A herp-themed round-up of the news from the last week:

You may love them, but your reptiles aren't welcome at 49ers football games. Read more...

Herpetologist Natalia Rossi talks about crocodiles in southeastern Cuba as part of a celebration of the contributions of women to the practice of conservation. Read more...

The New York Times takes a look at rattlesnake "round-ups" and gassing... probably more favorably than most herpers would. Read more...

Biscuits, a very important loggerhead, is back where she belongs. Watch the video below:



Photo: Natalia Rossi/WCS

Check out our Herp Video of the Week, submitted by kingsnake.com user boa2cobras.
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Did you ever find anything cool when you were a kid? How about discovering an entirely new species in a swimming pool?



From National Geographic:

The 1.5-inch-long (4-centimeter-long) frog "is rather strange-looking—it’s quite fat with short legs and bright orange spots on its sides," said Luis German Naranjo, WWF Colombia‘s conservation director.

Naranjo and a team of scientists were surveying wildlife in eastern Colombia’s Orinoco savanna, including animals found on a small farm.

Expecting to find little more than livestock, the team was surprised when the farmer’s seven-year-old son, whose name was given only as Camilito, called the group over to a pool. There, in the water, was the small spotted frog.

The team’s herpetologist, Daniel Cuentas, had never seen anything like it, and immediately set out looking for other examples.

Read more...

Photo: Adam Dixon, WWF

This physicist doesn't just spend his days working with sidewinder rattlesnakes, but he makes robots of them, too.

From Popular Science:

Daniel Goldman spends his days working with venomous rattlesnakes, baby sea turtles, and a dozen other types of animals. But he isn’t a zookeeper, or even a biologist. He’s a physicist, studying locomotion at Georgia Tech. In order to test his hypotheses, he builds robots that mimic the ways animals move. Jealous yet?

Popular Science: Why do you have so many sandboxes?

Daniel Goldman: No one has ever studied the complexities of a sidewinder rattlesnake’s movement on sand, its natural substrate. In principle, you can understand how a hummingbird stays aloft or how a shark swims by solving fluid-dynamics equations. We don’t yet have fundamental equations for complex terrain—sand, leaf litter, tree bark. To figure that out, we built giant sandboxes that are equipped with high-speed cameras and can tilt to mimic dunes.

PS: Which animals are the hardest ones to work with?

DG: The rattlesnakes were a lucky break. You put them in a sandbox, and they just start sidewinding—the sideways slithering they do to cross sand. But most animals don’t do what you want. Ghost crabs, for example, are ridiculously fast. In the laboratory, you can get about 10 good trials out of them: They’ll run away from you down a track, where high-speed cameras record them. After that, they seem to decide they are no longer afraid and start trying to pinch you.

Read more...

Photo: kingsnake.com user Ryan-reptilian

Researchers at Ohio University have found evidence that a venomous snake existed in Africa 25 million years ago.

From Science World:

"In the Oligocene epoch, from about 34 to 23 million years ago, we would have expected to see a fauna dominated by booid snakes, such as boas and pythons. These are generally 'sit and wait' constricting predators that hide and ambush passing prey," lead author Jacob McCartney, a postdoctoral researcher in the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, said in a news release.

The newly discovered species is named 'Rukwabyoka holmani' and was unearthed in the Rukwa Rift Basin of Tanzania. The species genus name comes from the Rukawa region with the Swahili word for snake. And the species name honors J.Alan Holman, a palaeontologist. The team found eight different types of fossil snakes varying in length from 2.6 mm to 5 mm.

Read more...

Photo: Ohio University/Science World

Scientists always assumed yellow-bellied sea snake, like other sea-living creatures, could process the salt out of sea water to meet their needs for hydration without the negative effects of salinity.

Turns out they were wrong, according to researcher Harvey Lillywhite from the University of Florida.

From National Geographic:

Lillywhite started studying this species in 2009, at a site off the coast of Costa Rica. “We’ve looked at hundreds,” he says. “No sea snake we’ve observed has drunk any seawater.”

They only stick to the fresh stuff, but the amount they drink varies throughout the year. These snakes live in a place that goes through drought from November to May. If they were captured during these dry spells, they betrayed their thirst by sipping heavily from fresh water; if they were caught in wetter months, they barely drank. “If the snake drinks fresh water, it’s thirsty,” says Lillywhite. “If it’s thirsty, it’s dehydrated, and if it’s dehydrated, it’s not doing what the textbooks said.”

