By Herp News

The 2012 film ‘The Flight of the Butterflies’ documented the year-long annual migration cycle of the Monarch Butterfly. But now, scientists believe that fewer numbers are actually taking this epic journey. Photo credit: Dave Hart. A recent study concludes that a new, overwintering population of the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) in the Southern U.S. is the direct result of ideal breeding conditions created by increased plantings of a non-native tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) — plantings that are cultivated by gardeners attempting to aid the migrating butterflies. Unfortunately, these overwintering populations of Monarchs unexpectedly suffer from higher rates of disease and parasitic infection, and pose “an additional emerging threat to the long term viability of migratory Monarchs by altering infectious disease dynamics among still-migrating Monarchs,” says a research paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Surprising detrimental results  The scientists from the University of Georgia who performed the study believe that increased plantings of Asclepias curassavica, commonly known as ‘tropical milkweed’, in the U.S. South has prompted a population of formerly migrating Monarchs to overwinter. This overwintering trend has been occurring for decades, as more and more concerned gardeners plant the readily available tropical milkweed. Native milkweeds die back in autumn, giving a clear signal for butterflies to move south. However, tropical milkweed does not, providing a ready food source and perfect breeding habitat for the butterflies, and, unfortunately, their diseases. Monarchs infected with Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) often do…

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By Herp News

Basic research into the mechanisms of cell division, using eggs and embryos from frogs and starfish, has led researchers to an unexpected discovery about how animal cells control the forces that shape themselves. During a key point in cytokinesis a cell’s cortex becomes an excitable medium resulting in waves that serve to regulate enzyme activities.

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Happy Rattlesnake Friday! Massive support is needed in the conservation of the gorgeous Massasauga Rattlesnake all across the country. That is why they take the spotlight today in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user ratsnakehaven ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Photo: Chris Dresh
Instead of a forceful relocation, ecologists in Bournemouth changed the landscape directly impacting the road changes only to allow the animals to relocate naturally.

Dorset County Council’s environment councillor, Peter Finney, said: “We’re incredibly proud of our natural environment in Dorset and we strive to find new ways to work alongside our many protected areas and species, and enhance it – even when we are doing something as destructive as rebuilding a road.”

To read the full article, visit The BBC. …read more
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This is the Mexican form of Spilotes pullatus, S. p. mexicana.
Spilotes, long a monotypic genus of beautiful black and yellow, neotropical, arboreal, snake, has recently become bitypic—and polymorphic. This was accomplished when a group of herpetologists (see paper mentioned below) undertook the reevaluation of the genus Pseustes, the bird snakes.

The result of their studies are that 3 species previously in the genus Pseustes are now in the resurrected genus Phrynonax and the 3 meter long, olive and brownish Pseustes sulphureus has become Spilotes sulphureus.

In a facebook quote Cesar Barrio Amoros (a member of the research team) stated “in this article we change the use of Psustes (sic) (no longer a valid genus) per Phrynonax for poecilonotus, shoepshirei and polylepis and sulphureus become Spilotes.”

In explanation of the above, with the removal of Pseustes sulphureus, the type species of the genus, Psuestes becomes an invalid generic name and has necessitated the elevation of the senior synonym, in this case Phrynonax as the valid name for the remaining 3 taxa.

So those among you who used to have Pseustes sulphureus now have Spilotes sulphureus and those that have any of the other three Pseustes species now have Phrynonax sp. But fret not. As long as they are properly cared for the snakes couldn’t care less.

And for further information please reference: Jadin, R., Burbrink, F., Rivas, G. Vitt, L., Barrio-Amorós, C.L. & Guralnick, R. 2013. Finding arboreal snakes in an evolutionary tree: phylogenetic placement and systematic revision of the Neotropical birdsnakes. J. Zoolog Syst Evol Res doi: 10.1111/jzs.12055: 1-8.
Continue reading “And Now There Are Two! The Genus Spilotes is now Bitipic” …read more
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By Herp News

