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, October 28 2014
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user ndokai!
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Monday, October 27 2014
![](/blog/uploads/NewFrog10.26.14.jpg) Using a technique more common in forensic science than taxonomy, a grad student identified a new frog of Madagascar.
From Discover Magazine:
Taking an integrative approach to taxonomy (versus the traditional and still-common practice of relying solely on morphology), Scherz examined genetics, morphology, and a technique that’s still cutting-edge for distinguishing species: CT scans. Wrapping the frog in alcohol-drenched paper (don’t worry, it was long dead) and shooting X-ray beams at it while rotating its position, Scherz was able create 3-D computer images of its skeleton while not destroying any of the tissue.
The non-invasive method allowed Scherz to see subtle but crucial skeletal features (such as the length of a segment of the thumb bone) that were critical for recognizing the rhombus frog as a new, unique species.
The CT technology also enabled him to see the frog’s last meal (or perhaps last several), revealing a millipede, six ants, a spider, a fly, and at least three different species of beetle in its stomach and large intestine. It’s no wonder Scherz named it vaventy, the Malagasy word for “huge,” in the paper describing the find, published in Zootaxa.
Read more...
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Terry Cox!
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Friday, October 24 2014
![](/blog/uploads/fraudalert1.jpg)
Dave Largent
24849 Alicia Way
Murrieta, TX
78673-0104 US
951-600-0240
dl2651@hotmail.com
Fraud Alert: Dave Largent - Murrieta, TX
Fraudulent Use of Credit Card; Theft of Service
On October 24, 2014, kingsnake.com received a chargeback notice from our credit card processor that the classified account purchase made on September 26, 2014, by the individual listed above had been charged back to our account.
If you were defrauded by this or any other individual through our classified advertising system, please file a formal complaint with our classified advertising department. For more information please visit http://market.kingsnake.com/complaint.php.
Check out this video "Crested X Chahoua Hybrid," submitted by kingsnake.com user lance_portal.
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It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user DianaFarnsworth!
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Thursday, October 23 2014
The fat shiner swam the 6' length of the 125 gallon aquarium in less than a second. It disappeared from this earth about 5 seconds later.
First I was watching it and thinking how gracefully it sped through and around the waterlogged snags. And even knowing the fish's purpose in the tank, I was unprepared for the speed and dexterity of that strike by the nearest tentacled snake, Erpeton tentaculatum.
The strike wasn't unexpected. I had been keeping and breeding tentacled snakes for several years. In fact, the only difference was that I had more than doubled the size of the shiners proffered. What had been unexpected was the speed - mere seconds were involved - with which the snake caught and swallowed the prey.
For those of you not familiar with the tentacled snake, it is a fully aquatic homolopsine species that occurs widely over Southeast Asia. It attains a length of two to two and a half feet and inhabits quiet, often silted waters. The genus contains only a single species with two distinctly different patterns, a blotched and a striped.
It is a live-bearing species. The "tentacles" (actually two short rostral projections), are sensory and seemingly assist the snake in locating their piscine prey in waters having limited visibility.
More photos below...
Continue reading "The tentacled snake: a fisherman of note"
![](/blog/uploads/lizard10.22.14.jpg) A UK man was prosecuted for swallowing a live lizard and frog.
From Express UK:
During the 90-second-long clip, Jeans downed a glass of water filled with crickets, before putting a frog in the same glass and swallowing it whole.
Jeans, of Cowplain, Hampshire, then gulped down a three-inch long lizard.
He was prosecuted despite claiming that he regurgitated the animals afterwards.
Jeans was ordered to do 80 hours of unpaid work after admitting causing unnecessary suffering to the animals under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.
Read more...
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user sharlaxle!
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Wednesday, October 22 2014
![](/blog/uploads/Aussietoad10.21.14.jpg) Cane toads introduced into Australia are evolving to move farther, faster.
From ABC News:
"All you get at the front are the offspring of the fastest toads who were themselves the offspring of the fastest toads who themselves were the offspring of the fastest toads.
"Genes for fast dispersal end up concentrated at the invasion front.
"This is evolution through space rather than time.
"It's quite different to the sorts of things (Charles) Darwin talked about."
Read more...
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user markg!
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Tuesday, October 21 2014
"Stop!"
Seems like Jake hollers "stop" a lot when we're on the road. I haven't figured out whether that's because I'm always looking in the wrong places or because of my failing vision. Probably a little of both.
"That was a 'horny toad.' A baby horny toad!" Jake continued.
I was already backing up and sure enough, barely on the pavement, at grass edge, was a juvenile Texas horned lizard, Phrynosoma cornutum. And just behind it was another.
The stretch of road we were on was a bit north from the Rio Grande in western Texas. Over the years, I consistently found adult Texas horned lizards along this roadway. Although this strong and consistent population indicated that I was seeing a viable and reproducing population, until this trip I had not actually seen any juvenile examples.
