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.
Tuesday, July 1 2014
![](/blog/uploads/hongkong.jpg) Stephen Loman and William Sargent are a two-man movement saving snakes in Hong Kong.
From the South China Morning Post:
Stephen Loman and William Sargent know more than most just how closely we live with snakes. Although the pair balk at the term snake hunter, they have been rescuing, photographing and releasing snakes in the wild in Hong Kong for decades.Stephen Loman and William Sargent
In that time, Loman, a finance professional, and Sargent, a race organiser, have caught and released more than 1,000 snakes and suffered hundreds of bites.
Even so, both argue - and experts agree - that the fear of snakes is often misplaced. "Snakes get a bad reputation," says Sargent. "A lot of people don't know much about snakes. That fear or ignorance leads to killing snakes for no real reason."
In his experience, it is humans who are a menace to snakes, not the other way around. According to the Hospital Authority there hasn't been any death attributed to a snake bite in more than 20 years although Hong Kong has some particularly venomous species such as the banded krait, Chinese cobra, coral snake and the red-necked keelback.
Dying from a snake bite, even from the most poisonous species, is "very rare" in Hong Kong for several reasons, Lau explains. The city is small, has good infrastructure, and a high standard of medical care. No matter where someone is bitten in Hong Kong, they are never more than an hour away from hospital, and all major hospitals carry antivenom.
Read more...
Photo: Stephen Loman/SCMP
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user cycluracornuta!
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Monday, June 30 2014
![](http://gallery.connectedbypets.com/data/5381resizecroc_005-med.JPG) Researchers are learning a lot about extinct reptiles from how American alligators eat.
From NatGeo:
What happens when you throw bones to a group of American alligators? This isn’t a question for late night horror movies, but for science.
Standing behind a safety barrier at Florida’s St. Augustine Alligator Farm, University of Tennessee paleontologist Stephanie Drumheller tossed skeletonized cow legs to a crush of curious alligators. Over and over again, the armored archosaurs rushed in to snap at the morsels, and with every bite they left the predatory hallmarks in the form of punctures and scrapes. These traces were what Drumheller was after. Through understanding the damage modern alligators leave on bones, Drumheller and other paleontologists can follow the depredations of alligators and their croc cousins through time.
Read more...
Photo: kingsnake.com user cdieter
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user minicopilot!
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Friday, June 27 2014
Check out this video "Pet Iguana," submitted by kingsnake.com user Minuet.
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It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user stingray!
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Thursday, June 26 2014
![](/blog/uploads/Paypal.jpg) Summer is always the busy season in the reptile world, with herpers headed off to the field, reptile expo season heating up, and baby reptiles and amphibians popping out left and right. We've been busy here at kingsnake.com as well, getting a whole peck of classified changes, updates and upgrades built, tested, and installed.
As you may have noticed over the last few years, we've been steadily raising the number of ads that can be posted in each category -- from three, then to six, and now to eight per category with a standard account and 12 with an enhanced account!
Other ad posting changes include an optional PayPal 'Buy It Now' button, which will allow customers to make purchases directly from the kingsnake.com classifieds if you have a PayPal account. kingsnake.com takes no extra fees for using the 'Buy It Now' feature, and it's quick and easy to include in your ad.
The Classified Vendor Profile system has been updagted as well, receiving a publicly viewable click-through counter in addition to the other cool features such as event listing and customer recommendations that were introduced at launch.
Finally, the classified index has been slightly adjusted to make it more navigable, and to add the 'New and Updated' business directory listings, as well as a new Updated Classified Profile listing system that lists the last 10 classified profiles that have been updated by vendors.
To update your classified ad vendor profile please visit http://market.kingsnake.com/account/.
To purchase a classified account please visit http://kingsnake.com/shared/services/classified.php.
Buisness directory listings are on sale for half price ($75.00 off) thru July 4. To add your web site to our business directory please go to http://www.kingsnake.com/services/businessdirectory_SALE75.html to purchase a listing on sale for half price or to update your current listing go to http://www.kingsnake.com/myaccount/bus_dir.php.
