In Columbia County, Florida yellow rat snakes, Pantherophis obsoletus quadrivittatus, are not apt to be yellow.

And many fail to have the 4 prominent lines so typical of the subspecies further south. In fact, although some may be prominently striped, the rat snakes in this mentioned region are more apt to be brownish yellow and bear both blotches and stripes (similar to but more tan or brown than the rat snakes of the Gulf Hammock area) than they are to be yellowish and striped.

Why the hodgepodge of characteristics here? Possibly some are intergrades between the more northerly black rat snake or the more westerly gray rat snake. Such naturally occurring interbreedings could certainly create the colors and patterns found.

But Jim Peters, an excellent field herper, has mentioned that these strangely patterned snake may have had a bit of outside help. He says, “Rumor has it that several subspecies of rat snakes were let loose in that area in the sixties.”

Whatever the reason(s) these snakes are very different and every time I see one I can’t help wondering at the cause
Continue reading “The many patterns of the yellow rat snake” …read more
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A biodiversity survey in the Philippines found species unseen for decades: the Malatgan River caecilian and Palawan toadlet.

From National Geographic:

When the expedition finally stumbled across the serpentine amphibian, it was at the end of a road and a seven-hour hike beyond that from the nearest village. The area is known as Cleopatra’s Needle.

“This is an animal that doesn’t have any flashy colors or anything like that, but it’s one of those last, iconic species that we couldn’t find,” says Brown.

Remarkably, the expedition also found the Palawan toadlet (Pelophryne albotaeniata), which had been missing for the last 40 years.

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Hat tip to the green iguana! The animal that brought so many of us to the cold-blooded side deserves center stage in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user knoxville!

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By Herp News

Have you seen a video where a slow loris—a small, cute, big-eyed primate from Asian rainforests—gets tickled? Here’s the real story of how that slow loris got there. It was stolen from the wild by poachers, who probably took it from its mother—after killing her. Then its teeth were torn out with pliers and without anesthetic, a procedure many stolen slow lorises don’t survive.

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Little turtle frogs have some unusual behavior, from the way they give birth to the way they dig.

From io9:

The turtle frog is not something that, on sight, you would automatically call a frog. For one thing, if you see it, you’re probably in the middle of the Australian desert. The frog prefers living on and in sandy, loose soil. It’s also an unpleasant pink color which sometimes deepens to purple, so it generally looks like a lump of raw meat that someone stuck eyes on.

If you see it hatch its young, it still won’t seem froglike to you. This is one of the few frogs that’s never a tadpole. There being a dearth of pools in the desert, the turtle frog waits for heavy rains, comes out to mate, and then lays eggs that hatch small, but perfectly formed frogs. No little swimmers here.

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Whenever I am in the wild searching for some snakes on trees, most of the times I end up finding these beautiful frogs. My passion of herping has brought me down to this conclusion that, though being so beautiful and tender these frogs are very obvious to be seen in woods.

The common Indian tree frog, Polypedates maculatus, is a common species of frog found in South Asia. It is widespread through Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka, and its range might also extend into nearby China and Myanmar. These frogs measure about 7-8 cm in body length. They are mostly brownish, yellowish, greyish, or whitish above with darker spots or markings. The fingers are barely webbed, and the toes are two-thirds webbed.

These frogs are one of the main reasons to motivate me during my herpings for finding tree snakes. Whenever I see these frogs in a good number, my hopes boost up as it is easier to find tree snakes because, as the saying goes, “a predator is always lurking behind its prey.”

Photo: Riyaz Khoja
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Today’s herp photo of the day reminds us to always flip that tin! This five-lined skink was found with her eggs under a paving stone, uploaded by kingsnake.com user CDB_reptiles!

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By Herp News

When it comes to trafficking rhino, elephant, and tiger parts the biggest players are China, Kenya, India, Vietnam, South Africa and Thailand, according to a new paper in PNAS. Examining news media reports aggregated by HealthMap: Wildlife Trade, researchers were able to pinpoint the most important countries for exporting, moving and importing illegal wildlife parts worldwide.

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Lava from a volcanic eruption in the Galapagos is flowing away from the only known habitat of pink iguanas.