The Wildlife Conservation Society has a long, proven track record of environmental stewardship. So when the New York City-based group recently announced an ambitious new global conservation strategy, Mongabay got in touch with WCS president and CEO Cristián Samper to get more details. WCS has identified 15 of the world’s largest wilderness regions and laid out a strategy for how to protect them from climate change and other human-induced environmental pressures — and in the process, save half of the world’s biodiversity. Conserving those 15 priority regions, ecologically intact wild places on land and at sea, is the crux of the group’s WCS: 2020 Strategic Plan. The group says that it hopes to reverse the population declines of six priority species across their entire range: elephants, apes, big cats, sharks & rays, whales & dolphins, and tortoises & freshwater turtles. Dr. William Laurance, a Distinguished Research Professor at James Cook University in Australia and a world-renowned tropical forest conservation expert, told Mongabay that many of the regions WCS has selected are obvious priorities, such as the Lower Mekong Basin in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam; the Southeast Asian Archipelago (including the forests, coastlines and reefs of Indonesia and Malaysia); MesoAmerica and the Western Caribbean; the northern Andes/Orinoco/Western Amazon; and Madagascar/western Indian Ocean. Image via Wildlife Conservation Society. Other regions seem less urgent to Laurance, such as the North American Rocky Mountains and Eastern North American forests. “Not that these latter areas are unimportant,” he said,…

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By Herp News

Two photos taken in Jakarta’s notorious bird market suggest that Indonesia’s forests may be hiding a previously undocumented species of monkey. The photos, which showed a langur or leaf monkey with distinctive coloring, including a black face outlined by gold hair, spurred researcher Francesco Nardelli to embark on a five-year survey of zoos, museums, and the Internet to determine whether the primate was in fact new to science. His findings are published in the current issue of International Zoo News. “From 2010 to 2015, comparative data from other Presbytis species were obtained by inspecting and photographing captive animals in the UK, in Indonesia and in the United States, and by observing skins and skulls in museum collections,” Nardelli told Mongabay. “For the uniformity of traits amongst the photographed subjects and dissimilarity of most of the same traits with other Presbytis species, the golden-crowned langur Presbytis johnaspinalli should be considered species nova.” Nardelli named new species Presbytis johnaspinalli in honor of John Aspinall, a conservationist who founded the Howletts and Port Lympne Wildlife Parks in the U.K. and the Aspinall Foundation. “Aspinall’s longsighted and innovative conservation methods permitted, among innumerable success stories, the establishment outside Indonesia of breeding colonies of several langur species,” he said, noting that Aspinall helped conceive the first Sumatran rhino conservation project. Nardelli served as director of the project from 1984 to 1992. Juvenile syntype of the Golden-crowned langur (Presbytis johnaspinalli). Courtesy of Nardelli 2015. The discovery boosts the number of known Presbytis…

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By Herp News

Eight Peruvian amphibian species listed as Data Deficient by the IUCN should be re-assessed as Threatened. That’s one conclusion of a new study published in Mongabay’s journal Tropical Conservation Science. The study re-assessed the conservation status of 38 amphibian species that an earlier study had determined might meet IUCN criteria for listing as Threatened species. The team of researchers, led by Laurence Jarvis of the Epping Forest Field Centre in Essex, UK, used criteria set out by the IUCN to take a fresh look at the species’ status. They found that the status of 14 of the 38 species should be changed. The authors recommended that eight species should be moved from Data Deficient to Threatened; two should be changed from Data Deficient to Near Threatened and Least Concern, respectively, and a further two should move from Least Concern to Threatened. They also recommended down-listing two species from Endangered, to Near Threatened in one case and to Least Concern in another. In response to the study, the IUCN Red List updated the threat status of several of the reassessed species. Pristimantis pardalinus., one of the amphibian species that were re-assessed. Photo by Rudolf von May. The scientists made their recommendations based on new knowledge about the species in question, rather than changes in the threats themselves. A lack of knowledge around Peru’s amphibians presents a major problem to conservation. Of the estimated 588 known amphibian species in Peru, nearly half of which cannot be found anywhere…

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Among those who search for reptiles in North America, there has always been great interest in Eastern Hognose Snakes, Heterodon platirhinos. They are beautiful, variable, display unique behaviors, have an interesting natural history, and are unlike all the other snakes we find locally.