The team also found that the snakes had significantly less water in their bodies than in the dry months than in the wet ones. Despite having a salt gland and being surrounded in water, the snakes are thirsty and dehydrated for months on end. Lillywhite thinks that they cope by having an unusually high amount of water in their bodies to begin with. They might also have adaptations that help them to lose water slowly, and to withstand the effects of dehydration.

In the wild, it is possible that the snakes use deep springs or estuaries, but they are incredibly widespread and Lillywhite has never found any evidence of them congregating in specific sites.

Instead, rain brings them salvation.

Read more...

Photo: Wikipedia

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Way back in the 50s -- the 1850s, that is -- a scientist named discovered fossils of an Australian lizard he dubbed Megalania prisca. Measuring around 20 feet long, and suspected of living at the same time as early humans arrived on Australia, he was one big scary lizard.

Or not.

From the NatGeo blog of self-described "fossil killjoy" Brian Switek:

...Megalania ain’t what it used to be. For one thing, the lizard’s bones are so similar to those of other monitor species – belonging to the genus Varanus – that paleontologists have taken to calling it Varanus priscus. And while it seems likely that the big lizard was venomous, recent size estimates have shrunk this “dragon in the dust.”

Let’s have a look at the traditional baseline first. In 2004, working with the relationship between vertebrae size and body length, paleontologist Ralph Molnar proposed that mature Varanus priscus could have been between 23 and 26 feet long, depending on the anatomy of the tail. But other researchers think such sizes are major overestimates. In a 2002 study that critiqued “the myth of reptilian domination” in prehistoric Australia, anatomist Stephen Wroe reanalyzed old body size data and calculated that the lizard probably averaged about 11 feet in total length and, citing earlier estimates from Molnar, wouldn’t have grown much longer than 15 feet.

Size estimates in a 2012 paper by paleontologist Jack Conrad and colleagues came out in between the extremes. While describing a new, large Varanus species that once lived in Greece, the researchers also took a look back at Australia’s ever-contentious lizard. Without the tail, the Varanus priscus specimen in their study had an estimated body length of almost seven feet, meaning that this individuals total length was almost certainly longer than the 11 foot average Wroe suggested. Especially large specimens, Conrad and coauthors noted, could have had bodies almost 10 feet long with the tails trailing behind, although these animals still would have been smaller than the monstrous lizards paleontologists used to reconstruct.

Read more...

Photo: Cas Liber/NatGeo

Seven sea turtles, named Hook, Jack, Emerald, Chris, Augustus, Jared and Pe’e, suffering from blindness caused by fibropapilloma tumors around their eyes, can see again, thanks to Florida veterinarian Dr. Lorraine Karpinski.

From the Miami Herald:

The turtles didn’t know it, but their lives were in the hands of the sandal-wearing vet who has worked for 42 years on animals’ eyes — including those of Lolita the killer whale and thoroughbred Seattle Slew before he won the Triple Crown.

Bette Zirkelbach, manager of the nonprofit Turtle Hospital in the Middle Keys' island town of Marathon, had contacted Karpinski a few months earlier “in desperation” to find a new treatment to help Hook and Jack avoid euthanization. As in the case of many turtles with the same condition, their eye tumors grew back about six weeks after being removed, a process that kept repeating itself.

"We can’t release turtles back into the wild if they don’t have vision in at least one eye," Zirkelbach said.

Karpinski came up with the idea of trying Fluorouracil, an anti-cancer medication used in humans. Karpinski already had found success using it on horses with skin cancer and on a Malayan tapir at Zoo Miami with eye tumors. Maybe, she thought, it would work on the endangered sea creatures.

"Dr. Karpinski got creative," Zirkelbach said. "And honestly, the turtles had nothing to lose."

Read more...

A pair of Kihanga reed frogs has been discovered in Eastern Tanzania.

From the Western Morning News:

The Whitley Wildlife Conservation Trust, which runs Paignton Zoo, Living Coasts in Torquay and Newquay Zoo in Cornwall, helped fund the fieldwork with rare amphibians in the mountains of Eastern Tanzania.

It has led to the discovery of two Kihanga reed frogs, a male and female, by Elena Tonelli, a PhD student at Manchester Metropolitan University whose work is part-funded by the trust.

The frogs are officially endangered and the two photographed by Ms Tonelli were recorded in the northern part of the Uzungwa Scarp Forest Reserve, some distance from their only previously known site - a small swamp in the centre of the reserve.

The student has since also found the species, which hadn’t been seen at all for a decade, at the original site.

Read more...

Photo: Elena Tonelli/Western Morning News

Tyrannosaurus rex didn't just have tiny arms. He had a tiny cousin, too, say paleontologists Anthony Fiorillo and Ronald Tykoski of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas.

