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.
Monday, January 27 2014
This image of a Uromastyx, uploaded by kingsnake.com user redtoad, 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!
Friday, January 24 2014
Check out this video "Regal Horned Lizard" submitted by kingsnake.com user variuss11.
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!
![](/blog/uploads/TurtlesBlind.jpg) Six endangered green sea turtles are being treated for the fibropapilloma virus, which has left them blind and unable to survive in the wild.
From NBC Miami:
"When the Fibropapilloma virus shows as tumors on the eyes, if it grows over the cornea on both eyes, the turtle has no vision and has no chance of survival," said Bette Zirckelbach, manager of the Turtle Hospital in the Florida Keys.
Zirckelbach and others from the Turtle Hospital transported the animals in their 'turtle ambulance' to Pinecrest Veterinary Hospital for care with Dr. Lorraine Karpinski.
Read more here...
This image of a Tree Frog, uploaded by kingsnake.com user bradtort, 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!
Thursday, January 23 2014
![](/blog/uploads/34434imi080705b-med.JPG) A new study suggests microscopic organisms may help amphibians fight off chytridiomycosis.
From Phys.org:
An international team of researchers has made important progress in understanding the distribution of the deadly amphibian chytrid pathogen. In some regions, the deadly impact of the pathogen appears to be hampered by small predators, naturally occurring in freshwater bodies. These micropredators may efficiently reduce the number of free-swimming infectious stages (zoospores) by consuming them. This natural behavior will reduce the infection pressure on potential amphibian hosts and a goes a long way towards explaining the occurrence of chytridiomycosis, at least in temporal climatic regions. These results were published in the renowned scientific journal Current Biology. The team of researchers state that their results raise the hope of successfully fighting chytridiomycosis, nowadays one of the most deadly wildlife diseases.
Read more...
Photo: kingsnake.com user trinacliff
This image of a Green Pit Viper, uploaded by kingsnake.com user tapython, 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, January 22 2014
This image of a Mocquard's Beauty Rat Snake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user RandyWhittington, 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, January 21 2014
![](/blog/uploads/vp1.jpg) On Monday, kingsnake.com launched a new vendor profile system in the classifieds, allowing all classified account holders to have a permanent presence for their business in the classifieds, even if they don't have any classified ads running at the time.
Available to both standard and enhanced account holders, the new vendor profile is an all-in-one marketing tool for reptile businesses, allowing them to maintain and re-list classified ads, link to their websiite and all their social media profiles, link to USARK and PIJAC, list upcoming trade show appearances, receive customer endorsements, and more.
Check out the huge list of features below:
The new vendor profile system allows you to:
- add a physical address and map
- add a store/shop image that pops up to a larger size when clicked
- add a large background image
- list all your classified ads
- list all the shows/expos you will attend (if in the kingsnake events database)
- display shipping options and package trackers
- display payment options
- add a lengthy business description
- add a FAQ/Terms sheet
- receive recommendations from kingsnake.com registered users
- link to your website
- link to your social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn)
- display your years on-site (if more than one year)
- display your business verification button/info
- display info for multiple physical locations
- allow you to run a special offer/coupon in your vendor profile
- display your enhanced account banner (if applicable)
- view traffic stats on vendor profile visitors
- display a membership button for USARK and PIJAC
- display an embedded video
- search engine friendly URL ( http://market.kingsnake.com/vendors/lllreptile, etc.)
The vendor profile system works whether you have a standard or enhanced classified account, and as long as your account stays active, the profile is visible and can be linked to from your own website, banner ads, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites.
Purchasing or renewing a 1-year account guarantees your profile is active year round, so even if you don't have or maintain active classified ads your business can still have a presence in kingsnake.com's popular classified advertising system.
To see sample classified vendor profiles, please visit
http://market.kingsnake.com/vendors/lllreptile
or http://market.kingsnake.com/vendors/RodentPro.com.
To update and view your own classified vendor profile,
please log in at http://market.kingsnake.com/account.
To purchase or renew an existing standard or enhanced classified account, please visit http://www.kingsnake.com/shared/services/classified.php
They hatched! I'm talking about my marginated tortoise hatchlings.
The eggs had incubated for 61 days at 88.2F before the first signs of pipping became apparent. Here's one two hours after pipping:
Four eggs out of the clutch of 10 had "chalked" (an external opacity of the egg shell that is usually associated with egg-fertility) within only a day or two of deposition, and now one of them was actually hatching.