Getting a nice picture of a wild Eastern Hognose Snake can be very difficult because they will roll over on their back and play dead when they feel threatened, and once they go into this routine it is not only hard to make them stop, but they also seem to never look as good once they play dead. During their defensive process they tend to disgorge their belly contents and also stop filling up with air to hiss which makes them look thin and deflated. Take my advice and try to get your pictures of this species before they feel too disturbed and roll over on their backs.

Neophytes will quickly reach down and pick up snakes as soon as they are discovered. When a specimen is discovered the best thing to do is to try to get pictures immediately. When I am on Hognose hunting grounds I carry my camera with me, sometimes it is even already turned on. If the snake tries to escape use a stick or branch to move the animal but whatever you do, DO NOT TOUCH IT WITH YOUR HAND! For whatever reason, these snakes are less disturbed by the feel of natural materials but the feel of your hand will often cause them to play dead upon contact. THINK when you find one of these snakes! Calm down and be patient. Do not give up. Instead, just focus on keeping the snake calm. They will often turn their heads sideways just before they flip on their backs, so if you see them doing this back off a little bit. If they do flip over you can put the snake in a bag for 20 minutes and then carefully dump it out and try again, but even if this works the snake will not look as good as it did the moment you found it. I hope this information proves useful and I wish everyone good luck in finding and getting nice pictures of these spectacular snakes! …read more
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By Herp News

The dense undergrowth of tropical forests presents a mysterious prospect to wildlife researchers. Often what is easily spotted does not represent the whole, and scientists in the past could spend months, or even years, studying a species before ever observing it. Now traditional data collection methods are being augmented by advanced technologies such as camera traps — motion sensitive still and video cameras that can unobtrusively capture animal behavior. Samantha Zwicker, a Masters student and PhD candidate in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington, is using camera traps to analyze animal behaviors as they are impacted by human presence and development in one of the wildest parts of Peru. Her study, as featured in the institute’s bulletin, focused on four indigenous cat species and the factors dependent on their movement, including land use, habitat type and distance from human activity. A female jaguar (Panthera onca) pauses on the trail to eat some grass. Just like domestic cats, big cats eat small amounts of grass to help them bring up fur-balls. Deforestation and hunting remain the two major threats to jaguars across their range, causing them to become listed as near-threatened (IUCN). Photo by Samantha Zwicker. In this exclusive interview with Mongabay, Samantha Zwicker explains the unique aspects of her work: Mongabay: What attributes of your study do you consider revolutionary? Samantha Zwicker: Most camera trapping studies take place in parks, reserves, and sanctuaries because these areas are more accessible, well…

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Gotta love the up close head shot of this Tokay Gecko in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user The_Reptiles_Den ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Photo: Freshwaters Illustrated/Dave Herasimtschuk/USDA.
In the race to save our dying amphibians, a fish endocrinologist developed “Cupids Syringe” also known as Amphiplex. The hormone based chemical helps to encourage better captive breeding.

Trudeau knew that the hormone systems controlling mating were nearly identical in fish and mammals, and he reasoned that they should be similar in amphibians, too. Taking a page out of the fish reproduction playbook, he combined a hormone that stimulates cells in the pituitary gland with a chemical that blocks the neurotransmitter dopamine, which can interfere with breeding. This combination had been used extensively in fish, to encourage breeding stock for the aquaculture industry. But it hadn’t yet been tried in amphibians. Before Amphiplex, only individual hormones, sans dopamine blockers, had been used on captive amphibians, with mixed success.

To read the full article, visit Mongabay. …read more
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Tank, sphagnum, light, and sturdy plants provide an easily built and maintained amphibian terrarium.
All that is needed to make a very pretty terrarium for horned and other bulky frogs with limited leaping ability is the tank (ours is a 40 gallon), a complete cover (with horned frogs a cover may not be needed) but if arboreal species are housed within not only is a cover needed but a suitable perch should also be provided, a suitable light, enough good quality unmilled sphagnum moss to provide a 3” deep bottom cover, a few hardy plants (I prefer philodendrons, “pothos” or similar nearly indestructible species, and, of course, the frog inhabitant. Since the sphagnum will be kept damp and clean, unless you are intending to breed the species a water container is optional. If a water container is provided be sure the water is kept clean. Ditto with the sphagnum bottom cover. To prevent the sphagnum from being ingested by a hungry frog, food items may be proffered on forceps or from the fingers (the latter sometimes and with some species not being an especially good idea!). With an escape proof top this setup also works well for salamanders.

