Reptile & Amphibian News Blog
Keep up with news and features of interest to the reptile and amphibian community on the kingsnake.com blog. We cover breaking stories from the mainstream and scientific media, user-submitted photos and videos, and feature articles and photos by Jeff Barringer, Richard Bartlett, and other herpetologists and herpetoculturists.
Wednesday, July 3 2013
This image of a Hatchet-faced Tree Frog, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Herpetologia, is our herp photo of the day!
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Tuesday, July 2 2013
![](/blog/uploads/gartersnake.jpg) The city of San Francisco is on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in court-ordered penalties related to destruction of endangered snake and frog species on city-owned land.
From SF Weekly:
The judgment is a victory for the Wildlife Equity Institute and other environmental organizations, which sued the city in 2011 for violations of the federal Endangered Species Act. The nonprofit claimed that the city was killing two protected species, the San Francisco Garter Snake and the California Red-Legged Frog, by draining the 18-hole Sharp Park Golf Course throughout the years.
U.S. District judge Susan Illston denied the city's defense that it wasn't killing the animals, noting that "as a result of construction activities and golf course maintenance operations, all Frogs, all Snakes, and 130 egg masses will be subject to incidental take." As a result, Illston ordered San Francisco to pay $386,000 that will go toward paying the institute's attorney fees.
Read the rest here.
Photo: Victor Abbley/SF Weekly
Departure day had caught up with us, and departure time was approaching rapidly. We had a couple of hours left until checkout, so we decided to take one more stroll to a couple of South Bimini locales.
Destination, the vicinity of a well that actually held a little water.
We had little hope of completing our “Herps found on Bimini” checklist, but there was a chance of finding one or two additional taxa. And that was exactly what we accomplished.
More greenhouse frogs, Eleutherodactylus planirostris, an adult Cuban treefrog, Osteopilus septentrionalis, dozens of Cuban treefrog tadpoles, and many hermit crabs were added to our lists.
Continue reading "Saying goodbye to Bahamanian herping"
![](/blog/uploads/TwoHead.jpg) Forget the Texas two-step. A two-headed Texas cooter turtle is the star of the San Antonio Zoo.
From Time:
The emerald green turtle, which arrived on June 18 and went on display Tuesday, has two noggins conjoined near the neck. Zoo officials named the Texas cooter Thelma and Louise, in tribute to the 1991 movie starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis about a female duo on the run. The turtle, which is actually a pair of unseparated twins, is healthy and eating with both heads.
Read more here.
This image of a Copperhead, uploaded by kingsnake.com user cochran, is our herp photo of the day!
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Monday, July 1 2013
Check out this video "Garter Snake Eating Toad," submitted by kingsnake.com user naturebreak.
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This image of a Water Dragon, uploaded by kingsnake.com user jessie1293, is our herp photo of the day!
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Friday, June 28 2013
![](/blog/uploads/dinopet.jpg) While dogs are America's most desired pet, and 21 percent of people rated snakes as the most terrifying of all animals, a hefty 18 percent say they want... a pet dinosaur.
From National Geographic:
Public Policy Polling interviewed 603 registered voters by telephone between June 11 and 13, asking them 36 questions relating to their views on pets, animal phobias, and other random creature preferences. The poll, which was not authorized or paid for by any campaign or political organization, had a margin of error of +/-4 percent.
[...]
1. Twenty-one percent rated snakes as the most terrifying animal, followed by alligators at 19 percent and sharks and bears at 18 and 14 percent, respectively.
2. Nine percent of those polled are vegan or vegetarian, while 91 percent are not.
3. Eighteen percent believe the Loch Ness Monster is real.
4. On preferences for an exotic pet, 26 percent said they would choose a tiger, 20 percent a giraffe, 18 percent a dinosaur, and 16 percent an elephant. (Read about exotic animals as pets.)
5. Ninety percent said they would not want a hippopotamus for Christmas—perhaps to the collective relief of hippos worldwide.
Read more here.
This image of a Jungle Jaguar, uploaded by kingsnake.com user KE, is our herp photo of the day!
