variations to find ones that matched the male and female colors in order to make the 600 clay lizards used in the study and then placed models in ten sites on each of the two islands and checked them every 24 hours over five days to see which had been attacked by birds.

Read more at: http://phys.org …read more
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These adorable Crested Geckos are just hanging around in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user MOC_Reptiles ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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This is a pretty but pale Big Bend western diamond-back.
Where were the western diamond-backed rattlesnakes, Crotalus atrox? Jake and I began asking ourselves that question on our first night in Val Verde County, TX, and continued wondering throughout our 10 nights in West Texas. We were no closer to an answer on that 10th night than we had been on the first. We knew only that 14 months earlier (August 2014) we had seen more western diamond-backed rattlers than any other snake species. And that over the years I had found this to often be the case. We found diamond-backs from the time of night that the desert had cooled enough to allow snake movement until the wee hours of the morning when, if we looked eastward, we could see the first evidence of a new dawn. We found them crossing the roadway. We found them quietly coiled, as if basking, on the pavement. We even found them stretched fully out as they swallowed prey, often a kangaroo rat. In other words, there was no shortage of Crotalus atrox. It was other rattlers, black-tails, rock, and Mohave that we had been difficult to see.

But now, a year later, our findings were very different. It was mid-June and we were seeing very few of these big, usually feisty, rattlers. In fact during the 10 days we were in the range of the taxon we saw only 4 C. atrox . 3 were prowling and 1 was coiled in ambush position in a small cave in a low rock cut.

I do have to mention though that where we had seen western diamond-backs a year earlier, we were now encountering rock rattlers in fair numbers, many black-tails. and a few Mohaves. Although the reasons for this species shift remain unclear we actually found the tradeoff quite satisfactory. And I’m already wondering what next year’s trip will bring?

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By Herp News

The African clawed frog’s process for adaptive color vision is full of mysterious twists and turns, an evolutionary biologist explains in a new article about the frog’s shift from ultraviolet to violet vision.

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More than 130 crocodiles have been captured and fitted with waterproof transmitters as part of a long term University of Queensland study into how the creatures use the environment. The data-gathering program is the largest and longest of its type, beginning in 2008 and set for another 10 years thanks to a new generation of acoustic tags.

“Our goal is to understand the role of crocs in the ecosystem and look how they move into the river systems, estuaries, creeks and waterholes,” – Craig Franklin, UQ School of Biological Sciences

The study found small crocs hide in creeks, while reptiles in the five metre category rule water holes and that estuarine crocs can move 1000km in a year and up to 60 km a day. Professor Franklin said his team was using the information to build computer models that might predict the travel plans of estuarine crocs when influenced by climate change.

For more, check out the article at the Brisbane Times You can follow the movements of several of the tagged crocodiles online at http://www.uq.edu.au/eco-lab/crocodile-tracks. …read more
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The world is gifted with beautiful flora as well as fauna but still there are many hidden creatures in this ecosystem who work behind the scenes to contribute to the tremendous beauty which we see today. Often these beauties ‘who work behind the scenes’ are poorly known and leave the world mystified about their salient features and habits.

Curiosity regarding these undiscovered species has brought herpetologists from around the world to document India’s hidden mysterious creatures. The habits of the Giri’s Bronzeback Tree Snake Dendrelaphis girii is one. Relatively unknown before 2011 it was due to the efforts of renowned naturalist Varad Giri this elegant creature has become much more familiar to the herpetological community. The Giri’s Bronzeback is widely spread across the western ghats of India. It is assumed by the experts that there are still many more undiscovered species to identify in India and it’s expected their efforts will continue to uncover more gems like this in the future..

With a thin, long and slender body covered with smooth scales, the color of bronzeback tree snakes has always fascinated me. When they stretch their body one can see the beautiful bright blue color hiding behind its scales. If you look at the picture given abve, the head of the snake appears as if it has been polished by mixture of gold and bronze, and you can also see the blue color. The maximum length of these snakes is 105cm and it feeds on lizards, frogs and small rodents.