From this point on pictures will probably be the most descriptive. I hope you enjoy your frogs as much as I do mine.

Continue reading “A Very Simple Terrarium for a Very Phat Phrog” …read more
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By Herp News

Mark Hebblewhite’s love of wildlife began paying off when he got a job as a Hudson Bay park ranger as an 18-year-old. Now an associate professor in the wildlife biology program at the University of Montana, Hebblewhite studies the delicate balance among predators, prey, the environment and humans. His work carries on the legacy of wildlife biology luminaries, such as the identical twins John and Frank Craighead, who together developed the first radio tracking collars used on grizzly bears. WildTech spoke with Hebblewhite about his work, the technology he uses and the future of wildlife biology. Tell us a bit about the kinds of questions you try to answer in your research. I think that in those early years of wildlife biology there was a keen focus on basic natural history ecology. The kind of stuff that gets all of us excited: Why do animals do what they do; why do animals migrate; why do animals eat certain things? So at its core that still forms a lot of the questions and the problems I work on. But increasingly in the 21st century, there are almost no places left on the planet where you can ask those questions about what makes animals do what they do without having to think at the same time about how they mitigate or reduce the negative impacts of humans. 21st-century conservation is about how we understand the impact of humans on wildlife around the globe. Even the most pristine ecosystems that we think about…

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By Herp News

The Wildlife Conservation Society has a long, proven track record of environmental stewardship. So when the New York City-based group recently announced an ambitious new global conservation strategy, Mongabay got in touch with WCS president and CEO Cristián Samper to get more details. WCS has identified 15 of the world’s largest wilderness regions and laid out a strategy for how to protect them from climate change and other human-induced environmental pressures — and in the process, save half of the world’s biodiversity. Conserving those 15 priority regions, ecologically intact wild places on land and at sea, is the crux of the group’s WCS: 2020 Strategic Plan. The group says that it hopes to reverse the population declines of six priority species across their entire range: elephants, apes, big cats, sharks & rays, whales & dolphins, and tortoises & freshwater turtles. Dr. William Laurance, a Distinguished Research Professor at James Cook University in Australia and a world-renowned tropical forest conservation expert, told Mongabay that many of the regions WCS has selected are obvious priorities, such as the Lower Mekong Basin in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam; the Southeast Asian Archipelago (including the forests, coastlines and reefs of Indonesia and Malaysia); MesoAmerica and the Western Caribbean; the northern Andes/Orinoco/Western Amazon; and Madagascar/western Indian Ocean. Image via Wildlife Conservation Society. Other regions seem less urgent to Laurance, such as the North American Rocky Mountains and Eastern North American forests. “Not that these latter areas are unimportant,” he said,…

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Photo: Annette Ruzicka/Bush Heritage Australia
The habitat of the Australian Legless Lizard population in Canberra is set to be razed in preparation to build an RV park for tourists to rest their weary heads. Conservationists from Bush Heritage Australia are working to save one of the last remaining groups of this species.

To capture these legless lizards – the name comes from legs that disappeared through evolution leaving just a scaly protrusion – Bush Heritage has purchased roof tiles in bulk.

About 800 have been strewn across the area for the proposed caravan park. The idea is simple but effective. Reptiles like to press themselves against heated surfaces to get warm. As the sun heats the tiles, legless lizards will wriggle underneath them.

