By Herp News

A recent article published in the journal Biological Conservation details a research study led by University of Wisconsin physical anthropologist Dr. Stephanie Spehar which utilized game camera traps to identify and estimate the numbers of orangutans in the Wehea Forest of East Kalimantan, Borneo. The researchers believe the cameras may provide more accurate population counts to assist in future conservation efforts. The study team set up networks of game cameras within the 38,000 hectare Wehea Forest wilderness of mostly undisturbed rainforest surrounded by logging concessions. The team chose two distinct areas for camera placement — dense primary forest with a closed tree canopy, and a secondary forest last logged in 1996. The study sought to test whether camera trapping methods, so successful with other elusive species such as the clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi), could be used to count orangutans. Curious orangutans often approach the camera for a closer look. Photo by Brent Loken Prior to the study, the most reliable method for estimating orangutan population numbers was to count the number of orangutan nests in a certain area. “Orangutan nests look like large bird nests and are used for sleeping during the night and sometimes for resting during the day” describes Brent Loken, a team member and doctoral candidate at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, who spoke with mongabay.com regarding the study “They mainly build a new nest each day but sometimes return to old nests to rest. Babies typically sleep with mothers and mothers often…

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Happy Rattlesnake Friday! We are seeing red with this gorgeous shot of a Pygmy Rattlesnake our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user Tamers1 ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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By Herp News

In June, a unique graduation ceremony was held in the city of Bhopal in central India. Fourteen dogs and their 28 handlers performed brief drills to display their newly acquired skills at detecting illegal wildlife products during a parade held at the 23rd Battalion of Special Armed Reserve Forces’ Dog Training Centre. The 14 newly trained wildlife protection and anti-poaching squads would soon join India’s 11 existing dog squads to sniff out wildlife contraband across the country. The ceremony was attended by representatives from seven “tiger states” home to significant populations of wild tigers (Panthera tigris), which are subject to intense poaching and international trade, including Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Uttarakhand. Sniffer dogs during training. TRAFFIC India has trained 25 sniffer dogs and their handlers since 2008, including a new batch of 14 dogs that graduated in June. Photo by Shaleen Attre/TRAFFIC. In addition to the new dog squad recruits, India has stepped up other measures to combat its significant black-market trade in wildlife, which has been poorly documented and loosely enforced. The measures include a new emphasis on training law enforcement officers to fight the illegal trade and forestry personnel to guard against poaching. While the efforts do not appear to be part of a larger initiative to combat wildlife crime, and data on the number of arrests and convictions remain scarce, experts say they indicate that the country is beefing up its wildlife-crime-fighting capacity. Sniffer…

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By Herp News

A Chinese national dubbed the “Queen of Ivory” has been arrested in Tanzania. Yang Feng Glan, 66, was arrested after returning from Uganda to Tanzania. She has been charged with smuggling 706 elephant tusks with a street value of $2.5 million and faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. Tanzania has been widely criticized by conservationists and environmentalists for its failures to reign in the ivory trade, which has decimated elephant populations both inside its borders and in neighboring countries. The Elephant Action League credited Tanzania’s National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit (NTSCIU) with her apprehension. “It’s the news that we all have been waiting for, for years,” said Andrea Crosta, co-founder of the Elephant Action League and WildLeaks, in a statement. “Hopefully she can lead us to other major traffickers and corrupt government officials. We must put an end to the time of the untouchables if we want to save the elephant.” Earlier this week the Born Free Foundation estimated that 24,000 have been killed so far this year for their ivory. African elephants in Namibia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

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We occasionally see adult Florida rough green snakes in the cat briars along the fencelines.
I was creeping along on the riding mower a few afternoons ago when just ahead of the right front tire I notices a lengthy piece of grass make a shivery-sinuous movement. Hmmmmm. Either the grass was reacting in a frightened manner at the thought of being decapitated by the whirling blades or there was something there that needed scrutinizing. Choosing the latter of these 2 options I slammed on the brakes, crawled from the seat, moved a step ahead of the idling machine, stooped down and saw—-nothing! I stood, was just about to hop back on the mower when I happened to see a little pink tongue flickering. Once the tongue was seen the rest of the creature, all 7 inches of it (a hatching Florida rough green snake, Opheodrys aestivus carinatus wonderfully camouflaged by the grass blades) was easily seen. I was sure glad I had stopped.

