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.
In just one year, researchers discovered 176 new species living in India.
From Mid-Day News:
According to official records by ZSI responsible for animal taxonomy under the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, 176 new species were discovered, described and reported from all over India last year.
Insects, which escape attention due to its size in areas with dense undergrowth, leads the pack among the animal kingdom as 93 new species of the invertebrates were found.
The list includes 23 species of fishes, 24 amphibian species like frogs, toads, etc, two species of reptiles, 12 species of arachnida (spiders) and 12 crustacean (crabs,lobsters, shrimps, etc).
Most of these discoveries have been made by ZSI scientists working across the country.
Can naturally occurring bacteria on the skin of some frogs offer protection from chytrid fungus?
From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:
The chytrid fungus (Bd) has been linked to amphibian decline and even extinction in more than 200 species worldwide.
Now, a new report adds to growing evidence that the key to beat this fungus may lie on the skin of some of these amphibians.
In a new study, southern leopard frogs (Lithobates sphenocephala) treated with an antibiotic cocktail which eliminated their skin microbes were more likely to be affected by the chytrid fungus, whereas frogs that maintained their normal skin microbes fared better against the fungus.
When you visit the Northern Himalayan States of India, I am sure you will see these creatures basking on the rocks.
The Himalayan rock agama or Kashmir rock agama, Laudakia tuberculata, is a very common species of agamid lizard found in North India (Kashmir, Uttarakhand and the western Himalayas).
I'm from Uttarakhand, where you can find plenty of these lizards, and I've been seeing these creatures since I was a child. As I have mentioned in my previous blog post, my unfamiliarity with lizards and these agamas leaves me a little frightened of them, but according to reptile lovers they are magnificent and harmless.
It is said that these lizards are from iguana family and I guess that is the reason some people call them "mini iguanas!"
These agamas can reach 15-16 inches and they have many color variations.
I have been watching these lizards in the backyard of my house in Uttarakhand for 19 years, and the thing that makes me most happy is knowing their numbers haven't decreased. It always gives me a feeling that the reptiles are safe out there!
Dinosaurs, Schminosaurs. We have crocodilians! Still very prehistoric, this Nile is keeping her eye on you in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user CDieter!
The seven surviving offspring of the leucistic boa constrictor smuggled by reptile breeder Jeremy Stone have been repatriated to Brazil, nearly a year after Stone plead guilty in federal court. The original boa, as well as one of the offspring, died, but the remainder returned to Brazil, which claimed ownership because the original specimen had been captured there.
In July 2014, Stone pleaded guilty plea to unlawfully transporting wildlife into the United States. As part of his plea agreement, Stone agreed to forfeit the boa’s offspring to the United States.
“The successful prosecution of Mr. Stone and the recovery and repatriation of the offspring from this rare and valuable leucistic boa constrictor are due to the exceptional cooperation between the United States and Brazilian authorities,” said U.S. Attorney Huber.
Not all monitor lizards are giant. The recently discovered Dampier Peninsula Goanna gets it's time in the spotlight at the Western Austrailian Museum.
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!
The most distinctive of all crocodilains, the gharial, helps us kick off the weekend in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Majorpat!
In Columbia County, Florida yellow rat snakes, Pantherophis obsoletus quadrivittatus, are not apt to be yellow.
And many fail to have the 4 prominent lines so typical of the subspecies further south. In fact, although some may be prominently striped, the rat snakes in this mentioned region are more apt to be brownish yellow and bear both blotches and stripes (similar to but more tan or brown than the rat snakes of the Gulf Hammock area) than they are to be yellowish and striped.
Why the hodgepodge of characteristics here? Possibly some are intergrades between the more northerly black rat snake or the more westerly gray rat snake. Such naturally occurring interbreedings could certainly create the colors and patterns found.
But Jim Peters, an excellent field herper, has mentioned that these strangely patterned snake may have had a bit of outside help. He says, "Rumor has it that several subspecies of rat snakes were let loose in that area in the sixties."
Whatever the reason(s) these snakes are very different and every time I see one I can't help wondering at the cause
A biodiversity survey in the Philippines found species unseen for decades: the Malatgan River caecilian and Palawan toadlet.
From National Geographic:
When the expedition finally stumbled across the serpentine amphibian, it was at the end of a road and a seven-hour hike beyond that from the nearest village. The area is known as Cleopatra's Needle.
"This is an animal that doesn't have any flashy colors or anything like that, but it's one of those last, iconic species that we couldn't find," says Brown.
Remarkably, the expedition also found the Palawan toadlet (Pelophryne albotaeniata), which had been missing for the last 40 years.
Hat tip to the green iguana! The animal that brought so many of us to the cold-blooded side deserves center stage in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user knoxville!