To read the full article, visit The Guardian. …read more
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By Herp News

In the 250-million-year evolutionary history of turtles, scientists have seen nothing like the pig nose of a new species of extinct turtle discovered in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

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The name says it all. Check out this stunning Cherry Bomb Blood Python in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user jsignoretti every once in a while! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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By Herp News

A German national was apprehended at the international airport in Jakarta as he tried to smuggle eight earless monitor lizards from Borneo out of the country. It was not the first indication of a German connection to the international trade in Earless Monitor Lizards (Lanthanotus borneensis), a small, orange-brown creature with beaded skin, subterranean habits and translucent “windows” on its lower eyelids. “In July 2015, a USA-based trader selling the species claimed the animals had been imported from Germany and captive-bred there—presumably to circumvent the US Lacey Act,” said a statement from TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network. The Lacey Act bans trafficking in illegal wildlife. None of the countries with territory in Borneo has permitted the export of the lizard, “so parent stock in any breeding facilities has not been legally obtained,” according to TRAFFIC. “International investigations are essential to debunk the myth that reptiles are being ‘captive bred’, whereas in reality claims of captive breeding are frequently used as a cover to enable the animals to be traded internationally, unchallenged,” said Sarah Stoner, TRAFFIC’s senior wildlife crime analyst. Reptile collectors in Europe, where the animal can sell for thousands of euros, have referred to it as a “holy grail,” according to a TRAFFIC study that began in 2013 and documented a sudden uptick in international interest in the species. A posting about the earless monitor lizard on Facebook. Image courtesy of TRAFFIC Meanwhile, two infant Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) that were confiscated from smugglers…

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One of the most common amphibians out there, this Albino Clawed Frog is just hanging around in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user bradtort every once in a while! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Photo: Inside EditionA pair of conjoined twins were able to be successfully separated by their breeder.

“To my surprise, the reason the baby couldn’t exit was because it was attached to its twin,” he told INSIDE EDITION. “I helped them out of the egg and discovered they were joined at the yolk sac which is basically the equivalent to an umbilical. Immediately we knew we had a bit of a challenge on our hands.”

To read the full article and see the video, visit Inside Edition. …read more
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By Herp News

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]onservation success stories are rare. Too often we read of the losing battles: local extinctions and irreversible biodiversity losses, often at the expense of shortsighted exploitation-for-profit schemes. Refreshingly, the plight of the maleo is different. This story is one of conservation success. Maleos are, by all accounts, weird birds. They are chicken-like creatures with duotone plumage; a minimalist contrast of coal-black above and soft, peach-pink below. The bare, multi-colored skin of their heads — somewhat reminiscent of a vulture — is capped by a strange, bulbous protrusion called a casque. This adornment has affectionately been described as a football helmet or a walnut, or less affectionately as an engorged tick. Maleos are megapodes — mound-builders — members of a 26-species family of ground-dwelling birds peppered across the islands of Australasia, many endemic to their respective landmasses. Adult maleo. Photo by Julie Larsen Maher, WCS The megapode we are concerned with here is Macrocephalon maleo, found only on Sulawesi; the fourth-largest island in Indonesia and the eleventh-largest island in the world. Sulawesi, just east of Borneo, is a collection of peninsulas: four spokes of sand and inland forest attached to a hub of tall, imposing mountains. Indonesia has the dubious honor of hosting more species threatened with extinction than any other country on Earth, and the maleo is among them. It went from Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List in 2000 to Endangered in 2002, and has stayed there since. IUCN’s most recent estimates put the total…

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What better way to start out this week than with this cute Nile Monitor in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user Mantafish every once in a while! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Photo: The News-Press
Despite being an apex predator, one unlucky Alligator learned there are things scarier than him, like a golf cart.

The gator’s plan for a nice meal was all set in motion when the turtle found itself surrounded by the alligator’s teeth. The turtle remained incarcerated by the alligator’s gaping mouth until a golf cart scooted close enough to scare the gator back into the lake, Backman says.

To read the full article, visit USAToday. …read more
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Photo: The News-Press
Despite being an apex predator, one unlucky Alligator learned there are things scarier than him, like a golf cart.

The gator’s plan for a nice meal was all set in motion when the turtle found itself surrounded by the alligator’s teeth. The turtle remained incarcerated by the alligator’s gaping mouth until a golf cart scooted close enough to scare the gator back into the lake, Backman says.