The search had not begun as a jaunt to find the Florida scrub lizard, Sceloporus woodi. That wasn't even close to the reason. Rather it had been my hope of finding a little spotted skunk that had brought Jake and me to Okeechobee County.
But spotted skunks (which we failed to find, by the way) are primarily crepuscular and nocturnal, and that left us with many hours of daylight to delve into other pursuits. So, having no real plans. we accessed an eastbound road and our next stop was in some scrub habitat in Martin County.
At that point we both recalled that we would like to update our photos of the scrub lizard, so Sceloporus woodi became our new secondary target.
Restricted to sandy areas from the latitude of Marion County southward, the little scrub lizard is a localized Florida endemic. A smaller adult size (to 6 1/4"), smaller scales, a well defined brown lateral line, and less black pigment on the belly differentiate the scrub lizard from the sympatric fence lizard, Sceloporus undulatus.
And unlike the skunk (that, despite several additional nights of trying we still haven't found), the habitat and locale in which we were then standing proved ideal for the scrub lizards. They were found and photographed, allowing us to consider the trip at least a partial success. And at the price of petrol nowadays, successes on road trips, be they accidental or intended, are evermore appreciated.
More photos under the jump...
Continue reading "The Scrub Lizard: A Florida endemic"
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user eric561!
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Wednesday, June 25 2014
This yellow-bellied sea snake was rescued and rehabbed in New South Wales, Australia:
Get the story here...
Photo: Peter Street/Australian National Geographic
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user BeattyReptiles!
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Tuesday, June 24 2014
![](http://gallery.connectedbypets.com/data/142279seadogmug-med.jpg) Does the key to human limb regeneration like in a salamander's cells?
From researcher Max Yun in The Conversation UK:
This process is rarely found in mammalian cells and this has been suggested as the basis for their poor regenerative abilities. But clearly, unraveling the mechanisms underlying this reprogramming is central to understanding why certain vertebrates can regenerate their limbs while others can’t, and how to repeat this process in humans.
If we were able to crack this puzzle, it could lead to strategies to enhance the reprogramming of cells from patients, and to better understand their disease and design appropriate cures.
We recently found a critical component of the reprogramming mechanism. In our study, published in Stem Cell Reports, we demonstrated that the sustained activation of a molecular pathway (a group of molecules in a cell that work together to control a particular function or functions) – called the ERK pathway – plays a key role during the natural reprogramming of salamander muscle cells. Only when the ERK pathway is constantly switched “on” are the cells able to re-enter the cell cycle, which is key to their regenerative potential.
Read more...
Photo: kingsnake.com user emajor
![The facial aspect of an adult male Southern Florida Mole King](/blog/uploads/mole2.JPG) In the late 1900s, say around 1980 or so, it was finally realized that the range of the mole kingsnake, Lampropeltis calligaster rhombomaculata, as then shown in field guides was woefully inaccurate.
Rather than stopping just south of the Georgia and Alabama state lines as then suggested, the snake actually ranged to the Gulf Coast on the Florida Panhandle and perhaps even further south on the peninsula. But then, even as now, the actual range of this persistently fossorial snake was (and is) imperfectly known.
How little we actually knew about this subspecies was further demonstrated when in 1987 R.M. Price described a mole king from the southern peninsula of Florida that bore sufficiently different facial markings to warrant the erection of a new subspecies that he called L. c. occipitolineata, and that is now known by the common name of Southern Florida mole kingsnake.
Despite having been recognized for more than a quarter century, this small (usually less than 3 feet long), strongly blotched lampropeltine is still considered a comparative rarity. Like its more northerly relative(s) the head of the southern Florida mole king is not much broader than the neck, and, although the head pattern comverges on the neck, it is not as precise as the diagnostic "spearpoint" of the corn snake, the only species with which this mole king is apt to be confused.
