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.
Friday, July 19 2013
![](/blog/uploads/toadlet.jpg) It's Friday, so let's be happy! And all you have to do to get that way is read this good news from the Houston Zoo, where their efforts to keep Houston toad populations healthy and thriving are paying off.
From the zoo blog:
We have been very successful in raising the tadpoles and subsequent toadlets that we kept back from our releases. Of all the tadpoles that hatched from the eggs, we only lost 5! We now actually have too many toadlets (200+) to keep here at the facility! In the coming weeks, we will once again work with researchers from Texas State University and USFWS to release these little guys back out into the wild. This will mark our fourth release of the year and is the first time ever that we have released three different life stages: eggs, juveniles, and adults!
Read the rest here!
Photo: Houston Zoo
Drought? Development? Climate changes? Other? Or all of those causes listed? I don’t have the ability to assign a cause or causes, but I do know that over the last six decades (since I have been active in the field), the southernmost ranges of at least two amphibian species -- the marbled salamander and the ornate chorus frog -- have been dramatically altered.
In the range maps of the 1958 edition of A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern North America, Roger Conant, meticulous for accuracy, showed ornate chorus frogs, Pseudacris ornata, south along both coasts of Florida to the latitude of Lake Okeechobee.
Since I had never found this frog south of Bradenton on Florida’s Gulf Coast (and had never looked for it on the Caribbean Coast), I queried Mr. Conant about the statement made that the frog was found “through most of Florida."
Continue reading "Amphibian habitat is being destroyed: part 1"
This image of a Water Moccasin, uploaded by kingsnake.com user BowieKnife357, is our herp photo of the day!
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Thursday, July 18 2013
![](/blog/uploads/Chameleon.jpg) Dozens of animals, including a number of rare lizards and a baby alligator, were stolen from the Australian Reptile Park last week.
From News.com.au:
There are concerns for the reptiles as some are sensitive and require high maintenance, and without proper care there is a significant risk of them not surviving.
Australian Reptile Park senior curator Liz Vella said they were unsure exactly which animals and how many were missing.
"We haven't been able to get into the park to do an animal count because the police are still taking fingerprints and investigating,'" she said.
She said the animals stolen were all part of the park's educational collection.
"These are the ones we take out to show our visitors,'" she said.
"They are very rare and specialised - they aren't dangerous but they need our care. A lot of them are also used in our regional breeding programs with other zoos.'"
Ms Vella said the animals taken were a mix between exotic and native and included geckos, lizards and a baby alligator.
"We're devastated. We love these animals like they are our own,'" she said.
"They all have their own personalities and we are really worried about them."
Read more here. Additional information and a video report are here.
Photo: Seven Network
This image of a Chameleon, uploaded by kingsnake.com user 1Sun, is our herp photo of the day!
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Wednesday, July 17 2013
![](/blog/uploads/bigstock-Cable-With-Plug-26283437.jpg) Never underestimate the power of a snake.
From NBC Washington:
A snake slithered its way into some equipment at a power substation, knocking out electricity to thousands in Arlington late Saturday night.
Read more here.
This image of Sand Boas, uploaded by kingsnake.com user SerpentsPlus, is our herp photo of the day!
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Tuesday, July 16 2013
A group of us had just seated ourselves for lunch at the dining area of Madre Selva Biological Preserve on the Rio Orosa of Amazonian Peru. We had spent most of the morning photographing herps and were discussing what trails we would walk following the meal. A few yards down slope were the waters of a small, quiet inlet.
Suddenly, all talked stopped. A small Suriname toad, Pipa pipa, had just surfaced in the center of the inlet. Action was nearly immediate. Segundo went out one door shedding clothes as he ran. Ian ran out another door. The contest was on. May the best (or at least the fastest) man win!
Segundo hit the silted water from one side and Ian from the other, but either Segundo’s leap had been longer or the toad had been a bit closer to his launching point. When he left the water Segundo was gently clutching the toad, one of the strangest of Amazon amphibians.