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Thursday, June 27 2013
We began the next morning of our Bimini reunion by seeking additional Bimini Green Anoles.
We hoped, but failed, to photograph a displaying male. Bimini curlytails were already out sunning on sidewalks and garden walls. The cross-channel ferry to the South Island was nearing. It was our plan to return to the airport and work our way southward to the tip of the island, searching for twig (also called ghost) anoles, geckos and whatever else we could find.
As it turned out the twig anoles, Anolis angusticeps oligaspis, were rather easily found as they thermoregulated in the morning sunshine at the tips of slender, sparsely leafed, twigs.
Continue reading "Bimini, Bahamas: Eight taxa left to find!"
![](/blog/uploads/SnakeExpert.jpg) A German snake expert lost his life after being bitten by a viper during an educationl presentation in France.
From Time:
Dieter Zorn, 53, was in the middle of a presentation about reptiles when he was bitten several times by an Aspic viper. Due to a rare allergy, he suffered a heart attack and died shortly thereafter.
Zorn had been travelling to different villages across the region, delivering presentations that focused on educating the public about snakes and reptiles and helping them overcome their fears of the creatures. After he got bitten, he managed to get the snake back into a cage, preventing it from attacking anyone else present, the Local notes.
Emergency responders arrived at the scene and attempted to administer a blood thinner, but they weren’t able to save him.
Read the full story here.
Photo: Vasily Fedosenko / REUTERS
This image of a Kingsnake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user HappyHeathen, is our herp photo of the day!
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Wednesday, June 26 2013
![](/blog/uploads/ChinSal.jpg) There's a new organization in the science world, the Ugly Animal Preservation Society (UAPS), "dedicated to raising the profile of some of Mother Nature's more aesthetically challenged children." The organization's president, Simon Watt, is fed up with pandas getting all the attention.
From Discovery News:
Watt, who is also an evolutionary biologist, and his team definitely did not showcase cute and furry pandas at recent UAPS events held at the Edinburgh Science Fest and Bristol's Big Green Week. Media attention instead was paid to animals such as the appropriately named blobfish.
"Our society needs a mascot, one to rival the cute and cuddly emblems of many charities and organizations," shares Watt.
At the end of each UAPS event, the audience votes on a mascot.
One contender is the Chinese giant salamander, with a head resembling an angry block of concrete.
Read the rest, and show some uglies the love, here.
Photo: H. Zell, Wikimedia Commons
This image of a Tree Boa, uploaded by kingsnake.com user bsuson, is our herp photo of the day!
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Tuesday, June 25 2013
My yard in Ft. Myers, FL, was well-populated with Green Anoles, Anolis carolinensis. Although most males that I saw had dewlaps of bright pinkish red, dewlaps that I then referred to as “normal” a small percentage had dewlaps of greenish-white, gray, grayish green, or (I suspected) when a normal and a gray interbred the dewlap would be pale pink broadly edged with gray or white.
But if the dewlap wasn’t normal then the lizards were referred to as “abnormals.” But truthfully, I never thought too much about the dewlap color. I just enjoyed the lizards for what they were.
Then in 1991 the unthinkable happened. In the Bulletin of the Maryland Herpetological Society, Thomas Vance elevated these gray throats to subspecies status and dubbed them Anolis carolinensis seminolus.
I was perplexed by this listing then and remain so today, for as I understood the subspecies concept (and I am a believer in subspecies), two subspecies could not populate the self same niche, and to qualify as a subspecies 75 percent of a population must display the stated characteristics.
Continue reading "A dewlap of a different color"
![](/blog/uploads/American_Alligator.JPG) Environmental contamination is causing some alligator populations to have difficulty reproducing.
From Living Alongside Wildlife:
When the sizes of penises were compared between lakes, alligators in Lake Apopka had on average 24% smaller penises than alligators in Lake Woodruff. When the time came for these juveniles to reproduce, this significant reduction in penis size made it difficult to mate and certainly didn’t impress the lady alligators.