To read the full article, visit USAToday. …read more
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Photo: StevenDavidJohnson.com and Wild Virginia

A Virginia pipeline may need to change it’s route to avoid potential impact on two special of Salamanders, the Cheat Mountain salamander and the Cow Knob salamander.

It recommends changing the route of the pipeline to avoid as much of the salamanders’ habitats as possible, possibly going south of South Sister Knob and Chestnut Ridge or north of Romney, West Virginia.
Another proposal would have the pipeline construction crews bore through Shenandoah Mountain, but that would not eliminate impacts on the habitats of the two species.

To read more visit Newsplex.com. …read more
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By Herp News

The latest weird effect from climate change [Washington Post] Climate change is affecting wildlife in a lot of serious, and sometimes even weird, ways. Scientists have revealed another weird effect: climate change may be disrupting the sex ratio among baby sea turtles. Is this planned killing of 18,000 necessary? [Mongabay] The government believes that bats have become a “pest,” and a culling event to reduce bat population by 20 percent is scheduled to start mid-October. Conservationists say this decision to cull is not backed by scientific evidence, may drive the species to Endangered status, and is “unacceptable.” The list no one wants to be on, and how it works [Smithsonian.com] It wasn’t that long ago when the concept of an endangered species didn’t even exist. Today, both the ESA and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources’ Red List define endangered species and identify extinct ones. A Female Fiji Iguana. Fiji is one of the Pacific island nations requesting future help for climate change consequences. Photo by Rhett Butler. These nations are already pleading for help in preparation of climate change [The Guardian] Pacific island nations have started begging wealthy countries to help their people migrate and find work if they are forced to flee their homelands because of the effects of climate change. Why this country is losing their birds in shocking numbers [Mongabay] New research in Ghana’s highly-biodiverse Upper Guinean rainforests has found that logging has taken a tremendous toll on wildlife.…

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By Herp News

The government of Mauritius has announced its plans of culling 20 percent of the endemic and vulnerable Mauritius fruit bat (Pteropus niger) population on the island. The government hopes that fewer bats will help reduce damages to fruits like mangoes and litchis in orchards and boost revenue for fruit farmers. The culling will start mid-October and will go on for three weeks until the “target is attained,” Mahen Kumar Seeruttun, Minister of Agro-Industry and Food Security, said at the sixth National Assembly of the Mauritian Parliament held on October 6. But conservationists are calling this decision “unacceptable” and “disgraceful.” “Culling is the most insensible, unscientific action that can be taken at this stage, as it will, at a cost, harm both the fruit producers and the native threatened biodiversity of the country,” Vincent Florens, Associate Professor of Ecology at the University of Mauritius, told Mongabay. The cull could be disastrous for the native bat species, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) added in a statement. “The implementation of a cull will very likely result in an up-listing of the species from Vulnerable to Endangered or Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, which will damage the reputation of Mauritius as a world leader on conservation,” the statement notes. Mauritian government plans to cull fruit bats to “reduce damage to mango and litchi fruits in orchards.” Photo by Jacques de Speville. Is the cull based on scientific evidence? In 2013, the National Parks and Conservation Service (NPCS)…

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Happy Rattlesnake Friday! All venomous snakes need our support! This Cottonmouth is screaming it from the field in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user BowieKnife357 ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Photo: Fox News
Despite their best attempts to track global venomous snake bites, many Asian countries are unable to properly count the number of people envenomated annually. Due to the lack of available health care in some regions as well as the inability to pay for it leads many bites to not be counted.

Citing new evidence from a study in India and Bangladesh, the experts said around 46,000 people died annually of snake bites in India, plus another 6,000 in Bangladesh. The WHO estimates the annual death toll in India from snake bites is 10,000.
“Snake bite … is almost completely ignored and grossly underestimated,” said Alan Harvey, head of the International Society of Toxinology, who led the meeting.
“WHO and governments need to … rank snake bite where it belongs — as a very real public health and medical concern which needs funding, training and focus.”