Fortunately, the remaining three chalked eggs also hatched within the next two days. Here's one at two days after hatching:
I was rather excited about the event, for it was not only the first time I had hatched marginated tortoises, Testudo marginata, but in so doing I had laid to rest the long held tenet that a period of hibernation was necessary to successfully breed this species.
You see, because they are maintained outside year round in Florida and provided with heated winter quarters (accessible when the tortoises choose to use them), my breeders underwent no period of dormancy. Yet viable eggs were produced and healthy babies hatched.
While marginated tortoises are certainly capable of undergoing lengthy periods of hibernation, it would seem that this period of dormancy is not an actual necessity for breeding success.
Continue reading "Are you ready for marginated tortoise baby photos?"
![](/blog/uploads/Ploughshare.jpg) In an effort to deter poaching, conservations are permanently marking the shells of the rare ploughshare tortoise. Their goal is to brand every captive breeding animal, plus the estimated 300 wild members of the species.
From the LA Times:
The booming illegal international wildlife trade forced conservationists to do the unthinkable Tuesday: Brand the golden domes of two of the rarest tortoises on Earth to reduce their black market value by making it easier for authorities to trace them if stolen.
"It's heartbreaking that it's come to this, but it's the right thing to do," Paul Gibbons, managing director of the nonprofit Turtle Conservancy's Behler Chelonian Center in Ventura County, said as he gently placed a 30-pound adult female ploughshare tortoise on a small table.
With a steady hand and an electric engraving tool, he carved an identification code on the high, rounded shell as the creature with weary eyes and gleaming carapace peered calmly into the distance. The tortoise was branded for life, which in her case would be roughly 160 years.
Read the full story here.
This image of a Tegu, uploaded by kingsnake.com user dmlove, 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!
Monday, January 20 2014
![](/blog/uploads/Samson.jpg) Two tortoises, named Samson and Goliath, went on the lam from their Arizona home last year. One was found right away, but the other stayed missing for six months, until his new family, 30 miles away, ran an ad looking for his original owners.
Now he's back home thanks to a microchip, and his family is trying to figure out what kind of enclosure they need to keep Samson and Goliath from hitting the road again.
Read the whole story on ABC News.
Photo: ABC News
This image of a Green Tree Python, uploaded by kingsnake.com user AJ01, 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!
Friday, January 17 2014
This image of a Leaf-Tailed Gecko, uploaded by kingsnake.com user crestedman, 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!
Check out this video "Tadpole Hunting" submitted by kingsnake.com user hdhungryman.
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!
Thursday, January 16 2014
About 50 miles west of my home, I leave the range of the common Eastern garter snake, Thamnophis s. sirtalis, and enter the realm of the blue-striped garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis similis.
In actuality, garter snakes with blue striping may be found in some numbers throughout the Florida populations. But along the Gulf Coast of the state, from Hernando to Wakulla counties, the vast majority of the garter snakes have blue strips and bluish overtones. And the ribbon snakes are also bluish.
The intensity of the blue striping varies from pale to rich blue, while the interstitial skin and other bluish overtones are a bit lighter.
I have seen these garter snakes by day actively searching pond and ditch edges for the frogs of which their diet largely consists. But overall they seem more active at dusk as the setting sun adds its long red rays to nature's palette.
Continue reading "The range of the blue-striped garter snake"
Scientists have long believed lizards are asocial, but research by Cissy Ballen, Richard Shine, and Mats Olsson of the University of Sydney using veiled chameleons suggests the lizards are a fairly social species after all.
From Wired Science:
Ballen and her colleagues staged interactions between pairs of chameleons when the animals were two months old. The researchers found the two groups didn’t differ in aggression, but chameleons raised in isolation were more submissive than their siblings raised in groups. The isolation-reared chameleons tended to flee or curl into a ball during confrontations with other chameleons, and they adopted darker and less green colors than the group-reared chameleons. The researchers also tested the foraging ability of the animals, and found that group-reared chameleons seized their prey (crickets) faster than isolation-reared chameleons.
Studies like this add to an increasing appreciation of the flexibility and complexity of reptile behavior.
Read more here.
Photo: kingsnake.com user 1sun
This image of a Red-eared slider, uploaded by kingsnake.com user snake_girl85, 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, January 15 2014
What's beautiful? The sweet sounds of the Harding University choir as heard in the Reptile House at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Watch below:
This image of an Amber Stripe Corn Snake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user SickPython, 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, January 14 2014
Ever since I had learned of the existence of the mountain skink, Plestiodon callicephalus, I had wanted to see the lizard in situ.