This study showed that male alligators in Lake Apopka, which is contaminated with endocrine disruptors, were significantly different than alligators from a lake that had relatively little pollution. In order to help determine the physiological drivers, in other words the chemical pathways in the body that shape these physical differences, behind this reduction in penis size, Dr. Guillette also looked at plasma testosterone concentrations. Plasma testosterone is responsible for the formation and development of male external genitalia. He discovered that juvenile alligators in Lake Apopka had 70% lower concentrations of plasma testosterone than those at Lake Woodruff. Abnormal hormone levels like these are associated with decreased sperm counts and reduced fertility. This can be disastrous for maintaining healthy wildlife populations. The results of this study inspired Dr. Guillette to continue to look at the physiological effects of endocrine disruptors on reproductive systems.
Read the full story here.
This image of an African clawed frog, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Krallenfrosch, is our herp photo of the day!
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Monday, June 24 2013
![](/blog/uploads/Caramel_burmese_python.JPG) Responsible herpers in the West Fargo have been working for twelve months to rewrite a city ordinance prohibiting large constricting snake species.
The ordeal began in July of 2012, when a man brought his 8’ Burmese python into a public park and the police informed him it was illegal for the snake to be in the city. This triggered a reaction that brought to light an unregulated ordinance that banned “any poisonous, venomous, constricting or inherently dangerous member of the reptile or amphibian families.” The city’s police chief stated than he was not a fan of snakes and the mayor has similar feelings. The city officials were initially against changing the ordinance but the reptile folks have won the fight.
The python owner originally addressed the city council at the first open meeting following the incident and failed to receive a majority vote. At the next city meeting, dedicated reptile keepers and members of the Fargo Herpetological Society, with assistance from the National Herpetological Congress, addressed the ordinance in a professional manner and began the process of revising the ordinance with the city officials.
After months of work with an anti-reptile city board, the largest species of snakes are now allowed in the city on a permitted system. The herp community in West Fargo could have been inactive and left the original ordinance in place, but by educating the city officials and putting forth some effort, they now have the opportunity to keep large constrictors.
Continue reading "Herpers work with city to rewrite ordinance"
Check out this video "Two headed bearded dragon," submitted by kingsnake.com user RoachMei.
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This image of an Angolan Python, uploaded by kingsnake.com user EdCB, is our herp photo of the day!
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Friday, June 21 2013
![](/blog/uploads/GlitterNailPolishTurtle.jpg) Someone thought Mother Nature could be improved on with nail polish and glitter when it came to the shell of an Eastern Box Turtle -- putting the turtle's life at risk.
From care2.com:
Earlier this week, the good folks at the Wildlife Center of Virginia rescued an Eastern box turtle discovered at a nearby campground after it fell victim to an unscrupulous ‘artist’. According to staff, the reptile’s shell had been vandalized with several types of nail polish and glitter — threatening its survival by making it an easy target for predators.
“Box turtles have this great natural camouflage that just allows them to blend into their environment,” says staffer Amanda Nicholson. “And this is really sending a message to the world of, ‘hey, look at me.’”
The wildlife center isn’t certain whether the turtle is an abandoned pet, or if someone ran across it in the wild and decided to add this gaudy graffiti, but the tagged shell does offer some clues as to who might be responsible. Along with the word “Sheldon”, taken to be the female turtle’s name, are the initials “SKR” and “BDM” — perhaps belonging to the culprits.
Read the story here and watch the video here.
This image of a Horned Frog, uploaded by kingsnake.com user reptillia69, is our herp photo of the day!
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Thursday, June 20 2013
Although Jake and I both live in Florida and thought that we were rather used to the heat of summer, we both found the lack of available shade on Bimini a bit disconcerting. True, there was always the dense scrubby woodlands, but these were so amply packed with poisonwood (to which we are both very allergic) that neither of us chose to spend much time therein. The lack of transportation on South Bimini was also taking its toll. Departure time was drawing ever nearer and we were still nine taxa short of our goal.
Then came a bit of good luck. Asked by a store owner what we were doing on South Bimini, we explained that we were photographing reptiles but weren’t having the best of luck.