For additional information on this interesting snake, please look up Price, R. M. 1987, Disjunct occurrence of mole snakes in Peninsular Florida, and the description of a new subspecies of Lampropeltis calligaster. Bull. Chicago Herpetol. Soc. 22(9):148.
More photos under the jump...
Continue reading "The South Florida Mole Kingsnake: Hidden in plain sight"
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user 1Sun!
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Monday, June 23 2014
![](http://gallery.connectedbypets.com/data/33771whitesk1low-med.jpg) The scarlet kingsnake looks like the coral snake because there's a survival benefit to tricking predators into thinking you're too dangerous to mess with.
But once the coral snake vanishes, why do local kingsnakes not just maintain that resemblance for decades, but intensify it?
Scientists had no idea, but now they've figured it out. Once the coral snake became extinct in the North Carolina Sandhills, they say, the risks of attacking the wrong snake diminished. Predators began to take more changes, targeting those kingsnakes who least resembled corals, and removing them from the gene pool.
But what happens now? Find out here.
Photo: kingsnake.com user coolhl7
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user chondrogtp!
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Friday, June 20 2014
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Tony D!
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Check out this video "Got worms," submitted by kingsnake.com user Minuet.
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Thursday, June 19 2014
![](/blog/uploads/Chytridiomycosis.jpg) How did the deadly fungus chytridiomycosis get so entrenched that it may cost us every frog on earth? We weren't paying attention.
From Scientific American:
The best way to prevent a disease from turning into an epidemic is to closely monitor its development and put systems in place before it starts spreading rapidly through populations. This requires surveillance and monitoring of the disease and disease populations. This is fine for populations of livestock, or humans, but tends to be a neglected area when it comes to animals in the wild. There are plenty of examples of devastating diseases that have ranged through wild-animal populations relatively unchecked until the later stages as they were simply not caught early enough.
An example is the fungal skin infection of frogs (chytridiomycosis) which absolutely decimated amphibians, wiping out about 200 frog species world wide. Yet investigations into the disease didn’t start until 15 years after its initial appearance.
Read more...
Photo: Scientific American
As I sat on the back deck this morning, my interest was drawn to several displaying or battling anoles. We have both common kinds here, the indigenous green anole, Anolis carolinensis, and the firmly established Cuban brown, A. s. sagrei. During the spring and summer, when breeding and territoriality are at their peak, it takes only the presence of two males to create a war zone. In autumn and winter they are a bit less belligerent but only a bit! Females show little interest in each other.
I have heard ad infinitum that the browns will overun and (presumably) extirpate the greens, that the browns do not belong here and should themselves be extirpated. Perhaps at some time in the future extirpation of the green anole by the brown may occur, but for now, wherever I have taken the time to watch the various interactions, the scores of the skirmishes seem about even. The anoles battle, sometimes green on green, sometimes brown on brown, but as often as not it is one species against the other, and if of equal size early attempts of determining a winner is almost futile.
Whether you like or hate them, the brown anoles are here to stay. They often position themselves on fences, railings, and the lower trunks of trees and shrubs. The native (color changing) greens may also be seen in/on these locations but they are usually higher from the ground, often in the tree canopy. The two species, then, are at least partially partitioned.
But, during breeding season, when the males are "set on feisty," when they do meet the show is on!
More photos under the jump...
Continue reading "Nothing feistier than an anole!"
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user gerryg!
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Wednesday, June 18 2014
There has to be an easier way to make a living than putting a venomous snake in your mouth.
Read about it...
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user deadend!
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Tuesday, June 17 2014
Scientists have discovered fossilized tracks on ancient sea beds, allowing them to figure out how now-extinct sea reptiles swam.
From the International Business Times:
The scientists said in a new study, published in the journal Nature Communications on Wednesday, that during the Mesozoic era, about 252 to 66 million years ago, the seas were full of reptiles like the nothosaur. While scientists knew that these creatures were predators with long bodies and paddle-like limbs, exactly how they used their limbs to propel themselves through water was unknown. Now, recently discovered trackways on an ancient seabed in Yunnan province in southwestern China, have helped scientists find an answer.