From Newsweek:

Isabela is a mostly uninhabited island that, along with the rest of the Galapagos, lies about 560 miles west of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean. It’s home to the incredible diversity of life that helped inform Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution when he visited the area in 1835.

Luckily, it appears that the iguanas are not in any immediate danger. The Galapagos National Park released a statement that these pink animals, along with their cousins the yellow iguanas and Galapagos giant tortoises, are not “expected to be affected.” The park reports that the lava is largely flowing onto the southeastern portion of the summit; the iguanas live on the northern flank of the volcano.

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As Jake and I started southward towards Okeechobee County, Florida, the conditions seemed perfect. A low pressure system with scattered thunderstorms was forecast at our destination for the evening hours, forecast temperatures seemed ideal, and almost exactly a year earlier Josh had found our target snake, a South Florida mole kingsnake, Lampropeltis calligaster occipitolineata.

Seemingly uncommon, the South Florida mole kingsnake was described in 1987. This grayish, yard long, largely fossorial constrictor bears 60-80 well defined dorsal blotches as well as smaller lateral blotches between each of the dorsal markings.
The belly, also bearing dark blotches is cream colored.

A prominent dark diagonal bar extends from each eye to the angle of the mouth and two elongate dark blotches are present on the nape.

Jake and I were stoked. Except for a slight breeze, even as we left the turnpike the conditions seemed ideal. Storm clouds amply decorated with lightning continued to build a bit to the west. When we turned westward, the storms seemed more distant than earlier, the gentle breezes had become gusty winds, and the high humidity had become almost desert dryness.

What had earlier been ideal mole king weather now seemed more appropriate for desert kings. And it stayed that way for the 2 days we had allocated. The mole kings failed to become surface active. We failed again!

Well, maybe next time.
Continue reading “Mole Kingsnakes: becoming accustomed to failure” …read more
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You know it is going to be fun when you start out the day with an Eastern coachwhip in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user jodscovry!

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By Herp News

A new survey last month put the number of wild Asiatic lions (Panthera leo persica) at 523 individuals, a rise of 27% from the previous survey in 2010. Once roaming across much of Central and Western Asia, Asiatic lions today are found in only one place: Gir Forest National Park and surrounding environs in western India.

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The Beddome’s keelback, Amphiesma beddomei, is the smallest member of the keelback family I have encountered. Its maximum length is 69 cm and it is named after Richard Henry Beddome, a British officer and botanist. I recently met this snake during my trip to Western Ghats.

Calling this post “Happy Ending” might have worked, too, because after couple of hours of herping in Western Ghats it was time for me to pack up things and return to my accomodations. On my way back I came to a stream and decided to wash my face. There in front of me I saw something moving on a small river rock.

After an observation of a few seconds I realized it was a Beddome’s keelback flicking its tongue!

Photo: Ryaz Khoja

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Using genetic profiling, the University of Georgia is tracking loggerhead turtle females, including where they nest and lay eggs.

From phys.org:

Traditional methods call for researchers to attach a tag to turtle flippers to track them, but studies show that flipper tagging can miss up to 20 percent of all females that nest on a beach each season. Researchers also know that females nest on several different beaches, which can cause miscalculations about the turtle population. They can’t monitor all of the beaches where the turtles nest at night, and many of the flipper tags get lost eventually, Nairn said. But much like a human fingerprint, the genetic signature obtained using the DNA method is unique for each individual turtle.

Not only does this DNA information identify the turtle mother, but it also allows researchers to speculate on population recovery, including how many nests are being laid, how often turtles nest and how many females are laying eggs. Over the first two years of the study, UGA identified around 800 nesting mothers along the Georgia coast, and researchers continue to track those turtles, including where they’ve nested over the years and how often they’ve returned to nest.

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We love everything that rattles, but today we give the spotlight to this baby timber rattlesnake in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user jameswv!

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By Herp News

In this commentary, Fred Bercovitch, wildlife conservation biologist at Kyoto University, confronts the conservation community with an unconventional approach to stopping the ivory trade and illegal elephant killing. The views expressed are his own.

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It is summer, so we start our week off with something a lil hot with this photo of a Lansberg’s hognosed pitviper (Porthidium lansbergii) in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user neverscared!