Over the years I had seen several adult rough green snakes amidst tangles of cat briar, blackberry canes, and Virginia creeper along the fence line, but this was the first hatchling I had seen in the yard. I sure hope it will not be the last.

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Just days after capturing the once-missing king cobra from a local garage, Florida wildlife officials on Friday confirmed their intent to revoke the owner’s license to own the venomous snake in a revocation letter, sent a day before the king cobra was captured.

“Allowing you to continue to possess your venomous reptiles after three escapes would send a message that there will be no consequences for serious rule violations,”

The owner of the cobra has held permits to keep various exotic and potentially deadly animals for years, but records show numerous violations for not properly containing the animals including being cited in 2001 after another king cobra escaped from a house in the College Park area of Orlando, and in 2004 when an albino diamondback rattlesnake escaped and ended up in a neighbor’s yard.

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A missing King Cobra that went on walkabout over a month ago has turned up underneath a clothes dryer at a neighbors house a half mile from it’s cage. Found Wednesday night Orange County Animal Control officials and the wife of the snake’s owner confirm the snake is the one that escaped 35 days ago and it has been returned to its owners.

“Every time I put something in the dryer this hiss sound happened.” – Cynthia Mullvain

The cobra’s owner, Mike Kennedy, is facing charges for failure to immediately report the escape and has pleaded not guilty.
To read more check out the article at http://wfla.com/2015/10/08/missing-king-cobra-snake-found-in-orange-county-home/ …read more
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Is there any thing more classic than this chameleon tongue shot in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user 1Sun ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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By Herp News

In the fight to protect the extraordinary biodiversity of Papua New Guinea’s rainforests, some conservationists are collecting a unique set of data: the sounds of the forest. Scientists with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Princeton University are using acoustic sampling recorders in the Adelbert Mountains, a remote range on Papua New Guinea’s north coast, to help them assess how effective their local land use planning efforts have been at protecting the region’s wildlife. Subsistence agriculture is a major driver of deforestation in Papua New Guinea, so TNC has worked with communities in the Adelbert Mountains for the past decade and a half to help allocate different areas of land for development, hunting, gardening, forest use and conservation, TNC’s Justine Hausheer said in a blog post. Anecdotal evidence suggested that the system was working, Hausheer explains, but TNC scientists wanted harder evidence that the conservation areas were large enough to sustain key species like birds-of-paradise and the bandicoot. But the bioacoustic data they are collecting is not just to monitor specific species. Taken together, all of the sounds of the forest over a 24-hour period, from insects buzzing and birds chirping at sunrise to frogs croaking and mammals grunting as they go about their day, can be used to monitor overall forest health. “All of the animals we are hearing are vocalizing at slightly different frequencies or with distinct acoustic patterns,” Eddie Game, TNC’s lead scientist for the Asia Pacific Region, said in a blog post. “They all have their own…

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A sneezing monkey, a walking fish and a jewel-like snake are just some of a biological treasure trove of over 200 new species discovered in the Eastern Himalayas in recent years, according to a new report by WWF.

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Photo: Lauren Kurkimilis/Marine Corps via AP

Near Twentynine Plams Marine Corps Base, 35 Desert Tortoises were recently released in an effort to repopulate the Mojave Desert at a ceremony with Marine Corps officials, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and researchers from the University of California Los Angeles.

Biologists have been raising tortoises over the past nine years at a six-acre facility to help boost the population that was nearly decimated by a respiratory virus in the late 1980s.