Read more...
Excitement was palpable. We left Iquitos, Peru, at 0800 that morning and then, 12 hours later, we were nearing our destination.
Segundo Rios, our captain, eased back on the throttle of the Tucanare (our river boat), and almost imperceptably the boat nosed against the shoreline. We had arrived at Madre Selva Biological Preserve on the west bank of the Rio Orosa, our home for the next 10 days; ten days of around the clock tropical herping.
We had eaten on the boat and everyone was ready for at least a short introductory night walk so as soon as we had all located our tambos (screened individual rooms).
I elected to take the group along the short trail, a wonderful loop of herp habitat. Once again, I instructed all of the absolute need to watch carefully for fer-de-lance and to remember that rhyme of "red to yellow kill a fellow and red to black venom lack" did not apply to any of the several species of coral snakes we might encounter.
Even before we had gotten out of the biological station's clearing, we had found several species of lizard (anoles and geckos), an auspicious beginning to a wonderful and educational trip. Fifty yards down the trail C-sar commented, "Snake, Imantodes." He had spotted a blunt-headed tree snake, Imantodes cenchoa, in a trailside bush.
Flashlight beams were quickly brought to bear on the little snake of vine-like slenderness, and the popping of camera flashes brought to mind a mini lightning storm.
When all had taken what they felt were sufficient photos we moved on. Broad-headed treefrogs ( Osteocephalus sp.) and an occasional monkey frog ( Phyllomedusa sp.) vocalized from bromeliads high overhead, but none were seen than night.
However, crested forest toads, Bufo margaritifera, were numerous along the trail, and some were seen three feet above ground on flat-leafed plants.
"What kind of lizard is this?" someone asked. Ah ha! The guides had walked by (and they don't often miss much!) a foot long green forest dragon, Enyalioides laticeps, sleeping quietly on a horizontal limb 8 feet above ground. Again, a pause for photos and we continued.
Continue reading "Herping the Peruvian Amazon"
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user AJ01!
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Monday, June 16 2014
![](/blog/uploads/carl.jpg) In losing Carl Koch, the herp world has lost a friend. And so have I.
Back many years ago, when I had but one lone iguana, I, like many of us, began frequenting my local reptile friendly pet store. At the time for me, it was Pets N Things in Cudahy, Wisc. Every Friday I would find myself at the store at the same time as a local reptile guy named Carl. He saw that I actually wanted to learn more and introduced me to herp societies, books and, importantly to my future, kingsnake.com.
Carl was an avid field herper and educator in Wisconsin. He worked with the State of Wisconsin on a variety of field studiesm including most recently Butler's gartersnake population surveys. Carl spent as much time as he could field herping.
Over the years, Carl and I became friends. I still went to him for advice on captive care, called him when I knew an animal that hit my rescue might interest him, and invited him to help me at my many educational events. I relied on him as a friend and as a mentor. When I finally started field herping, I reached out to Carl to show me the way. He graciously opened his schedule to take me and a friend looking for timber rattlesnakes, even though the weather was all wrong. We were skunked that day reptile-wise, but we all became better friends.
Last year, when I wanted to actively start herping, I reached out to Carl. I asked for advice, locations, even more advice. Carl had a magic in the field. It is where his passion thrived and where he found great peace. For Carl, who suffered from anxiety and severe depression, that peace was greatly needed. Carl's widow would like everyone suffering to know that if you are suffering, please reach out to friends and family.
Carl leaves behind his wife Stacy and their two daughters. I will be honoring his memory and all he did for me over the years by ensuring that his reptile pets are taken care of. His friends have already lined up to help.
This weekend as you head out to herp, take a moment to think of a man who helped turn this deli cupper into a full fledged herper.
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user uggleedog!
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Friday, June 13 2014
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user davemangham!
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Check out this video "How to find snakes," submitted by kingsnake.com user smetlogik.
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