Photo by: Saleel Gharpure
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Way better than pumpkin spice, this Elongated tortoise brings on fall in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user reptileszz ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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In celebration of all things venomous, ciccada is on the menu for this Copperhead in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user coolhl7 ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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By Herp News

An unprecedented action took place earlier this year at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy based in northern Kenya: the translocation of black rhinos to Sera Community Conservancy, where rhinos have been absent for 25 years. The move represents the first time in East Africa management of this endangered species is being put in the hands of community leaders instead of scientists and other conservationists. Black rhinos (Diceros bicornis) have declined 90 percent in three generations, and are listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Rhino conservationists say translocation to other areas is crucial to their survival, especially as Lewa faces pressure from sustaining a growing and healthy population in comparison to only around 630 individuals in existence across Kenya. And so, in May, researchers moved 10 rhinos to Sera Community Conservancy. “Sera [rhino translocation] has been a project in the making for the last five years,” said Ian Lemaiyan, rhino scientist in Lewa’s research department. “In the 80s and 90s rhino populations in Kenya had plummeted to a depressing number. [Sera is] among the last areas in northern Kenya for rhino to be translocated to save them from extinction.” A black rhino is successfully released into his new home inside Sera. Photo courtesy of Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. Sera contained this species historically and provides excellent habitat far from towns and human settlements. The target outcomes are immensely positive according to Chief Conservation Officer, Geoffery Chege, who heads the research department inside Lewa. Once rhinos establish themselves, the conservationists…

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This Desert Horned Lizard has us looking forward to the weekend in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user Brockn ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Our trip had been replete with rattlesnakes. The roadways and rockcuts in the Big Bend area had offered up a western diamond-back or two, a few Mohave rattlers, many black-tailed rattlers and a sufficient number of mottled rock rattlers to keep things really interesting. We had found rock rattlers having pearl gray ground colors on some cuts, those having a bluish-gray ground color on other cuts. and Kenny had found and shown us one from a more westerly cut that resembled a banded rock rattler as much, or perhaps even more, than it did the mottled subspecies.

But the ones that most caught my attention had an olive-fawn ground color with faint pinkish overtones and warm brown irregular barring. In color they looked far more like the rock rattlers from the rather distant Davis Mountains than the populations nearest to the snakes at hand. And their colors camouflaged them more effectively than those of any of the other populations we visited.

Judge for yourselves how inconspicuous the warm overtones rendered these rattlers when they were lying quietly amidst the rocks and soils of their natural habitat.

For us the question quickly became how many had we overlooked rather than how many we actually saw.

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An wonderful field find in Mexico of this Lyre Snake brightens the middle of the week in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user Chuck_Ch ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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If you are a regular reader of my blog posts then you might find this title a bit familiar as it is somewhat a sequel of one of my previous blog posts ‘Vine Snake: The hidden predator’.

Vine snakes, or whip snakes, are one of the most beautiful snakes on earth and luckily in India you can find 5-6 species of vine snakes. Today I want to talk about the “brown phase” of the the green vine snake. As I said in the title disguised in brown, these snakes are a sub-species of Green Vine Snake, named Ahaetulla nasuta isabellinus and it is usually known as brown morph of the green vine snake.

The size and structure of this snake is similar to green vine snake Ahaetulla nasuta,the only difference is these snakes are brown. These snakes look amazing and its brown appearance helps camouflage it from both predators and prey.

When I saw the brown morph of the green vine snake for the first time, I was mistaken thinking it was a Brown Vine Snake Ahaetulla pulverulenta, another species of vine snake, but with the help of few experts I came to know that it is a green vine snake in brown costume.

I am very thankful to my friend Saleel Gharpure for allowing me to share these amazing pictures of this magnificent reptile.
Photo by: Saleel Gharpure
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By Herp News

The Sira Currasow is a critically endangered bird that lives only in the high altitude tropical forests of the Cerros del Sira mountain range in central Peru. It’s proven nearly as elusive as it is rare: Scientists first described the species in the 1970s, but wouldn’t observe the bird again for another three decades. But now an expedition to the Cerros del Sira has captured the first ever footage of the Sira Currasow (Pauxi koepckeae). “We were shocked by the incredible results we found,” Andrew Whitworth, a researcher from The University of Glasgow who was part of the expedition, told mongabay. “One of the coolest things is that crowdfunding supported a third of the expedition funding, along with the Royal Geographic Societies Neville Schulman Challenge award.” Whitworth and team say there could be as few as 250 mature adult Sira Currasows alive right now, and their population is in decline due to habitat destruction and being hunted for meat. Prior to this footage, there has only ever been one photograph of the bird. Map by Exploration Sira. The expedition, led by biologists from the University of Glasgow as well as the University of Exeter, used 22 camera traps to capture the footage, and the Sira Currasow wasn’t their only big find. The team also captured the first hard evidence that Andean spectacled bears live in the Sira Communal Reserve, established in 2001 to protect the unique biodiversity of the isolated Cerros del Sira range. The Andean spectacled…

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A local herpetologist is moving his reptiles to comply with a city zoning ordinance that bars him from running a rescue and rehabilitation center at his house. Chad Griffin, the owner of CCSB Reptile Rescue & Rehabilitation Center, said he is looking for a site and will move the reptiles

Because Griffin is cooperating with the city, officials are working with him to find a new site and to move the animals, said Chris Murphy, the deputy director of planning and development services.