But now, with two tiny post-hatchlings on the roadside there was no longer any question of whether or not the population was breeding.
Thanks, Jake.
More photos below...
Continue reading "That was a "horny toad""
![](/blog/uploads/Croc10.20.14.jpg) Australian crocodiles that nabbed local dogs are being kept alive instead of destroyed.
From NT News:
“These two were removed (from waterways near Ski Beach) because they were a community pest – they start taking dogs and next it could be a kid.”
The old crocs are held in leafy enclosures, along with a handful of smaller salties in other fenced pools, at the site where the corporation once ran a crocodile farm.
Traditional owners didn’t want the reptiles killed – crocs are the totem animal for some Yolngu.
Read more...
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user uggleedog!
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Monday, October 20 2014
![](/blog/uploads/RussellViper10.19.20.jpg) What can cause someone to go through "reverse puberty?" A snake bite.
From Live Science:
In some cases, the bites of venomous snakes called Russell's vipers, which inhabit South and Southeast Asian countries, can cause bleeding in the pituitary gland. This damages the organ and can prevent it from performing its basic function, the production of hormones including those that regulate sexual functioning.
In a report published in October 1987 in the journal The Lancet, researchers examined 33 cases of patients bitten by Russell's vipers. Some of those patients developed serious hormonal abnormalities, which resulted in decreased libido; loss of pubic and armpit hair; erection problems in men; and irregular, scant or absent menstrual periods in women.
Read more...
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user MrSpence!
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Friday, October 17 2014
The world's a pretty hostile place for herps these days, with a number of emerging pathogens threatening the existence of many species of reptiles and potentially all amphibians. Here are four of the worst threats:
1. The big daddy of them all, which some scientists say might wipe out pretty much every amphibian on earth: chytridiomycosis. It's caused by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. While protocols exist to cure it in the laboratory, the only positive news for animals in the wild is some amphibians may be able to mount an immune response to the fungus. Maybe.
2. Snakes worldwide, mostly in the boid family, have been struck by Inclusion Body Disease, thought to be caused by a retrovirus. The disease is fatal in symptomatic animals, and there's ongoing research into it at the University of Florida.
3. A deadly virus recently diagnosed in box turtles in Southwest Florida and affecting amphibians worldwide: ranavirus.
4. A nasty fungus killing snakes in the Midwestern and Eastern U.S.: Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola. The good news: There's a new test for the disease. The bad news: So far, there's no cure, and the fungus seems to outwit all current disinfectants. At great risk is the last eastern massasauga rattlesnake population in Illinois.
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Check out this video "Toad Enjoys Scratching," submitted by kingsnake.com user PH FasDog.
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It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user ageber!
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Thursday, October 16 2014
![](/blog/uploads/RES10.15.14.jpg) Dave Pauli is taking banned Montana red-eared sliders on a trek to Texas.
From the Independent Record:
The lake is on a wildlife sanctuary created for relocated Grand Canyon burros. Pauli’s trip is no pedal-to-the-metal exercise. Turtles take time. The ones Pauli receives will spend weeks in large ponds in Montana getting used to catching food, diving deep and swimming beyond the glass walls of an aquarium.
A turtle that has lived in shallow water in a short glass tank doesn’t know how to manage the sink-or-swim pond life. Pauli said the animals will be tested to see which are fit for release and which continue to need looking after.
Thursday, Pauli was working with a red-eared slider that was swimming the length of a pool 25 feet long. That turtle will be joined by other turtles submitted during the one-time, red-eared slider turtle turn-in program.
Read more...
"Stop!" Jake hollered. There's a turtle on that rock. It's a slider! Oh and there's a couple of others swimming around the rocks."
We were on a curve on a narrow section of road on a bluff overlooking the Rio Grande. The road shoulder was only a couple of feet wide and even though traffic was light, I was nervous about stopping. I slowed, eased forward, and just as I was about to suggest that Jake hop out with his camera and I would find a parking spot and walk back, the shoulder widened slightly and I was able to stop safely.
Both Jake and I were happy about this opportunity, for earlier, as we had begun to focus on a distant slider at another pull-off, the turtle had dropped from its basking snag into the silted water and was gone.
These, on the other hand, rather than having already basked and warmed were just hauling out of the river to begin a new basking sequence. Hopefully, this would provide us a second opportunity for photos. And it did.
Adults of the Big Bend slider, Trachemys gaigeae, are rather small, attaining a length of only 6 to 8 inches. This taxon has 2 discrete red spots behind each eye and an extensive dark figure on the plastron.
Its range in the USA is discontinuous in the Rio Grande (and some tributaries and nearby waterholes) from the Big Bend of Texas to central New Mexico.