There was just a special something about the blue in the tail of this skink that brought it to the top of my "I-wanna-see" list.
But when I asked Randy Babb to show me one of these skinks in situ, I had no idea it was going to involve a 20-mile power walk across sere desert beneath a blazing sun (about 140F ground temp!).
Or at least it seemed that hot and far to me, a Floridian who's unused to desert conditions. Of course, when Randy (a desert fox) relates the tale, it was a slow one mile walk on a moderately warm day along a cool path on the banks of a lake. How can his memory be so faulty? .
But at the end we saw not only one but several of the beautiful skinks. Mission accomplished. Thanks, Randy.
More photos under the jump...
Continue reading "A long, hot walk for a skink"
![](/blog/uploads/frogoff.jpg) It's hard to know how we missed this froggy story from last fall, but we did.
From the Atlantic:
NASA's Minotaur V rocket blasted off from its launchpad at a spaceport in Virginia, carrying the LADEE spacecraft on the first leg of its trip from Earth to the moon. The scene that resulted was beautiful. It was inspiring. It was epic.
It was also not without its casualties.
The picture above, snapped on Friday by one of the remote cameras NASA had set up for the big launch, captured a creature that found itself, alas, caught in the crossfire of humanity's drive to explore: a frog. A possibly very large, and certainly very surprised, frog. The launch setting, NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, is located on an island that is essentially a six-mile-long salt marsh; this little guy, it seems, happened to be in the wrong place at the wrongest possible time.
Read the rest here.
Photo: NASA/Wallops/Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport with Chris Heller
This image of a Gaboon Viper, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Blake_Herman, 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!
Monday, January 13 2014
![](http://gallery.connectedbypets.com/data/202475_DSC9627-med.jpg) Texas is considering banning the gassing of rattlesnakes and other animals in the state, but the Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. doesn't think a ban will impact the barbaric "rattslesnake round-ups," which torture and kill rattlesnakes, but rarely use gas.
From NPR:
Pouring gasoline or other noxious chemicals into the earth to force rattlesnakes and other animals from their underground homes has been a tactic of some hunters and snake wranglers for years. But it has a harmful effect on the environment and wildlife. Now, Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD) is considering following in the path of 30 other states and banning the practice in most circumstances.
The technique, known as "gassing" is used to capture and/or kill many different types of animals, including prairie dogs. But its greatest defenders appear to be those involved in "rattlesnake roundups" that are a tradition in parts of the state.
[....]
As far as the prospect that banning the practice will end the "rattlesnake roundup" tradition in Texas, TPWD says that's overblown.
"Many rattlesnake events currently discourage the collection of snakes by gassing," says the Department.
Read more here.
Photo: kingsnake.com user kevinjudd
This image of a Anole, uploaded by kingsnake.com user cpinedo, 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!
Friday, January 10 2014
This image of a Frilled Dragon, uploaded by kingsnake.com user rumor150, 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!
Check out this video "Field Herping in Colorado" submitted by kingsnake.com user jfarah.
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!
Thursday, January 9 2014
As have the ranges of several other amphibians in Florida, the range of the rusty mud salamander, Pseudotriton montanus floridanus, seems to have shrunk noticeably.
Once found as far south as the Orlando area, those populations as well as others on the peninsula now seem extirpated. Although I may be overlooking some populations, to be even reasonably assured of finding this southernmost of the mud salamanders one must now travel northwestward to the panhandle counties.
Jake Scott and I recently did just that. We sought and found a suitable locale that was about four hours distant. Almost as soon as we entered the swampy habitat, we walked by a big log. Thinking it was simply too large to roll, we continued along.
We turned logs and debris for the next three hours -- zilch on the target salamanders. On the way back out, the last log we saw was that one we hadn't turned on the way in. We decided it was going to be turned, and it actually was a simple matter to do so (proving that appearances can indeed be deceiving).
Jake had found a lifer. Although it was the only mud salamander found on that day, it alone made the lengthy trip a success.
More photos under the jump...
Continue reading "A muddy day, muddy shoes, and rusty mud salamanders"
The LA Times has the scoop on a new study from Nature on the coloration of ancient reptiles:
Ancient leatherback turtles, ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs were a rather staid and formal black, maybe with some gray, according to a study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature.
![](/blog/uploads/Colors.jpg)
The study offers the first direct chemical evidence of pigmentation in the three species, and illustrates an example of convergent evolution, when animals separately develop the same adaptive features.
Read the rest here.
Artist's rendering: Stefan Solberg/LA Times
This image of a Yellow Rat Snake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Herpetologia, 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!
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