Continue reading "Flattened aquatic toads"
![](/blog/uploads/bigstock-Anopheles-mosquito--dangerous-16868006.jpg) Climate change is making it easier for snakes to successfully prey on baby birds -- who then fail to grow up and eat the mosquitoes that transmit West Nile Virus.
From Futurity.org:
University of Missouri biologist John Faaborg says that farmers, public health officials, and wildlife managers should be aware of complex indirect effects of climate change in addition to the more obvious influences of higher temperatures and irregular weather patterns.
“A warmer climate may be causing snakes to become more active and seek more baby birds for food,” says Faaborg.
“Although our study used 20 years of data from Missouri, similar threats to bird populations may occur around the world. Increased snake predation on birds is an example of an indirect consequence that forecasts of the effects of climate change often do not take into account.”
In the heart of Missouri’s Ozark forest, cooler temperatures usually make snakes less active than in the edge of the forest or in smaller pockets of woodland. However, during abnormally hot years, even the interior of the forest increases in temperature.
Since snakes are cold-blooded, warmer temperatures make the reptiles more active and increase their need for food. Previous studies using video cameras found that snakes are major predators of young birds.
Read the rest here.
This image of a Wood Frog, uploaded by kingsnake.com user galen, is our herp photo of the day!
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Monday, July 15 2013
![](/blog/uploads/USFWSlogo.jpg) The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has proposed a blanket National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) exclusion for itself under the Lacey Act. What does that mean?
NEPA requires USFWS, and all federal government agencies, to prepare environmental assessments and environmental impact statements. In other words, scientific and procedural due diligence must be completed before any species can be listed as injurious. An exclusion from this process would essentially make it much easier for USFWS to list species as injurious, which would end importation and interstate commerce for any species listed.
Currently, FWS can declare a categorical exclusion for anything it likes. That doesn't mean a court will agree the action is exempt from NEPA analysis. However, this adjustment to the Department of the Interior’s Departmental Manual would strengthen the legal basis for using a categorical exclusion.
This affects much more than large constricting snakes and much more than herps. This would affect many segments of the pet industry, especially the aquatic (fish) segment.
The negative economic impact could be huge. Just imagine if interstate commerce was illegal for ball pythons, boa constrictors, Pacman frogs, White’s tree frogs and Crested geckos.
It takes just a few minutes to express your opinion. After you complete the actions, share it with others in the herp community and pet owners. USARK has made it very easy to make your voice heard. Surely you have just 5-10 minutes to support your herp community, your friends and your colleagues.
USARK Action Alert can be found here.
Continue reading "USFWS Categorical Exclusion from NEPA: What does it mean?"
This image of a Boa, uploaded by kingsnake.com user BoaZilla, is our herp photo of the day!
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Check out this video "Spring Salamander Migration," submitted by kingsnake.com user rugbyman2000.
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!
Friday, July 12 2013
Given the sheer tonnage of snakes Bryan Grieg Fry has seen up close and personal in his decades as a venom researcher, the accolade "coolest snake I've ever seen" has to impress us at kingsnake.com just as much it did as the guys at NatGeo.
From National Geographic:
The creature he’s talking is new to science, having only been described in 2006. It’s the spider-tailed viper (Pseudocerastes urarachnoides) and it is aptly named.
The tail is bizarre. If you saw a close-up photo of it, you’d struggle to believe that there was a snake at the other end. There’s a large orange or grey bulb at the tip, and the scales just before that are bizarrely long and thin. Together, these features look a bit like the legs and abdomen of a spider or their close relatives, the solpugids or ‘camel spiders’.
The resemblance is even more striking when the snake moves. It keeps the rest of the tail still, while moving the tip in a disconcertingly jerky way.
Read the rest, and watch video, here.
Photo: Omid Mozaffari/National Geographic
This image of a Sulcata Tortoise, uploaded by kingsnake.com user shestov, is our herp photo of the day!