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This week’s Herp Video at least gives the fisherman proof of the one that got away! This angler loses his big Northern to the original fisherman in this lake, a giant snapping turtle!

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This week’s Herp Video at least gives the fisherman proof of the one that got away! This angler loses his big Northern to the original fisherman in this lake, a giant snapping turtle!

Submit your own reptile & amphibian videos at http://www.kingsnake.com/video/ and you could see them featured here or check out all the videos submitted by other users! …read more
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By Herp News

Wolves use their noses to track their quarry by its scent. Now a scientist is turning the tables, building a handheld device to study endangered Mexican gray wolves based on the odor of their scat.

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Collected by biology students visiting Cuba, then introduced to Florida, this species has thrived!

Hearkening back a half century or so, I can remember standing at the Hialeah Racetrack with Jerry Fine in the early 1960s and wondering if we ever would see one of the (then) rather newly and deliberately introduced knight anoles.

Although they were said to be gaining a foothold in Dade County, Florida, we had failed to find one. But within a few years these big anolines became common in roadside trees in Coral Gables. Ditto at the before mentioned Racetrack locale. And they were ever more commonly seen hanging head down on the trunks of palms or ficus trees, in many (most?) urban Miami plantings.

By the 1980s, the question was whether there was any place in Miami where they couldn’t be seen! Today, after finding them in thickets along the south shore of Lake Okeechobee, in Palm Beach and Collier counties, and in exotic plantings in St. John’s County (where they may have been carried in the plantings and may not be established) the question has become how far north of Dade County can this 16 inch long predatory lizard establish itself? And what are its prey items?

Insects (including large beetles and roaches) and other anoles (most often the introduced brown anole) are grist for the mill of the knight anole.
Continue reading “Knight anole makes a happy home in Florida “ …read more
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How much does it cost relocate threatened tortoises to a conservation area? Almost $100,000.

From wftv.com:

There are about 75 gopher tortoises on the property. Rodriguez was surprised to learn what it might cost to move them.

“Wow, yeah, that’s a big number. That is a very big number for them to actually move them,” she said.

City officials said the burrows are on approximately 80 acres, which they are going to use to build retention ponds for a large reclaimed water project.

In Florida, the gopher tortoise is a threatened species, so the reptile and its borrow are protected under state law.

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Most commonly known as the harlequin toad, this Atelopus barbotinitakes center stage in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user jamesmatthews!

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Frankie has brought together three of my favorite topics: Frankie (of course), poop and mushrooms. Patience please if you haven’t read all 470 Frankie Tails and don’t know that poop is a favorite subject. Most pet owners are not fond of their pet’s poops. If you own a sulcata tortoise, poop is not an avoided topic.

Compared to any other pet with smelly gut-wretching poop, the poop of a suclata is nice. It smells much less repulsive, it can be flung great distances (day old sulcata poop), makes the best compost, and as I have found, has other useful purposes.

As of yesterday, Frankie poop is big.

Yep, biggest poop yet, and there were four of them. Not dried yet enough to fling. Think I will wait until this one is really dry before I see how far this one will fly but I bet it make a “thud” when it hits ground. This and the other four were scooped with the Purple Pooper Scooper.

A bunch of last week poops were set in a place where rain is washing out all of Frankie’s grass. Again, Frankie poop is useful: while decaying and providing lots of good compost, poop is holding back rain water. Ha! Useful Frankie sulcata poop.

Bringing me back to the third topic of mushrooms. Yes, I am fascinated by mushrooms and have been for years. Okay, I’ll confess, when I was young I dated a guy who took me to a Grateful Dead concert and talked me into eating a magic mushrooms and I came to an understanding why people like Grateful Dead music and I danced in the aisles but so did all the other mushroom dropping concert goers and that is my only experience with magical mushrooms (and the Grateful Dead).

That is not why I think mushrooms are cool. They are cool because they seem to appear from no where, they come in all kinds of strange forms and shapes, and because they are cool. While on my wanderings in the wooded area looking for turtles I find lots of interesting mushrooms. I take pictures of mushrooms when there are no turtles to be found.

Mushrooms are now even cooler because they now make appearances on Frankie poop. Yep, Frankie poop occasionally produces mushrooms.