Since this is a long ways from our homes we were happy to be afforded the photo ops offered by the cooperative turtles. We may try to upgrade next year, but for now consider these pictures more than adequate.
More photos below...
Continue reading "A Turtle of the Big Bend"
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user golfdiva!
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Wednesday, October 15 2014
![](/blog/uploads/Students10.14.14.jpg) Elementary school students helped pass a law that names the threatened California red-legged frog the state amphibian.
From the Desert Sun:
Two students — Samantha Lambarena and Freedom America Payne — traveled to Sacramento in April to sell lawmakers on the idea.
The red-legged frog is the largest native frog in the western United States.
“We think people will protect it just like they protect America’s bald eagle,” Lambarena said during the April hearing.
Read more...
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user 1Sun!
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Tuesday, October 14 2014
Two subspecies of bark anoles, Anolis distichus, once were identifiable in south Florida. These were the brown to gray Florida bark anole, A. d. floridana, and the green bark anole, A. d. dominicensis.
Wherever and whenever the two came together, they readily interbred until the characteristics of the bark anoles in Florida were so muddled that in most cases the subspecies were no longer readily identifiable. The resulting intergrades were (and are) most like the Florida subspecies with an occasional individual being a pasty greenish-gray.
Then in August 2014, a friend posted some pictures of bark anoles he recently found and his comments regarding their color changing abilities were of interest. He said that most in this small population were on mossy barked trees and although typically dark colored, when feeding on the small ants of which their diet largely consists, a few temporarily assumed a decided green coloration.
I asked for and received 2 males that he collected when they were at their greenest (these were returned and released back into the colony), but in the week that I had them - skewed by capture and captivity - this is what I learned:
More than 99% of the time the lizards were dark brown. In fact, as far as I know, one never assumed green of any shade. But on one night, and only on that night, while sleeping, one of the bark anoles did assume a green color.
At dusk that night it was dark brown.
At midnight it was still dark brown.
At 2:00AM it was light brown.
At 2:30AM it was bright green.
At 2:38AM, after I took a couple of pictures, disturbing the lizard only with the flash, it was again a very dark brown.
To the best of my knowledge it never again, while captive, assumed the green color.
If the color is this fleeting in the wild, it is no wonder we don't see many green colored bark anoles in south Florida.
I hate the picture in a cage, but it's a lot better than having no record at all. Now it's time to head for Miami and try for photos of the lizards in situ.
More photos below...
Continue reading "Bark anoles: what a difference ten minutes can make"
![](/blog/uploads/Anole10.13.14.jpg) The commercial ties an island has may be key to understanding biodiversity and invasive species.
From the New York Times:
Historically, the diversity and complexity of life on an island was determined largely by its size and distance from other landmasses; if animals couldn’t easily travel to and from an island, few new species would arrive and establish themselves.
But with the shipping trade now allowing species to stow away from one island to the next, commerce has overtaken geography as the key factor in cross-island speciation.
“Humans have switched the system to one that in the past was dominated by speciation but now is dominated by colonization,” said Matthew R. Helmus, an ecologist with the Amsterdam Global Change Institute and the lead author of the study, published in Nature. “That’s really a fundamental shift to the system.”
Read more...
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user bsuson!
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Monday, October 13 2014
![](/blog/uploads/Learnin10.13.14.jpg) Humans and advanced primates are capable of learning through imitation, and now evidence suggests reptiles are too.
From Science Daily:
There is considerable debate about the extent to which non-primates are capable of true imitation.
Now researchers from the UK and Hungary have presented the first compelling scientific evidence that reptiles could be capable of social learning through imitation.
They set out to investigate whether the bearded dragon (Pogona vitticeps) is capable of imitating another bearded dragon through a simple experiment using a wooden board which contained a doorway.
All subjects successfully copied the actions of the demonstrator lizard, suggesting for the first time that reptiles exhibit social learning through imitation equivalent to that observed in 'higher' species.
Read more...
It's our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user AJ01!
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Sunday, October 12 2014
![](/blog/uploads/AuctionRico.jpg) Usually, the NARBC show at Tinley Park is a fun time. Herpers connect and catch up, and we share our love for our hobby and animals.
This year, while there are still good times, the shadow of the loss of Rico Walder to brain cancer, has dimmed some of the good times -- but not the spirit of our community.
At the event's famed auction, $1,600 was raised to help Rico's family pay the bills that mounted during his long battle with the disease that ultimately claimed his life.
Another $1,200 will go to the Texas Rattlesnake Festival, a competing event to the barbaric "Rattlesnake Roundup" held in Sweetwater each year. The Festival is educational and run by herpers, and is intended to make people aware of the important role rattlers play in the natural ecology.
The rest of the auction's proceeds will go to fund the work of USARK.
Thanks to all who gave to generously from all of us at kingsnake.com!
Photo: Green tree python auctioned off for Rico's family, taken by Cindy Steinle
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