His response was “Look up Jack and Jill (fictitious names as I don’t know whether they would choose to be identified). They know all about the reptiles here.” So that afternoon we did just that. Not only did these kind folks allow us to photo a Bimini Boa, Epicrates striatus fosteri, that was temporarily in their keeping, but they provided a few locales for us to check that evening.
So after supper, as darkness enveloped us and the BSDs (blood-sucking dipterids in the forms of mosquitos and no-see-ums) came out to play, we were back on South Bimini.
Continue reading "Bimini, Bahamas: A 40 Year Reunion, Part 4"
![](/blog/uploads/LN3YZ.St.58.jpeg) University of Texas at Arlington evolutionary biologists Todd Castoe and Matthew Fujita are part of the team unlocking secrets of the Western painted turtle genome to find ways to help humans.
From the Star-Telegram:
Castoe and Fujita were among nearly 60 co-authors of a paper published in the journal Genome Biology this spring that described the findings from the genome sequencing, only the second full genetic mapping on a reptile.
The researchers found that the painted turtle’s genes used for tolerance of extreme cold and oxygen deprivation are common to all vertebrates but that they are more active in turtles that experience the extreme conditions. One gene that humans share became 130 times more active in turtles subjected to low-oxygen environments.
Further study of the turtle genome could yield clues related to human health and well-being, particularly oxygen deprivation, hypothermia and longevity.
“It’s very hard to do research on people,” said Pamela Jansma, dean of the UTA College of Science, “but if you know that animals have a similar gene pairing, you can study how those genes trigger responses to environmental stimuli. You can map that to humans, and you can then imagine developing gene therapies to address certain diseases.”
Read more here.
Photo: Brandon Wade/Star-Telegram.
This image of a Nile crocodile, uploaded by kingsnake.com user CDieter, is our herp photo of the day!
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Wednesday, June 19 2013
![](/blog/uploads/get-attachment.jpg) My first tokay gecko was purchased on a whim. I was living in Albuquerque, NM, just out of college, living back home while looking for work with no idea of where I'd end up. I made one of my regular trips into the only pet store in town that sold reptiles, and came eyeball to eyeball with a tokay gecko.
For someone whose lifetime experience with lizards had been limited to whiptails and what we called sand lizards ( Uta sp.) the tokay was breathtaking. Money changed hands (I think the gecko cost $6.95) and I went home, proudly bearing my new treasure in a brown paper bag. I had a glass-fronted cage made from a dresser drawer leftover from my high school days, so I dug the cage out and set it up. I opened the bag with the gecko inside and placed it inside the cage. Pretty soon Fido Fidas Fidarae, Fido for short, came out of the bag and clung enchantingly to the back wall of the cage. I sat and watched him. He was something to look at, grey with powdered blue and deep red tubercles.
I knew nothing about geckos, and no idea Fido was nocturnal, although his large eyes gave me a basic clue. When he didn't immediately drink from his water dish, I was worried because I knew that reptiles need water. I opened the cage, covered my hand with a hand towel (I'd been bitten by race runners and knew lizards could nip) and picked him up. I offered him fresh cool water, streaming from the bathroom sink. He thanked me by turning inside the towel and latching onto the very end of my index finger. I saw stars. I tried to free my finger by pulling gently. He tightened down so hard his eyeballs sank in. I took him into the utility room and tried to gently pry his mouth open with a screwdriver. His jaw bent alarmingly and his eyeballs sunk in.
The two of us wandered around the house, my free hand supporting the lizard/hand/towel combination. I wondered what to do next, imagining the lizard as part of a bridal bouquet. I didn't even have a boyfriend at the time, but it was beginning to feel as if this lizard was going to be a permanent attachment. I returned to the bathroom sink, filled it partially with cool water, and stuck my lizardhand, already a single word in my vernacular, into the water. To my numbed delight, Fido let go. I drained the sink, covered him with the towel, and picked him up carefully and returned him to his house.