The first time mushrooms appeared it was just a freak thing, “Cooool!” The second time was like “Wow, man!” Now its like, “Ooooo, far out! They’re back.”

I already checked. None of them are psychedelic. Magic mushrooms don’t show up on turtle poop.

(These are not the shroons you are looking for.)
Pile of poop and white mushrooms.

Bit of compost poop and some brown mushrooms.

Once, on a very hot and humid …read more
Read more here: Turtle Times

By Herp News

The good news: conservationists believe that whatever killed off over a hundred thousand saiga in Kazakhstan in less than a month has abetted. The bad news: the final death tally is 134,252 saiga or around half the population of an animal already considered Critically Endangered. Given the dire situation, conservationists are now asking for emergency donations.

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After toiling for many days, a thought stuck to my mind to take a break from my schedule and go herping to one of my favorite scenic beauties of India, where you find flora and fauna as a paradise on earth.

This amazing place is known as Western Ghats of India, which has rich vegetation and magnificient creatures.

The Indian bullfrog, Haplobatrachus tigerinus, is a large species of frog found in India and especially in Western Ghats. As I was herping in suitable climate, it was my fate that I could easily find this beautiful creature and take some closeups.

An adult bullfrog measures 6.5 inches from snout to vent. I came across many adult bullfrog but as I approached them they jumped and disappeared. Finally I encountered a young and active but co-operative bullfrog — and trust me, this one was more beautiful than others. It was green in color with blackish-brown spots on it. I was quick enough to grab it and settle it on a leaf.

Losing no time, I took some photographs and he too showed patience and allowed me to do so.

After taking these photographs I left him and continued with my journey in these beautiful mountains and also encountered many lovely reptiles.

Photo: Sachin Mamgai

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Do you support this petition calling for the green iguana to be designated a domesticated animal?

From change.org:

Having this designation would afford them many advantages such as the protection under the humane laws that dogs and cats already enjoy. It would raise public awareness and education about the Green Iguana and that would give it more respect and better care like other domestics.

The definition of “Domesticated” will vary with every person that you speak to, but we agree with the one that is used legally by most city ordinances that states that it shall mean: bred for and adapted to living dependently in an urban household setting.

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A little “smile” to brighten your day from this lovely elongated tortoise in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user TylerStewart!

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Ten crocodiles born in Sweden will be released in Cuba, their parents’ native habitat.

From Global News:

The Skansen Zoo in Stockholm sent the reptiles to Cuba’s National Zoo in April to help encourage reproduction of the protected species native to the island.

Hiram Fernandez, a veterinarian at the Cuban zoo, says the reptiles will be released soon in Zapata Swamp, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southeast of the capital. Their ranks have been thinned by hunting and diminishing habitat, with few examples of Crocodylus rhombifer still found in Zapata Swamp and Cuba’s Isle of Youth.

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One of my favorite pit stops whenever Gordy and I visited Florida was Tarpon Zoo, now long out of business. Located in Tarpon Springs, about mid-distance between the Everglades and the Georgia state line on the Gulf side of Florida, Trudie, Mike, and George specialized in neotropical mammals, birds, and herps. Although they billed themselves as a zoo, the facility was actually a wildlife dealership that stocked everything from tapirs and macaws to Suriname toads, anacondas, bushmasters, and black caiman.

In fact, it was at Tarpon Zoo that I first saw and became enamored of baby black caiman, the most alligator-looking and by far the largest of the several caiman species. But the baby black caiman, with their yellowish faces and dark mandibular blotches, were even cuter than a baby alligator.

With only a mention that over the years black caiman have become a species rarely seen in both private and zoo collections in the United States, I’ll fast forward about 60 years to 2015. On our winter Amazonian ecotour of 2015, I had made the sighting of a baby black caiman one of our top priorities.

And as luck would have it, crocodilian expert Flavio and a few sidekicks accompanied us on that trip. I explained to Flavio that over the years several adults of the species had surfaced next to our boats as we searched after dark for anurans, but despite several tries to find a baby at a known “nursery” locale, we had failed.

Flavio and others took on the challenge.