Read more at Marine Corps Times. …read more
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Photo: Lauren Kurkimilis/Marine Corps via AP

Near Twentynine Plams Marine Corps Base, 35 Desert Tortoises were recently released in an effort to repopulate the Mojave Desert at a ceremony with Marine Corps officials, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and researchers from the University of California Los Angeles.

Biologists have been raising tortoises over the past nine years at a six-acre facility to help boost the population that was nearly decimated by a respiratory virus in the late 1980s.

Read more at Marine Corps Times. …read more
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By Herp News

How can species reintroduction projects ensure success? One way is to accurately monitor the target species and their habitat. A team working to bring back the endangered black-footed ferret to the plains of western North America is deploying unmanned aircraft systems (UASs, UAVs or drones) to strengthen monitoring of the species’ habitat. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) partnered with Behron and Associates, Idaho State University, the Fort Belknap Fish and Wildlife Department, Eagle Digital Imaging and ESRI to deploy UASs to monitor black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes) habitat. Kristy Bly, senior wildlife conservation biologist at WWF’s Northern Great Plains Program, explained to Wildtech that the team is assessing whether drones can be used to effectively monitor black-footed ferret habitat in a study area on the plains of the 675,147-acre (273,222 ha) Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. In early 2013, WWF and the Fort Belknap Fish and Wildlife Department reintroduced the ferrets to the Ft. Belknap prairie dog colony complex that they had occupied years before. (A complex is a group of prairie dog colonies grouped together within a mile of one another.) A black-tailed prairie dog colony extends across the harsh, windswept landscape of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. © Conservation Media/WWF-US The decimation of the prairie dog Only around 300 black-footed ferrets still live in the wild; the species is listed as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. The ferrets rely on prairie dog (Cynomys spp.) burrows for shelter and are obligate predators of…

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By Herp News

Tracked by their calls at night, two species of narrow-mouthed frogs have been recorded as new in a research that took place in the Raja Ampat Islands, western New Guinea. During the examinations it turned out that one of the studied specimens is a hermaphrodite and another one represents the first record of the genus Cophixalus for the Misool Island.

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This great shot of a pair of Bufo bufo in the middle of amplexus helps ring in this Wednesday 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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Note the difference in blotch size of these 2 Sandhill pygmys.
Back and forth. Back and forth. North 10 miles. South 10 miles. Than over again—and again. Occasionally we changed our route to an intersecting sand road for a few miles. We had only one night left on this trip and we were on a quest in unknown (for Jake and me) territory. The targets here were the sandhill phases of the Carolina pygmy rattlesnake, Sistrurus m. miliarius.

Although it hadn’t looked all that far on the map, I’m here to tell you it was a long drive from Hyde County NC to the sandhill region of northcentral SC! Once Jake and I had succeeded in finding and photographing a red phase pygmy in Hyde County, we had decided that in the remaining time we needed at least one more feasible target. Thus began the quest for sandhill pygs that found us now in the land of sand pines, cacti, thornscrub, fox squirrels, beautiful little pothole ponds (which, we were told were replete with broken-striped newts (of which we found exactly none!)—and the sandy countryside (again we were told) was acrawl with pygmy rattlers.

The afternoon waned, sunset neared, passed, and darkness enveloped us. Bats wheeled and darted in front and overhead and still we drove. We turned onto a paved side road, drove up a few miles and reversed direction. I looked at what seemed to me a black marked white stick at the road edge. Jake did a double take and hollered “STOP. Back up. That was a snake!”
And sure enough it was a little dark blotched silvery white pygmy, the first of 4 seen that night. Photos were taken and we headed southward. It had been a great trip. Thanks, Jake.