To read the full article, visit Fox News. …read more
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By Herp News

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen Dale McGinnity rushed to the Nashville Zoo at 3 a.m. one morning in 2011, it was to witness the culmination of a six-year effort. One of the zoo’s eastern hellbenders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis) was finally laying eggs. These giant salamanders, along with the other hellbender subspecies, the Ozark hellbender (C. a. bishopi), can grow to over two feet long, making them North America’s largest salamander species by far. But both subspecies are rapidly disappearing from the wild, and scientists were scrambling to figure out how to breed the animals in captivity as a way to replenish wild populations. McGinnity and his colleagues immediately got to work, artificially fertilizing the eggs with sperm from male hellbenders. The scientists knew what to thank for these small, slimy bundles of joy: four days earlier, McGinnity had injected the zoo’s female hellbenders with a new compound, essentially a love potion for amphibians that causes them to mate or to release their eggs or sperm. It was designed specifically for species that were reluctant to breed in captivity. Just call it “Cupid’s syringe.” The elixir in question, called Amphiplex, was concocted by Vance Trudeau at the University of Ottawa. Originally a fish endocrinologist, Trudeau felt compelled to redirect his expertise in the early 2000s when reports of startling drops in amphibian populations started to roll in from around the world. “I’m an endocrinologist, I know a lot about spawning,” he said to himself at the time. “Why don’t I try to do something?” [caption…

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By Herp News

Because sea turtles don’t have an X or Y chromosome, their sex is defined during development by the incubation environment. Warmer conditions produce females and cooler conditions produce males. The shift in climate is shifting turtles as well, because as the temperature of their nests change so do their reproduction patterns.

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Hope you enjoy a little something out of the wild with this Mud Snake in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user Godfrey every once in a while! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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Photo: Don Lyman
Despite being listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List, the Blanding’s Turtle is not federally protected in the US, although some states have regulations in place. Biologist Jared Green of Assabet River National in Hudson, Massachusetts, however wants to help increase their numbers in his state. The program hit a major milestone this spring releasing their One-thousandth turtle.

Biologists hope that building a strong population of Blanding’s turtles at Assabet River will help offset population losses being experienced by the turtles elsewhere.
Although there are some big Blanding’s turtle populations in the Midwest, most populations in the Northeast are less than 50 turtles, Butler says. The only large population is at Oxbow NWR, where an estimated several hundred Blanding’s turtles make their home. “That’s virtually unheard of east of the Mississippi,” explains Butler.

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Beautiful in any setting, this Inyo Mountains slender salamander seemed especially so against the desert background.
“Next right” Gary said. “It’s just a mile or two up the road.”

”OK. Whoops you mean here?”

“Yes. I guess we’ll have to roll the boulders.”

So we huffed, puffed, strained, and somehow moved the huge rocks just enough to allow the car to sneak carefully through.

Ahead of us was a rocky trail that seemed to go a few hundred feet into the desert, up a rise, and then peter out entirely.

With Gary directing we got to the end of the trail. Then carefully avoiding rocks we managed to go a few hundred feet farther.

“We walk from here.”

And walk we did. Over the rise, then down to an orchid laden desert spring, along a marsh, and following the run, to a desert wonderland, a willow surrounded waterhole thickly edged with flat fist-sized rocks.

“Go to it” Gary said, “but be sure to replace the rocks as close to the original position as possible.”
So I did and I did, and within minutes I had uncovered, photographed, and returned to its hiding place one of the most beautiful salamanders I have yet seen, a light phase Batrachoseps campi, Inyo Mountain salamander. These deserts are just alive with amphibian surprises. Thanks again, Gary.
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A black Kite flies over burned forest in Ghana. Photo by Nicole Arcilla. Thousands of studies have measured the impact of logging on tropical biodiversity, but few have looked at illegal logging. This, despite the fact that illegal logging represents anywhere from 50 to 90 percent of total timber harvesting in tropical countries, according to the United Nations Environment Program. But new research in Ghana’s highly-biodiverse Upper Guinean rainforests has found that a combination of illegal and legal logging has taken a tremendous toll on birds. The researchers, headed by Nicole Arcilla, a postdoctorate researcher with Drexel’s College of Arts and Sciences, found understory bird abundance fell by more than half in just 15 years. “The numbers don’t lie and they don’t have a political agenda. These numbers are shocking,” said Arcilla, whose paper was published in Biological Conservation. Understory birds are species that live primarily between the canopy and the forest floor, largely feeding on insects. The team collected data on these birds from 2008 to 2010 in forest heavily impacted by illegal logging, comparing them to previous data collected from 1993 to 1995. They found that during the fifteen-year gap, logging – both legal and illegal – increased by 600 percent, decimating the understory birds. “Whereas analysis based on data collected in 1993–1995 estimated a partial post-logging recovery of the understory bird community at that time, data from 2008–2010 showed no indication of post-logging recovery, likely due to ongoing illegal logging following intensive legal…