From CNN:

Researchers discovered the dinosaur's remains in 2006 in the Prince Creek Formation on Alaska's North Slope. At the same quarry, Fiorillo and Tykoski have previously uncovered other important finds, such as remnants of the horned dinosaur species Pachyrhinosaurs perotorum, whose discovery was announced in 2011.

"I find it absolutely thrilling that there is another new dinosaur found in the polar region," Fiorillo said in a statement from the Perot Museum. "It tells us that the ecosystem of ancient Arctic was a very different place, and it challenges everything we know about dinosaurs."

[...]

A Tyrannosaurus rex would have weighed between 7 and 8 tons, with a length of about 40 feet. By comparison, an adult Nanuqsaurus might have been only 25 feet long, with a weight of 1,000 pounds. The head was probably about 2 feet long, CNN affiliate WFAA reported.

"There were features in these specimens that were unique; you didn't see them in other tyrannosaurs," Tykoski told WFAA.

Read more...

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A groundbreaking tinker frog breeding program in Australia seeks to save the species from extinction due to chytrid.

From News 7 Australia:

Two of the six species of tinker frog have already been wiped out, and researchers believe the lethal amphibian Chytrid fungus is to blame.

The one- to two-centimetre-long frog, which is native only to Queensland rainforests, gets its name from its unique call, according to Professor Jean-Marc Hero from Griffith University.

"The thing that really makes them stand out is their tinker, the sound they make is like the tinker of a glass jar with a metal pen or something," he said.

Professor Hero says a new program on the Gold Coast has managed to breed the tinker frog for the first time.

"There are only six species - they are an ancient Gondwana group - and at least three of those are already gone," he said.

"We are looking to recover and support the species that are remaining."

Read more...

If a first responder is on the scene of an accident or injury, and there's a loose reptile present, or the injured person was bitten by one, will they know what to do? They will if they've been taught the basics by an expert.

That's exactly the program being offered in one Canadian community.

From Simcoe.com:

Andre Ngo, director of research and curriculum at Reptilia, a Vaughan-based reptile zoo, gave an informative presentation to almost 25 police, firefighters and bylaw officers in Stayner Friday afternoon.

“It was an excellent training opportunity for us,” Clearview fire chief Colin Shewell said. “We got some real insight in terms of what to do when we encounter a reptile or are dealing with someone harmed by one.”

Huronia West OPP officers, Clearview firefighters, representatives from Clearview bylaw and firefighters from Springwater, Adjala-Tosorontio, Mulmur/Melancthon, Blue Mountains and Oro-Medonte attended the training session, held at the Joint Emergency Services Facility on Highway 26.

“My goal with you is to teach you how to secure a scene and stay safe,” Ngo said.

He started off by reviewing the major groups of reptiles and identified commonly encountered species. He also talked about safe handling practices.

Read more...

Photo: Simcoe.com

Timothy N. W. Jackson

Australia is world famous for its venomous critters, including its many highly venomous snakes.

The snake that holds the popular title of “world’s most venomous” is the inland taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus), an inhabitant of Australia’s arid interior. Astonishingly, a single bite from an inland taipan is capable of delivering enough venom to kill 250,000 lab mice.

The venom of the inland taipan has attracted considerable research interest and the toxins responsible for its extreme toxicity have been identified. Effective antivenom also exists for the treatment of bites.

What we don’t know, though, is why the inland taipan needs such toxic venom. We know almost nothing about the evolutionary selection pressures that have refined and enhanced the toxins present in the venom of this iconic species of snake.

Snakes vs humans

Historically, the focus of snake venom research worldwide has been anthropocentric – examining the impact the venom has for humans. Large species of venomous snake, those that are known to be potentially dangerous to humans, have received the lion’s share of attention.

Most attention has been given to the development of antivenom and to studying the building blocks of toxic proteins found in snake venoms. This has allowed us to learn more about human physiology and to search for compounds that may be useful in drug design, such as the toxin from the venom of a pit viper from which the blood pressure medication Captopril was developed.

These are important goals for venom research, but the result of this bias toward human interest is that we still know very little about the ways in which snakes use their venom in nature. We also do not know how diet influences its composition – the ecology of venom is an almost completely neglected area of research.

As Eastern kingsnake numbers in the southeastern U.S. drop, copperhead populations climb, according to a new study published in the journal Herpetologica.