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By Herp News

Researchers have discovered a species of rodent in the mountainous interior of Sulawesi, a Indonesian island known for its high rates of endemism. The new species, dubbed Hyorhinomys stuempkei, is noted for its especially long urogenital hairs — better known as pubic hair — according to a description published in the Journal of Mammalogy. The hog-nosed shrew rat averages 45 centimeters (1.5 feet) in length and weighs about 250 grams (half a pound). Beyond its unusual urogenital hairs, the species is characterized by “extremely large” ears and its “large, flat, pink” nose. Hyorhinomys stuempkei was captured in an overnight trap on Sulawesi’s Mount Dako in early 2013 by a team led by Museum Victoria’s Kevin Rowe, a mammalogist who has discovered other rats in Sulawesi, including the two-toothed Paucidentomys vermidax and Waiomys mamasae, a carnivorous water rat. There are now 8 species of shrew rat described in Sulawesi. Hyorhinomys stuempkei. Courtesy of Museum Victoria CITATION: Jacob A. Esselstyn, Sam S. Achmadi, Heru Handika, Kevin C. Rowe. A hog-nosed shrew rat (Rodentia: muridae) from Sulawesi Island, Indonesia. Journal of Mammalogy. Volume 96, Issue 5 Pp. 895-907. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyv093 895-907 First published online: 29 September 2015

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This stunning Trimeresurus vogeli is just hanging around in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user Vittorio_K ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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A python, reported to be 20 feet in length, critically injured a pet store owner in Newport Ohio in an apparent feeding mishap. According to media reports store owner Terry Wilkins was feeding the snake when it latched onto his arm and wrapped around his head, neck, and torso. Wilkens was not breathing when officers arrived to free him but he did resume breathing before he was taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

“It was only by the grace of God that one of the officers knew how to deal with snakes,” – police chief Tom Collins

The owner appears to be recovering after two officers pried off the 125-pound python that was wrapped around his head, neck and torso, according Collins.
The snake is currently alive and being held at the store where the incident occurred. Police are working with animal control to determine if the animal will need to be removed from the shop.

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In what is likely to be the first of a number of reptilian additions the Black Pine Snake, Pituophis melanoleucus lodingi, has been added to the USFWS Threatened and Endangered Species List. Found in southwestern Alabama through southeastern Mississippi into eastern Louisiana, Black Pine Snakes are the only melanistic pine snake, ranging in coloration from an overall black and brown banded snake to a nearly jet-black animal. A threatened designation means a species is at risk of becoming endangered within the foreseeable future. The snake’s threatened status allows the USFWS to include exemptions allowing certain management activities to continue to occur with protection from the loss, injury or harassment.

“We crafted the exemptions to provide landowners flexibility to manage for their objectives while still affording conservation benefits to the black pinesnake,” – Cindy Dohner, USFWS Southeast Regional Director.

The Black Pine Snake’s decline is primarily attributed to the loss and degradation of the longleaf pine ecosystem because of habitat fragmentation, fire suppression, conversion of natural pine forests to densely stocked pine plantations, and agricultural and urban development. Other threats to the snake’s survival include road mortality and killing by humans.

The Black Pine Snake was added to the US Fish and Wildlife Services list of candidates for federal protection in 1999, and the Service published a proposed rule to list the black pinesnake as threatened on October 7, 2014. The black pinesnake final listing becomes effective on November 5, 2015 which is 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register on October 6, 2015. The decision is part of the Service’s effort to implement a court-approved settlement under an agreement aimed at significantly reducing it’s current litigation-driven workload.

To read the USFWS Press Release click here. Gallery photo by user noMad627 …read more
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By Herp News