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This cultivar is a Super Genetic Banded Paradox Albino Ball Python (Python regius). I had the honor of hatching the first example of this new morph earlier in 2015. People who know me and follow my posts here, on my site, and on social media are aware that I have been hatching a whole lot of Paradox Ball Pythons, especially Paradox Albinos. Friends joke that I must be putting something in my water, but the fact is that after many years and much effort I have hopefully made an advance in how to produce Paradox Ball Pythons.

The Paradox Gene is not fully understood and I am not trying to claim that I fully understand it. What I am saying is that results speak for themselves and that it took more than luck for me to produce Paradox Albinos and other Paradox Ball Python Morphs every year for the past 5! I expect to hatch more in 2016 barring thermostat or incubator malfunctions! …read more
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In a major wildlife trafficking crackdown, the Beijing Forest Police have confiscated around 1,773 pounds of ivory, 24 pounds of rhino horn and 35 bear paws, worth about $4 million, according to a statement by TRAFFIC. They have also arrested 16 suspected members of the involved wildlife smuggling ring. Beijing Forest Police confiscated around 1,700 pounds of ivory. Photo courtesy of TRAFFIC. This is the biggest seizure so far in terms of the scale of the smuggling operations behind it, Beijing Forest Police told reporters at a press conference on October 12, according to TRAFFIC. “The Beijing Forest Police operation is a clear demonstration of the Chinese Government’s commitment to crack down on illegal wildlife trade and support international efforts to protect endangered species. As a Chinese proverb aptly says: ‘Action is far more powerful than words,” Zhou Fei, Head of TRAFFIC’s China Programme, said in the statement. The police crackdown, which lasted three months, uncovered that ivory was being smuggled from Japan to mainland China via HongKong. The gang used antique shops in places like Beijing and Guangdong as cover for their operations, according to TRAFFIC, and used online illegal trading and couriers for distribution of the smuggled goods. “It is possible all the wildlife products in the case originated in Japan, where the popularity of legally owned items such as ivory and rhino horns from the 1980s and earlier has plummeted and people have been selling family heirlooms and other goods into the marketplace,” TRAFFIC…

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What a great shot of this clutch of subocs in our herp photo of the day uploaded by kingsnake.com user pecoskid ! Be sure to tell them you liked it here!

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A leafcutter bee, one of the species benefiting from wildlife-friendly farming. Photo by Brigit Strawbridge. Commercial farms can benefit from creating exclusive spaces for wildlife on field edges, a new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B has found. “It is possible to achieve BOTH wildlife conservation and maintain — and in some cases increase — food production on a modern, commercial farm,” Richard Pywell from the Natural Environment Research Council’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, UK, told Mongabay in an email. Instead of looking at the role of preexisting semi-natural habitats within crop fields as many past studies have done, Pywell and his colleagues investigated the value of actually creating wildlife-friendly habitat on low-yielding edges of fields that have been removed from food production. For six years, between 2005 and 2011, the team studied yields of wheat, oilseed rape, and beans on 56 fields in central England. Creation of wildflower habitats on small areas of less productive land at the field edge to attract crop pollinators. Photo by Heather Lowther, CEH. They removed three to eight percent of usable cropping land from the edges of some of these fields, and instead grew native plants and wildflowers there to attract wildlife like bees, beetles, and birds. Then they compared crop yields from these fields with yield from other fields lacking such wildlife-friendly habitats. The team found that in fields without wildlife-habitat margins, crop yields were much lower at…

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