“Our end objective is compliance with the ordinance” Chris Murphy – Deputy Director Winston-Salem, N.C.

Griffin has about 10 days to remove the outdoor enclosures that house the alligators, 30 days for venomous snakes and up to 60 days to stop operating the business in his home, Murphy said. He will be able to keep some reptiles in his house, including nonvenomous snakes, that are considered pets.

kingsnake.com would like to remind everyone that keeps herps to make sure you your not violating any local or state laws or ordinances so you don’t find yourself in similar circumstances. Read more at the Winston-Salem Journal
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While we sat in Study Butte eating the evening meal, the sky darkened. For the last hour or so lightning had been flashing east of us and we had heard a very occasional rumble of thunder. Suddenly the wind picked up and the outside was obliterated by a dust storm. Driven by the lusty gusts a self-opening tent scooted by. It was followed closely by a young lady attempting to recorral the errant canvas. Then quiet. The wind dropped, the tent was caught by the chaser, and a bolt of cloud to ground lightning followed immediately by a deafening clap of thunder–the desert storm was upon and around us. And as every herper knows, a desert storm of any significance (and even many of lesser impact) means amphibians. Amphibians emerge from nooks, crannies, and burrows to set up very temporary housekeeping in the newly formed, very ephemeral, desert pools.

While monitoring nearby rainfalls on his iPhone, Jake determined that the strongest storms had been about 50 miles away. So off we went, reaching the area a few minutes before sunset. It took just a few minutes to learn that almost every swale was in flash-flood stage and only a few more minutes to determine that huge pools now sat atop desert flats that had until only a few hours earlier been long parched. We knew then that our choice had been a good one.

By nightfall a few tentative anuran vocalizations were heard. Among the first to call were the Couch’s spadefoots, Scaphiopus couchii. Shortly thereafter red-spotted toad, Bufo punctatus, had joined the spadefoots in chorus. By full darkness the voices of western green toads, Bufo debilis insidior, and Texas toads, B. speciosus, had been added and the roadway was fairly seething with all 4 anuran species.

It was a night that we would long remember.

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There is no denying the extreme cute factor of this Xenopus laevis in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user Krallenfrosch ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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More than half the world’s sea turtles have ingested plastic or other human rubbish, an international study has revealed. The study found the east coasts of Australia and North America, Southeast Asia, southern Africa, and Hawaii were particularly dangerous for turtles due to a combination of debris loads and high species diversity.

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Scientists discovered a new species of snake in the Kimberley region of north-western Australia belonging to Acanthophis (Australian death adders), a genus of highly venomous snakes found in Australia and New Guinea and parts of Indonesia.

The Kimberley death adder, Acanthophis cryptamydros, described in a paper published August 28 in the journal Zootaxa, is an ambush predator, staying camouflaged until it can surprise it’s prey. The snake is roughly 24 inches (60 cm) long and has a diamond-shaped head.

“It’s not clear how many Kimberley death adders there are in the wild, but they’re probably quite rare,” – Simon Maddock University College London

The species’ range extends from Wotjulum in the west, 45 km north-north-east of Halls Creek in the south, and Kununurra in the east and is also known to occur on some offshore islands including Koolan, Bigge, Boongaree, Wulalam, and an unnamed island in Talbot Bay.

To read more check out the PDF article on Zootaxa – Image by Ryan J. Ellis. …read more
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The Indian Smooth Snake Coronella brachyura is a rare and endemic snake species found in India. I am not sure if there are any species of smooth snakes around the world, but you can find them in India.

I was very eager to touch this snake and wanted to feel it in my hands, not because it is rare or looks beautiful but because I wanted to know why it is known as the Smooth Snake. There are many other Indian snakes with smooth scales but the day I handled it I realized that this snake is something different.

The Indian smooth snake can be identified by its elongated head, greyish-brown dorsal body sometimes bearing darker stripes on side dorsal and shorter tail. The body is slender with shiny smooth scales of same size with brown color. The average length of this snake is 50cm and maximum length is 77cm and it feeds geckos, skinks and small rodents.