Most people know and love marsupials like kangaroos and koalas, but some members of this infraclass are virtual unknowns — despite facing similar extinction threats — and being just as cute. One example is an underappreciated group of small wallabies called bettongs, rabbit-sized bouncers once widespread across Australia but now reduced to just a few small colonies and captive populations. The tale of the bettong isn’t an uncommon one in Australia. The giant island country has the world’s worst mammal extinction rate. One in three of the mammals that have gone extinct worldwide in the past 400 years were Australian species. Today 30 percent of the country’s endemic mammals are threatened with extinction. A just released bettong takes to the air. Photo by Stephen Corey. Rob Brewster, the Director of Rewilding Australia, a nonprofit working to restore the country’s endangered native species and habitats, explains that in the last few hundred years things have gone downhill for almost all endemic critical weight species — those between 35 grams and 5.5 kilograms (roughly ranging from 1 ounce to 12 pounds). The bettong is no exception, sitting at an average 1.2 to 1.9 kilograms (2.7 to 4.2 pounds). “Bettongs are like a furry Mars bar to foxes and feral cats,” says Brewster. “Causing their massive decline some 150 years ago. It didn’t help that settlers tended to shoot anything that hopped or dug — bettongs do both.” Bettongs on the ropes, and bettong hopes Europeans brought foreign predators…

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Photo: Eric Sharp, Detroit Free Press
Despite being up for consideration of listing on the Endangered Species Act since 1999, the Eastern Massasauga has remained unprotected. Now it appears that will change. Known for their docile nature, the massasauga rattlesnake has it’s greatest known population density in the state of Michigan, but as with most endangered species, habitat destruction has started putting extreme pressure on the current populations.

The biggest threat to the snake, across its range from Missouri to New York, is loss and degradation of habitat, Kingsbury said.

“The snakes don’t travel as far as other animals do from habitat patch to habitat patch,” he said. “Anytime you have paved roads, a farmer’s field, a residential area, they will be barriers to the snake, and it will turn around and head back from where it came.”

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Is it any wonder that Bearded Dragons are still one of the most popular pets in the reptile community? Not when you see this cute guy in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user JFKDragons ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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By Herp News

Tackling the illegal trade in wildlife requires tremendous concern for the welfare of other species and a passion for change. Ofir Drori, founder of EAGLE (Eco-Activists for Governance and Law Enforcement), embodies both of these traits. Mongabay recently interviewed Drori about how his organization strives to combat corruption and save species endangered by the illegal wildlife trade in Africa. Globally, wildlife poaching and organized criminal trade in wildlife have escalated over the past 10 years, decimating populations of large mammals, particularly those with high-value body parts such as tusks or horns. Criminal syndicates increasingly control these activities and have become better armed and organized as the illegal trade—estimated at over US$18 billion per year—becomes more profitable. These violent organized criminal groups use their illegal revenue to strengthen their organizations: employing more local poachers, buying impunity, bribing corrupt officials and broadening their distribution networks. Three wildlife traffickers arrested in Benin in June 2015, with 4 elephant feet, 2 leopard skins and scales of 2 pangolins, as well as 50 chameleons, heads and skins of crocodile, skins of antelopes and civets and baboon heads. Photo credit: EAGLE To tackle a problem of this scale and gravity, Drori suggests that “the best approach to protecting species is to ensure the perpetrators involved in wildlife trafficking are prosecuted,” a solution he says is long overdue and for which he founded EAGLE (previously Last Great Apes Organization, or LAGA), in 2003. What does EAGLE do? EAGLE tackles wildlife crime through innovative…

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HORN sheds light on South Africa’s rhino poaching crisis from a different angle In 2011, filmmaker Dr. Reina-Marie Loader had an unforgettable, close encounter with three rhinoceros in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. Dr. Loader was acutely aware rhinoceros poaching rates were increasing in South Africa and, with her experience in documentary filmmaking and interests in conservation and human rights, decided to create a film that would explore the economic and cultural drivers behind it. The result is HORN, a lived documentary following South African actor Jeffrey Mundell as he trades his comfortable life in the suburbs for anti-poaching ranger training in the bush. His difficult and dangerous experience, combined with Dr. Loader’s interviews with local NGOs and community members, reveals how populations living within close proximity to wildlife are not only dealing with the impacts of poaching, but are also affected by serious social problems, including poverty, HIV, and unemployment. HORN will premiere in the U.S. at the upcoming Wildlife Conservation Film Festival in New York City on October 24th. An interview with Dr. Reina-Marie Loader Mongabay: What is your background? Dr. Reina-Marie Loader, Founder of Cinéma Humain and Director of HORNDr. Loader: I have been involved in raising awareness about human rights and the environment since a very young age. In South Africa, I grew up participating creatively by acting in plays about social and environmental issues. Some of the plays I specifically enjoyed being a part of included issue-based productions about ground and water pollution,…