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Thursday, July 11 2013
After a two-year rehab stint at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Mississippi, Big Mama -- a 245-pound loggerhead sea turtle -- has moved into her new digs at SeaWorld Orlando, where she'll be helping to educate people about her species and threats to wildlife.
From BayNews9:
Big Mama was transported to SeaWorld Orlando from Mississippi where she had been receiving care since she was rescued after an oil spill in 2010 off the coast of Louisiana. Big Mama suffered severe bite wounds to her front and hind flippers making it difficult for her to swim properly. In 2012, Big Mama was deemed non-releasable by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and due to space limitations, IMMS could no longer care for Big Mama.
Read more here.
It is always cause for comment when with the advent of warm nights the Mediterranean geckos, Hemidactylus turcicus, are drawn from their places of winter seclusion to forage on our house and sheds.
During some springs only one or two geckos initially appear; other years the lizards appear en masse, with every illuminated window disclosing one or more newly emerged foraging gecko. On those nights the life of every light-drawn small moth or beetle is in precarious straits. Patti and I sit and marvel at their adroitness on windows and walls, mostly outside, but occasionally finding their way through a nook or cranny yet unknown to us, or an open door to visit temporarily indoors.
In bygone years the Mediterranean gecko (also referred to as the Turkish gecko) was an abundant exotic that was distributed widely over much of the Florida mainland from the Keys northward to Tampa Bay and Vero Beach. It was more locally distributed in and beyond north Florida. Today it may be encountered in protected areas across the southern USA and is slowly expanding current ranges northward. But while expanding north of Florida, it had run into serious competition in South Florida, first from the parthenogenetic Indo-Pacific House gecko and now from the larger and seemingly more prolific Amerafrican House gecko.
Continue reading "A Mediterranean gecko kind of night"
![](/blog/uploads/UM.jpg) A University of Michigan biologist may have unlocked the secret of polymorphism and survival in snakes.
From the University of Michigan:
If a mimicry system offers protection from predators, then why hasn't evolution eliminated the "failed mimics," such as ground snakes sporting color patterns that don't remotely resemble a coral snake? That's the puzzle that University of Michigan evolutionary biologist Alison Davis Rabosky has spent the last four years trying to solve.
"Logic predicts that non-mimics should by eaten preferentially by predators and, given enough time, you should end up with a single color type in the population. So the widespread co-occurrence of mimic and non-mimic color patterns is a puzzling and longstanding evolutionary paradox," said Rabosky, an assistant research scientist in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and an assistant curator of herpetology at the Museum of Zoology.
While Rabosky and colleague Christian L. Cox of the University of Virginia don't claim to have fully resolved the paradox, they did gain insights that help explain the persistence of non-mimic color patterns in ground snakes, especially rare patterns. It turns out that if you're a ground snake, displaying a rare color pattern also provides an evolutionary edge.
Read the rest here... definitely worth the click!
Photo: Eric Bronson/University of Michigan
This image of an Emperor Newt, uploaded by kingsnake.com user plagueguitarist, is our herp photo of the day!
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Wednesday, July 10 2013
How did the ancestors of land animals make it out of the sea? New research comparing tiger salamanders and mudskipper fish tells the tale.
From Phys.org:
Paleontological examinations of the invasion of land by vertebrates suggest that limb-like appendages likely originated in aquatic environments, but direct comparisons of the functional consequences of using early limbs with digits, rather than fins, for terrestrial locomotion had not previously been performed. Salamanders are used to model the general body form of early tetrapods (e.g., Paleozoic amphibians) since their morphology has remained essentially unchanged for at least 150 million years. Mudskippers are similar to early fossil precursors of the tetrapods: they use "crutching" movements on land similarly to the hypothesised locomotion of Ichthyostega, and their pectoral fins are similar to elpistostegalids, such as Tiktaalik.
Read more here.
Photo: Sandy Kawano/Phys.org
This image of a Hognose Snake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user JoeTaffis, is our herp photo of the day!
Upload your own reptile and amphibian photos photos at gallery.kingsnake.com, and you could see them featured here!