I moved to Florida a few months later, and Fido went with me. He lived for years, drinking sprayed-in water droplets from the sides of his tank and feeding on thawed, frozen mice. He took them with such intensity his eyeballs sank in, and it always made me flinch.
Things turned out OK for me and Fido, but the moral of this story is simply know what you're getting into before you plunk down your cash.
Your fingertips may thank you.
Continue reading "Tokay gecko: Knowing what to expect"
![](/blog/uploads/darwin-frog1.jpg) Frogs bearing Charles Darwin's name are at risk of extinction in Chile.
From Live Science:
Charles Darwin first discovered the frogs while traveling in Chile in 1834. Scientists who later studied the mouth-brooding animals found that there are actually two species, naming one Rhinoderma darwinii (Darwin's frog) and the other Rhinoderma rufum (Chile Darwin's frog).
From 2008 to 2012, a team of researchers led by zoologist Claudio Soto-Azat surveyed 223 sites in the frogs' historical range, from the coastal city of Valparaíso south to an area just beyond Chiloé Island. R. rufum has not been seen in the wild since 1980, and despite the recent extensive search effort across every recorded location of the species, no individuals were seen or heard during the four-year survey, the researchers said. R. darwinii, meanwhile, was found in 36 sites, but only in fragmented and small populations, each with likely less than 100 individuals.
The findings suggest Darwin's frogs have disappeared from, or at least rapidly declined in, many locations where they were recently abundant, the researchers wrote in a paper published online June 12 in the journal PLOS ONE. Habitat loss and fragmentation may be the culprits.
Read more here.
Photo: doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0066957.g001
This image of a Viper feeding, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Gregg_M_Madden, is our herp photo of the day!
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Tuesday, June 18 2013
Of the four anole species on Bimini, the twig or ghost anole is the most diverse and the most difficult to find.
This attenuate brownish gray, sharp-nosed, anole is very arboreal and prefers to move slowly and stealthily. The male’s dewlap is a pale yellowish peach and does not seem to be distended as readily as the dewlaps of most species. If approached, the twig anole will quietly and slowly sidle around the branch on which it is resting, adroitly keeping the branch between itself and the observer. The grayish coloration and lineate pattern blend so well with the bark of the trees on which this anole lives that the lizard is very easily overlooked.
In 1948, based on cranial scalation and lamellae count, Jim Oliver thought the Bimini twig anoles sufficiently distinct from those on Cuba and elsewhere in the Bahamas to assign them their own subspecies. He named them Anolis angusticeps chickcharnyi, the subspecific name being based on a mythical being -- a ghost, if you will, or perhaps a goblin -- that supposedly appeared on Andros Island.
Continue reading "Bimini ghosts and goblins and anoles, too"
![](/blog/uploads/20130612__13rhaoutw2_500.jpg) From the Reporter-Herald:
Scientists believe that a protein in (snake) venom helps snakes relocate their prey so they can continue their dinner.
This protein, called a disintegrin, enables the snake to relocate its prey, explains (University of Northern Colorado researcher Anthony) Saviola. He says scientists performed studies where a rattlesnake struck a mouse, and when a second rattlesnake of the same species was given a choice between that mouse or one that had not been injected with venom, the second rattlesnake usually always chose the one with venom.
Snakes also have an advanced olfactory system and special chemosensory organs in their mouths. Snakes will tongue-flick rapidly, says Saviola, to pick up chemical cues in the environment. But it appears to be the disintegrin that helps them find prey.
Integrins, by definition, are a large group of molecules that promote cell adhesion. "Some of these you don't see in normal, healthy tissue," says Saviola, "but you will see them expressed 100 fold in abnormal, cancerous tissue."
The disintegrin protein in snake venom, when injected into cancer cells, binds the outside of the cell via these integrin receptors. Chemotherapy, used most often to help stop the spread of cancer, not only kills cancer cells but also the healthy cells. The disintegrin from snake venom acts differently. "It doesn't kill the cell," says Saviola. "It binds the outside and doesn't allow the cell to communicate with surrounding cells. That's when cancer becomes cancer ... when it spreads throughout the body."
Read more here.
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