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By Herp News

The shared patterns of gene expression in the limbs and phallus are generated in part by a common set of noncoding DNA, also called ‘elements’ or ‘enhancers,’ which act to control gene expression in both of these structures, argues a new study. These conclusions stemmed from an initial observation that many limb control elements, or limb enhancers, found in limbed animals are still present in snake genomes.

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A great shot of a live (as they should be) Pygmy Rattlesnake on concrete in the field in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user JARHEAD1969 ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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This is an adult pair of Egyptian tortoises.
It was about 35 years ago when Chris invited me to check out a few tiny tortoises that he had just received. They were, he said, Egyptian tortoises, Testudo kleinmanni. I had to do some scrambling to familiarize myself with this taxon but I was able to learn that at an adult size of only 3.5 to 5″ this was the smallest of the genus and that even in those days was considered a rarity. It had apparently once ranged from Libya to Israel but was thought to have been extirpated over much of its range.

Sadly, Florida proved an unsuitable home for these new arrived but aridland adapted arrivals. Although most survived here few actually thrived. In contrast, many of them that went to homes in the drier and less humid desert and prairie states seemed to do well and once the chelonians had been acclimated a number of hobbyists succeeded in breeding them one or more times.

But even today the availability of these little charmers is spotty at best. And although I have never maintained this taxon I have been told that the hatchlings produced from well acclimated captive adults are much hardier than those imports of long ago. I sure hope that this is the case and that future years will see this tortoise readily available to herpetoculturists.
More photos under the jump

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Photo Credit: Matthew Schlesinger, New York Natural Heritage Program
Carl Kauffeld believe there were two very different species of Leopard Frogs, but he did not have the means to prove it. Thankfully we now do! With the help of a geneticist, a team of researchers recently proved Kauffeld’s belief to be true and named the Atlantic Coast Leopard Frogs after the herper great, Rana kauffeldi.

“There might have been some jumping up and down,” recalled Dr. Matthew Schlesinger, the head of zoology at the New York Natural Heritage Program, who was part of the team. “There might have been some high fives going around.”
…
Now, with virtually nothing known about this animal, the team trying to track and learn about its range and habits. “It’s like we’re trying to write the page of the field guide that’s devoted to this species,” Schlesinger said.

Learn more at WNYC. …read more
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By Herp News

The hunters ransack the vulnerable nests of tropical birds in richly biodiverse but poorly patrolled Venezuelan rainforests. Wildlife merchants brazenly display young fledglings, monkeys and other animals, right next to main roads throughout the forest. Many captives will travel a difficult path — an exhausting, often fatal journey covering thousands of miles, cleverly hidden inside bags and luggage, passing through airports and seaports, bound for Europe and elsewhere. It is a lucrative, shadowy trade, involving at least 900,000 animals annually, earning more than 300 million dollars for the criminals plying it, from which the local rainforest hunter gleans barely a fistful of Bolivares. A[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ccording to a 2013 report Your Home Is Not Their Home, produced by the conservation organization Vitalis, the ransacking of bird nests and theft of fledglings is the main method by which tropical birds are captured in Venezuela. Biologist Esmeralda Mujica, former director of the Foundation of Zoos and Aquariums of Venezuela, a member of the Species Survival Commission of IUCN and co-author of the Vitalis paper, says that the Psittacidae — including 50 species of New World parrot, parakeet and macaw endemic to Venezuela — is the bird family most threatened by traffickers, and spring is the time of year when the most fledglings are seized. A green macaw (ara militaris), one of the most trafficked birds in Venezuela. Photo by Dick Daniels licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. “The Easter holiday coincides with the reproductive season of…

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Scientists have shown, for the first time, what happens when a frog’s tongue makes contact with a surface. They discovered similarities to conventional adhesive tape. Like sticky tape, the tongues form lots of little threads (fibrils) when being removed from a surface, which break one at a time before the contact disconnects.