From the Augusta Chronicle:

The non-venomous kingsnakes, which grow to more than 5-feet long, are so-named because they have a natural immunity to pit-viper venom, which allows them to prey on other snakes. They eat copperheads, a heavy-bodied venomous snake that can grow to a little more than 3-feet long.

From 377 traps deployed in an array of habitats, the authors recorded captures of 299 kingsnakes and 2,012 copperheads. Fort Stewart was one of the study sites in Georgia, along with the Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center at Ichauway in the southwest corner of the state. The data indicates that declines in the kingsnake populations coincide with increases in the copperhead populations. Why that happens is open to interpretation.

Read more...

Photo: kingsnake.com user foxturtle

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Baby sea turtles, like kids everywhere, don't always do what we expect them to do. University of Central Florida researcher Kate Mansfield and her team found a way to keep an eye on their movements -- and what they discovered surprised them.

From LiveScience.com:

Marine biologists track seagoing creatures, including adult loggerheads, with satellite tags that transmit information such as location, depth and temperature. But hatchlings are too small to tag — affix a tag with heavy batteries to these turtles, and they'll sink, Mansfield said.

Advances in tag technology have started to change all that. New tags are smaller and solar-powered (no heavy batteries needed), Mansfield said. They're still too large to affix to a newborn loggerhead, but they fit on young turtles. Mansfield and her colleagues lab-reared 17 loggerhead turtles to the age of 3.5 to 9 months, waiting until the turtles had reached between 4 inches and 7 inches (11 to 18 cm) in length before tagging them and releasing them into the Atlantic Ocean.

The long-standing expectation was that baby turtles hatch off the East Coast of the United States, launch into the Gulf Stream that carries them north up the coast and then ride into the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre. This system of currents takes the turtles past the Azores off the coast of Western Europe and down the coast of Africa, before the animals pop back out on the East Coast again.

While the turtles do use the Gulf Stream and the Gyre, they don't always complete this ring around the Atlantic, the researchers report today (March 4) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. In fact, the turtles completed quite diverse journeys; they traveled clockwise, but on their own, individual paths. Some even dropped out of the Gyre into the still waters within that circular current, known as the Sargasso Sea. The Sea gets its name, in part, from the floating Sargassum that gathers there.

Read the full story here...

Photo: Jim Abernethy/LiveScience.com

Humans battle over the dinner check, but in Australia, a python and a crocodile battled over which one of them would be dinner. Ctizen journalist Tiffany Corlis was on the scene and caught it on her camera.



From BBC News:

"It was amazing," she told the BBC. "We saw the snake fighting with the crocodile - it would roll the crocodile around to get a better grip, and coil its body around the crocodile's legs to hold it tight."

"The fight began in the water - the crocodile was trying to hold its head out of the water at one time, and the snake was constricting it."

"After the crocodile had died, the snake uncoiled itself, came around to the front, and started to eat the crocodile, face-first," she added.

Ms Corlis said it appeared to take the snake around 15 minutes to eat the crocodile.

The snake was "definitely very full," when it finished, she said. "I don't know where it went after that - we all left, thinking we didn't want to stick around!"

Read the full story, and see the rest of her photos, here.

It may sound like an horror movie, but it's not, as 66-year-old Jake Thomas learned the hard way.

Mr Thomas, a volunteer who mows the local cemetery at Werris Creek where his daughter Kim is buried, came across the snake during his usual clean-up. It was in a vase on a headstone.

Fearful about other people's safety, Mr Thomas cut the snake in half. Like most people would, he had thought the strike had killed the snake, so he left to finish off the rest of the cemetery maintenance.

About 45 minutes later he came back to get rid of the snake. "I put my hand in the vase to pick it up and it grabbed on to me even though it was dead," Mr Thomas said.

"I pulled my hand out and saw two little marks and knew it had got hold of me."

Read more...

Photo: Peter Lorimer/Daily Telegraph

Do you ever catch site of spotted salamanders and wood frogs in the field? The Orianne Society wants to recruit you.

From Living Alongside Wildlife:

The Orianne Society recently initiated "Snapshots in Time", a long-term Citizen Science project aimed at mobilizing people to monitor the timing of Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) and Wood Frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) breeding throughout the respective ranges of these species. The purpose of this project is to use the data collected—by on-the-ground citizens, year-after-year—to investigate possible effects of climate change on the timing of reproduction. Determining changes in the timing of breeding is very important, not just for these species, but others that use the same habitat. Ultimately, the results of this project could allow us to inform land managers and development planners of important areas for conservation and look deeper into what other species in these ecosystems may be negatively affected by climate change, including some endangered species.

Read more...

Photo: kingsnake.com user nategodin