Edwin, one of our Peruvian guides, scouted out the easiest and best way to get through the varzea to the nursery pond. The route involved an arduous trek, kayaking, then portaging the craft, then more kayaking, all the while circumnavigating rainforest treefalls.

And it was thanks to these Herculean efforts on the parts of others that I, over sixty years after first seeing baby black caiman in captivity, got to see a couple of dozen babies of this coveted taxon in the wild.

Life is good.

Continue reading “The search is on for a baby black caiman” …read more
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Who says reptile pets can’t give us joy!? Certainly not us! Kelly’s smile and joy is with his banana pectinata shines through in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user KellyP!

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By Herp News

In 1914 the world’s last passenger pigeon died. Nicknamed, Martha, she was not killed by hunters, but simply old age. With her passing, the passenger pigeon fell into extinction. A hundred years before Martha’s death, however, the passenger pigeon may have been the most populous bird in the world with a population often estimated in the billions. Now, conservationists warn history may be repeating itself.

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By Herp News

Raising healthy chicks is always a challenge, but in a cold, fish-free Arctic lake, it’s an enormous undertaking. Red-throated Loon parents must constantly fly back and forth between their nesting lakes and the nearby ocean, bringing back fish to feed their growing young, and a new study suggests that the chicks grow fast and fledge while they’re still small so that they can reach the food-rich ocean themselves and give their parents a break.

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By Herp News

Raising healthy chicks is always a challenge, but in a cold, fish-free Arctic lake, it’s an enormous undertaking. Red-throated Loon parents must constantly fly back and forth between their nesting lakes and the nearby ocean, bringing back fish to feed their growing young, and a new study suggests that the chicks grow fast and fledge while they’re still small so that they can reach the food-rich ocean themselves and give their parents a break.

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By Herp News

A researcher who generates three-dimensional computer models of animals using a micro-CT scanner found that in analyzing a frog specimen, another animal was present inside the frog — another frog.

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By Herp News

A researcher who generates three-dimensional computer models of animals using a micro-CT scanner found that in analyzing a frog specimen, another animal was present inside the frog — another frog.

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In the seas of India you can find magnificent creatures and underwater activities.

Found in coastal areas, the file snake, Achrochordus granulatus, is a non-venomous sea snake and an exception to my expectations that sea snakes are usually venomous — the reason I consider it a friendly inhabitant of the sea!

As the file snake is exceptional, it has a beautiful grey or black body with white or yellow bands patched, with its dark grey head and white spots embroiderd on it. This species is completely aquatic and nearly helpless on land.

The most interesting thing is that this species varies between sexes in feeding habits, the males actively hunt prey whereas the females sit and wait as ambush predators. The maximum length of the file snake is 120 cm, and it is viviparous by nature. The young snakes have distinct white bands.

I have encountered this beauty only once during my morning walk at beach in Mumbai. It was unable to move on dry sand so I just picked it up, handled it for a minute or two, and released it in the sea. One of the memorable morning walks of my life.

Photo: Riyaz Khoja

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Uluru skinks are the first lizards to show familial behavior, including raising several generations of offspring in a single family home.

From mongabay.com:

Adult Uluru skinks pair for consecutive years and may raise several generations in a single burrow constructed by the parents. Not unlike humans, multiple generations of skinks live in the shared home, with parents and children contributing to the maintenance and expansion of their home. The burrows are up to thirteen meters in length, have twenty entrances, and contain designated latrines. Researcher found that skink families inhabited them for up to 7 years straight.

DNA testing of Uluru skinks reveals that young lizards sharing the same burrow are nearly all full siblings, who delay leaving the burrow to care for the family home. According to Macquarie University researcher Dr. Adam Stow this cooperative living arrangement is remarkable for lizards: “It’s an unusual case of parental care and also having the siblings cooperate [that] make[s] them possibly the word’s most social lizard.”

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“Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get!” While that may be true with chocolates, the work in genetics helps us know almost what is going to pop out of a clutch. But there is a great variety as seen in this clutch of boa constrictors in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user creptilia!

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By Herp News

Mukhtar used to be an illegal logger. Now he coordinates community forest rangers in Indonesia’s Aceh province. His job involves preventing dangerous human-elephant encounters and helping communities protect themselves from environmental offenders – like Mukhtar once was.

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