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This gorgeous closeup of a Painted Turtle also shows a bit of old fashion home grown cage decor in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user trachemys ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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A Pacarana (Dinomys branickii) photographed in a jungle house near Santa Maria, Peru. Photo by Benjamin Frable made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication [dropcap]L[/dropcap]ast October, a TV report from Peru’s Chanchamayo province depicted protesters swarming the streets, raising their voices in unison chanting: “Pepe Lucho is free! Pepe Lucho will not go!” The angry dissenters brandished signs professing their disgust with Peru’s National Forest and Wildlife Service (SERFOR). They even stormed the government agency’s local offices, forcing officials to bar doors and windows to protect their own safety and avoid confronting the raging crowd. Pepe Lucho, at the heart of so much resentment and controversy, is not a local political figure, celebrated soccer player or even a cherished kinsman. In fact, he is not human, but an over-sized rodent called a pacarana (Dinomys branickii) – a rare animal occurring only in the tropical forests of the western Amazon River basin that was being kept as a pet and tourist attraction. So why do all those people care so deeply? The answer lies in the many conflicting beliefs held by the Peruvian public concerning wildlife trafficking laws — with some perspectives born out of monetary gain, others from a love of wild animals long kept as pets, and a “don’t-tread-on-me” libertarian sense of entitlement regarding the nation’s wildlife. Many conservationists argue that these longstanding public attitudes toward domestic wildlife trafficking intimidate and inhibit law enforcement, thus unintentionally protecting international traffickers who…

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An wonderful shot of this Indigo Snake in the field in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user ACO3124! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Finding examples of the Scarlet Kingsnake (Lampropeltis triangulum elapsoides) in Kentucky can be quite difficult. On a scale of 1-10 I give them a solid 7.5, perhaps lower if you live in or close to a county where they occur. As for myself, I have to drive over 3 hours each way to be in the game.

The easiest way to locate this species in my area is to road cruise for them. I can run that drill, but I prefer to utilize and deploy artificial cover, and by doing so I, along with my colleague Phil Peak, was able to locate a sexed pair under metal this year. A cast shed from the male was under the metal and the female was just preparing to shed as you can see in the photo of both snakes. These snakes were found in mid to late April and we believe that they were preparing to mate or less-likely had already bred. There is always a reason or series of reasons why snakes are found when and in the way in which they are located. Interpreting this information is something I find interesting as it helps to increase the number of snakes I find in the future!

I want to welcome everyone to my first kingsnake.com blog and want to thank Jeff B and everyone else here for the opportunity. I plan to have both captive and field-oriented posts that will focus on snakes but will also include lizards, frogs, salamanders, turtles, and crocs! Because this is my first effort here, I wanted to kick things off with a kingsnake!
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Photo via Twitter user @MeghanCArnold
San Francisco is having an invasion of sorts on their public transit. It seems many owners of Green Iguanas are taking over, bringing their pets on the bus. While we wish it weren’t causing such a stir, looking at these photos, we can certainly understand why!

When transporting your reptiles, be it via train, plane or automobile, it is wise to properly secure that animal. Dogs have leash laws and many places have a law banning releasing cats, it is only wise for us to contain our reptile pets. Looking through these photos, it is clear that if the animal tried hard enough, there is no protection to keep them with their owner.