This snake is very simple and doesn’t have a beautiful color pattern, but once you touch this snake or handle it you will realize where the beauty of this snake lies.
Photo by: Saleel Gharpure
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The protective instinct for a nest is visible here in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user CDB_reptiles ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Sadly, it is not a magician’s illusion, but a genuine plummeting in giraffe numbers across Africa. After a two-year effort spearheaded by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, members of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature [IUCN] Giraffe and Okapi Specialist Group met in advance of the 3rd International Giraffe Indaba to assess the conservation status of giraffes and okapis. Both meetings were held at the Southern African Wildlife College, just outside Kruger National Park. Forty-five delegates attended the meetings, representing about a dozen countries. The IUCN maintains a Red List that categorizes species according to a set of criteria that indicate the threat of extinction. Threatened species are labeled according their risk of extinction as Vulnerable, Endangered, or Critically Endangered. The okapi lives only in the dense, tropical forests of Central Africa and has recently been classified as “Vulnerable” by the IUCN. The closest living relative of the okapi is the giraffe, a species that lives outside the Congo Basin, in a variety of habitats ranging from desert to woodland/savanna. Although resident across Africa, giraffes live in mostly disconnected pockets that are home to specific subspecies. Nine subspecies of giraffes are currently recognized. While two subspecies of giraffes are considered to be “Vulnerable”, the species Giraffa camelopardalis is classified as “Least Concern” by the IUCN. However, the current situation, as discussed at the recent meeting, questions this classification, because giraffes are threatened with extinction. Giraffes at sunset. Photo by Francois Deacon. The number of giraffes…

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[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hrough years of effort, scientists have assessed the conservation status of some 77,000 species of plants and animals via the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species. Scientific records on the distribution and abundance of species over time allow them to evaluate how close each one is to extinction. But scientists still lack the data needed to assess the rest of the 1.5 million or so species known to exist, let alone a potential 7 million that haven’t even been described yet. Without its risk of extinction being classified, a species can miss out on conservation funding and attention. But without funding, the information needed to assess extinction risk can’t be collected. To overcome this Catch 22 some conservationists have recently been tapping in to a resource that costs nothing and has actually been there all along: volunteers. Within the bustling crowds at Lorengau market on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, there is knowledge — data — that would take months and thousands of dollars to accumulate if it were to be acquired by a research team on an expedition into the jungle. Nathan Whitmore, population biologist with the New-York based conservation organization the Wildlife Conservation Society, spent time with these local people in order to learn from what is sometimes called “the wisdom of crowds” and build a detailed picture of the abundance and distribution of the Manus green tree snail (Papustyla pulcherrima). His results were recently published in the journal Oryx. This snail, remarkable though it is with its…

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By Herp News

Good news for tigers came last week with government approval of an extension for Parsa Wildlife Reserve in Nepal. The addition will add a further 2,500 square kilometers of prime habitat for the big cats, which conservationists hope will increase the protected region’s tiger capacity to more than 40 adults. Worldwide, tiger numbers have declined 95 percent over the past century due largely to habitat loss, overhunting of tiger prey species, and hunting of tigers themselves. Latest estimates peg Nepal’s Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) population between 163 and 235, the majority of which live in Chitwan National Park. However, conservationists say Chitwan is reaching its maximum tiger capacity, and more protected habitat is vital for their recovery. Parsa Widlife Refuge shares its western edge with Chitwan National Park and supports 10 adult tigers. Conservationists with Zoological Society of London (ZSL) say this is because of habitat differences and Para’s lower prey densities. With this new expansion, they hope to increase the refuge’s tiger population by a further 30 or 40 adults. A Bengal tiger camera-trapped in Parsa Wildlife Refuge. Photo courtesy of ZSL. In 2013, Nepal’s government announced its tiger population had rebounded 63 percent since the last survey in 2009. Photo courtesy of ZSL. The new addition, called Bara Forest, was previously operating under a medium level of protection, which ZSL contends was not enough to protect tigers from the illegal cattle grazing, poaching, and other human disturbances that were happening in…

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Happy Rattlesnake Friday from this beautiful neotropical Guarico Rattlesnake in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user robnimmo ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Nothing is more pitiful than a bored sulcata. Nothing is more scary than Frankie looking for something to ram.

There are things I don’t want Frankie to ram. I am top of that list. The young Frankie would occasionally bump into me. Bumping is a very close behavior and ramming is just a few pounds and a much bigger bruise away.

Frankie amuses himself by a lot of walking but he just gets it into his head to do something more. Last night, before tucking himself in for the night, he thought it would be fun to push his dogloo into a tree.