Tuesday, July 9 2013
There are on the Lower Keys of Florida three species of tiny geckos of the genus Sphaerodactylus. Two of these, the Ashy and the Ocellated Geckos, are considered established alien species. The third, the Reef Gecko, is thought to be a native form.
Jake and I had driven to the Lower Keys (this term means south of the 7 Mile Bridge) for an entirely different reason, but since we had a bit of spare time, when Jake said he’d like to find a hatchling Ashy Gecko a quick look seemed to mesh well with our later plans. Jake had already found numerous examples of the plain-colored adult Ashys, but the beautifully colored hatchlings had managed to evade his efforts.
Ashy geckos are secretive but common denizens of many microhabitats in the Keys. The 2-and-a-half inch long lizards may be found in the boots of palm trees, beneath all manner of surface debris, under garden rocks, in houses and sheds, and between the layers of fallen leaves.
It was the latter habitat that we decided to try. Within minutes, that we were in the right habitat for adult Ashy Geckos was quickly evident. With them we found snails, scorpions, Amerafrican house geckos, and an abundance of tiny food insects.
Although I had found several hatchlings on earlier trips, it took more than a half an hour of looking before Jake found the first and only hatchling seen on this effort. It was beneath a few fallen leaves at the very edge of a busy trail. Success!
Continue reading "A Search for the Ashy Gecko"
Dozens of Australian species of the worm-like snakes classified as Scolecophidia have been identified by scientists in Australia.
From Phys.org:
Researchers from France, Australia and the United States analysed the genomes of 741 animals from 27 recognised species in a subgroup known as Australian blind snakes.
The data suggest the number of species is "at least two times the current number of recognised, nominal species," said a summary of the results, published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Snakes are divided into two major groups: Scolecophidia, which are generally less than 30 centimetres (12 inches) long, and the more common Alethinophidia, which include boas, pythons, cobras and vipers.
Read more here.
Photo: Phys.org
This image of a Pine Snake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user pitparade, is our herp photo of the day!
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Monday, July 8 2013
Check out this video "Road Cruising for snakes," submitted by kingsnake.com user naturebreak.
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!
This image of a Corn Snake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user ribbitsdad, is our herp photo of the day!
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![](/blog/uploads/nmexgarter.jpg) Once thought to be extinct, six northern Mexican garter snakes were discovered last month near the Gila River and another three later in the month.
From the Denver Post:
Doug Hotle, curator of reptiles and amphibians at the BioPark, said one of the snakes found last month was a young female, which indicates the wild population is reproducing.
"Based on what we've seen so far, this is a very successful group of snakes living in ideal wetland habitat," he said. "We can do on-the-ground study to find out more about these rare garters and what their needs are here in New Mexico."
The snakes at the BioPark are expected to go on public display soon.
The northern Mexican garter snake is a candidate for federal endangered species protection. It was once found throughout Arizona, southwestern New Mexico and parts of Mexico. Scientists said it had been nearly 20 years since the last confirmed sighting of the snake in New Mexico.
Hotle said the discovery marks a huge step forward for his team.
Read the rest here.
Photo: Jeff Servoss / U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Friday, July 5 2013
This image of a Kingsnake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Trabash, is our herp photo of the day!
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Thursday, July 4 2013
This image of a Longnose Snake hatchling, uploaded by kingsnake.com user JoeTaffis, is our herp photo of the day!
Upload your own reptile and amphibian photos photos at gallery.kingsnake.com, and you could see them featured here!
Wednesday, July 3 2013
When you decide you'd like to set up a terrarium for your reptiles, you can go for a simple set-up or one that's considerably more complex.
The simple set-up is basically a monastic cell, with newspaper/paper towels on the bottom, a plastic hide box and a water container. Easy to set up, easy to maintain.
If the idea of looking at something so unadorned doesn't appeal to you (or if you figure your pet desires more than the least you can provide), you can put more effort into the setup and create something more naturalistic.
Continue reading "Getting started: The 'bones' of your snake tank set-up"
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