The other issue is there are people with fears of dogs and cats, but there are many more that fear reptiles. As one Muni rider tweeted:

Guy with large iguana on crowded MUNI picking dead iguana skin off his iguana

Outreach is great, sharing our pets is wonderful, but pushing limits can bring upon strict rules. Practice safety at all times when transporting your reptile pets, not only for the safety of others but also for the safety of that animal.

Read the full article at City Lab. …read more
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Meet an upset Mohave rattler.
Again came the now familiar cry — “snake!” But this time it was I who noticed the hefty serpent at road edge. Either a western diamondback or a Mohave rattler– and it proved to be a 3 1/2 foot long example of the latter.

Jake had been getting a few minutes of shuteye before we reached our chosen hunting area. We expected it to be a long night as we searched out the anurans. The torrential rains that had fallen for the last 2 hours has stopped but the desert was soaked, dry creeks were raging and playas were filled. My yell jerked Jake instantly awake and by the time I had stopped the car he was piling out.

Mohave rattlesnakes (yes, it’s now spelled with an “h” and not a “j”), Crotalus s. scutulatus, have reputations for having bad tempers and this one was certainly living up to that reputation. The hefty snake had begun striking the moment Jake had stepped from the car. Not only did the snake strike so hard that it slid forward each time on the wet and slippery road, but the striking was incessant, causing Jake to take couple of involuntary steps backward from the pavement. Of course this brought him (equally involuntarily) into an unexpected rear attack by formidably armed “monkey-get-back-bushes” (mesquite, cats claw, and beaver-tail cacti). Then and there Jake performed an impromptu rendition of that horrid old dance the we old timers refer to as the “green-apple-quickstep.” Jake proved far more agile than I had credited him to be!

But eventually Jake’s perseverance prevailed, photos of the Mohave were taken and we were on our way again.

More photos under the jump
Continue reading “The Mohave Rattler” …read more
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Photo : Sjoerd van Berge Henegouwen/Nature World News
Previously thought to be extinct, the first photographs of a live Western Serpentiform skink (Eumecia anchietae) have emerged. In true reptile fashion, it was spotted alongside the road by a tourist in Masai Mara. There is little known of the species because of their extremely reclusive nature and the fact that they were believed to be extinct.

A chance meeting will lead to publication for one lucky tourist.

At the time the photos were taken, both the ranger and tourist, Sjoerd van Berge Henegouwen, were unable to identify the species. When Henegouwen posted them on his Facebook page, Dr. Wagner identified the lizard. These photos will be published in a book Dr. Wagner is writing about reptiles in Africa.

Read more at Nature World News. …read more
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By Herp News

An ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) in Itatiba Zoo, Brazil. Photo by João Carlos Medau from Wikimedia Commons. Wild cats — from the small jaguarundi to the large jaguar — are elusive animals. They usually prowl about at night, are difficult to detect, and merge with the background landscape. Researchers often depend on indirect signs that these animals leave behind, such as footprints, to detect them in forests. But footprints may not be so reliable after all, warns a study recently published in Mongabay’s open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science. Researchers from Brazil and Portugal took measurements of front and hind footprints of several captive individuals of four wild cat species found in Brazilian rainforests — jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi), ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), oncilla (Leopardus guttulus), and margay (Leopardus wiedii) — and compared them to those of domestic cats. With the exception of the ocelot, the team found that size and shape of footprints of all the wild cat species as well as the domestic cats were similar. “From our data it was impossible to distinguish small felids based on footprint total size and pad size, and configuration as well,” the researchers write in the paper. “This limitation is enhanced in field studies because it is impossible to distinguish between front and hind footprints in such conditions.” Wild felid species tested in the present study and some examples of footprints printed in sand. A – Ocelot (Leopardus pardalis); B – Ocelot footprint; C – Jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi); D – Jaguarundi footprint; E…

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Read more here: herpetofauna.com

Take 5 and turn your face to the sun today, just like the Frilled Dragon in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user cochran ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

Upload your own reptile and amphibian photos photos at gallery.kingsnake.com, and you could see them featured here! …read more
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