Dogloo wasn’t doing anything at all, not calling attention to itself, and it certainly didn’t cause Frankie to stub his toe or any such indignity. It just existed in Frankie yard and thus a potential for his special kind of suclata attention.

Last week, Annette, a local tortoise friend who owns a one-pound Frankie-wanna be beast, came to pick up some supplies for “Foots” and got to meet Frankie for the first time. I forget that possibly I should warn people that Frankie can get enthusiastic about visitors.

At this first meeting, Annette saw a very big, large, hundred pound boulder moving at a very crisp pace directly at her, heads up, and very animated.

Frankie saw a potential carrot giver.

Brave Annette did not want to back down because after all this is just a tortoise. What could a tortoise possibly do? Right? Bruise the shins? Break her legs? Knock her down and trample her like a shoe box?

I told Annette to stand her ground that Frankie was just happy to see her. She chose to move closer to me and let me handle the we-move-much-faster-than-anyone-expects beast.

He just wanted a carrot.

So, no, Frankie is not allowed to ram people and so far he has not hurt anyone…besides me. I remain an ever vigilant observer of Sulcata Behavior.

Give Frankie toys. Objects to ram. Dogloo will do. Buckets are perfect.

Bucket provides hours of amusement for Frankie. Even when the bucket gets the upper hand.

Lesson: Sulcata tortoises move faster than you think.

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Read more here: Turtle Times

By Herp News

Farmers and herders across the globe try numerous methods to protect their crops and livestock from predation. They make noise and sleep in their fields, and they use technologies ranging from scarecrows to pesticides to car horns to shotguns. Many prefer passive, non-lethal techniques – those that allow them to stay inside their homes at night and dissuade, rather than kill, the potential predator. Some of these predators are endangered large mammals, so reducing conflict between farmers and wildlife is a critical conservation issue. Photo credit: George Powell Photo credit: USAID Afganistan, Wikimedia Photo credit: Suzanne Palminteri In Australia, a major culprit is the (non-endangered) European Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes), an invasive carnivore that has wreaked havoc on Australian domestic and wild fauna since its introduction there in the mid-1800s as a recreational hunting target. In addition to decimating native bird and small mammal populations, foxes aggravate farmers by preying on newborn lambs. In an effort to combat this problem, Australian farmer Ian Whalan developed the Foxlight, a device that produces light at random intervals to emulate a moving person carrying a flashlight (torch). Foxlight’s commercial photo. Photo credit: Foxlights.com Each Foxlight contains 9 LED bulbs and a computer chip. The lights flash in varying blue and white sequences at 360 degrees and can be seen for about a mile (1.5 km). Light sensors turn the light on automatically at dusk and off at dawn so that they do…

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By Herp News

Researchers examine the response of a variety of insects, reptiles, amphibians and mammals to a natural selection pressure in the form of cardiac glycosides — toxins produced by certain plants and toads for defense against predators.

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By Herp News

Estrogen in suburban yards is changing the ratio of male and female green frogs at nearby ponds, a new study shows. Higher levels of estrogen in areas where there are shrubs, vegetable gardens, and manicured lawns are disrupting frogs’ endocrine systems, according to the study.

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Well, it will be a Gray Treefrog when it grows up! A very cool view of a metamorph Hyla versicolor gets its shot in the spotlight in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user anuraanman ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Another year of lyre snake failure for me!
So, what else is new?

After 50 years of unsuccessfully looking for this little opisthoglyph in Texas’ Big Bend region if I had found one I would probably have keeled over from shock. Other searchers though — mostly the participants of the “Sanderson Snake Days” event, were successful in finding a Chihuahuan lyre snake, Trimorphodon vilkinsonii, and at least one person found 2! In other words these little snakes were found on all sides of Jake and me, but we were never in quite the right position at the right time. For example:

Jake and I had slowly and repeatedly driven an area at which dozens of lyres had been found over the years. Then tiring of that routine we added an extra few miles to one cruise. When we returned, about 20 minutes later, we learned that not one but two of the snakes had been found in the 20 minutes we were gone. A day or two later, on that same trip we were again cruising and hoping. A friend from California was also cruising the road, he in search of gray-banded kingsnakes. He found no kings but watched a Chihuahuan lyre snake cross the road and disappear into the rocky abyss on the south side. We were about 10 minutes behind him and we found neither king nor lyre. You get the idea. We were totally ineffectual.

Well, at least Sky (who had a research permit for the taxon) let me photograph her find, and next year (2016), all things being equal, I’ll give it another try. What the heck–even an old herper needs a goal.

More photos under the jump. >

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Read more here: King Snake