Little turtle frogs have some unusual behavior, from the way they give birth to the way they dig.
From io9:
The turtle frog is not something that, on sight, you would automatically call a frog. For one thing, if you see it, you’re probably in the middle of the Australian desert. The frog prefers living on and in sandy, loose soil. It’s also an unpleasant pink color which sometimes deepens to purple, so it generally looks like a lump of raw meat that someone stuck eyes on.
If you see it hatch its young, it still won’t seem froglike to you. This is one of the few frogs that’s never a tadpole. There being a dearth of pools in the desert, the turtle frog waits for heavy rains, comes out to mate, and then lays eggs that hatch small, but perfectly formed frogs. No little swimmers here.
Whenever I am in the wild searching for some snakes on trees, most of the times I end up finding these beautiful frogs. My passion of herping has brought me down to this conclusion that, though being so beautiful and tender these frogs are very obvious to be seen in woods.
The common Indian tree frog, Polypedates maculatus, is a common species of frog found in South Asia. It is widespread through Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka, and its range might also extend into nearby China and Myanmar. These frogs measure about 7-8 cm in body length. They are mostly brownish, yellowish, greyish, or whitish above with darker spots or markings. The fingers are barely webbed, and the toes are two-thirds webbed.
These frogs are one of the main reasons to motivate me during my herpings for finding tree snakes. Whenever I see these frogs in a good number, my hopes boost up as it is easier to find tree snakes because, as the saying goes, "a predator is always lurking behind its prey."
Today's herp photo of the day reminds us to always flip that tin! This five-lined skink was found with her eggs under a paving stone, uploaded by kingsnake.com user CDB_reptiles!
Lava from a volcanic eruption in the Galapagos is flowing away from the only known habitat of pink iguanas.
From Newsweek:
Isabela is a mostly uninhabited island that, along with the rest of the Galapagos, lies about 560 miles west of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean. It’s home to the incredible diversity of life that helped inform Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution when he visited the area in 1835.
Luckily, it appears that the iguanas are not in any immediate danger. The Galapagos National Park released a statement that these pink animals, along with their cousins the yellow iguanas and Galapagos giant tortoises, are not “expected to be affected.” The park reports that the lava is largely flowing onto the southeastern portion of the summit; the iguanas live on the northern flank of the volcano.
As Jake and I started southward towards Okeechobee County, Florida, the conditions seemed perfect. A low pressure system with scattered thunderstorms was forecast at our destination for the evening hours, forecast temperatures seemed ideal, and almost exactly a year earlier Josh had found our target snake, a South Florida mole kingsnake, Lampropeltis calligaster occipitolineata.
Seemingly uncommon, the South Florida mole kingsnake was described in 1987. This grayish, yard long, largely fossorial constrictor bears 60-80 well defined dorsal blotches as well as smaller lateral blotches between each of the dorsal markings.
The belly, also bearing dark blotches is cream colored.
A prominent dark diagonal bar extends from each eye to the angle of the mouth and two elongate dark blotches are present on the nape.
Jake and I were stoked. Except for a slight breeze, even as we left the turnpike the conditions seemed ideal. Storm clouds amply decorated with lightning continued to build a bit to the west. When we turned westward, the storms seemed more distant than earlier, the gentle breezes had become gusty winds, and the high humidity had become almost desert dryness.
What had earlier been ideal mole king weather now seemed more appropriate for desert kings. And it stayed that way for the 2 days we had allocated. The mole kings failed to become surface active. We failed again!
You know it is going to be fun when you start out the day with an Eastern coachwhip in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user jodscovry!
The Beddome’s keelback, Amphiesma beddomei, is the smallest member of the keelback family I have encountered. Its maximum length is 69 cm and it is named after Richard Henry Beddome, a British officer and botanist. I recently met this snake during my trip to Western Ghats.
Calling this post "Happy Ending" might have worked, too, because after couple of hours of herping in Western Ghats it was time for me to pack up things and return to my accomodations. On my way back I came to a stream and decided to wash my face. There in front of me I saw something moving on a small river rock.
After an observation of a few seconds I realized it was a Beddome’s keelback flicking its tongue!
Using genetic profiling, the University of Georgia is tracking loggerhead turtle females, including where they nest and lay eggs.
From phys.org:
Traditional methods call for researchers to attach a tag to turtle flippers to track them, but studies show that flipper tagging can miss up to 20 percent of all females that nest on a beach each season. Researchers also know that females nest on several different beaches, which can cause miscalculations about the turtle population. They can't monitor all of the beaches where the turtles nest at night, and many of the flipper tags get lost eventually, Nairn said. But much like a human fingerprint, the genetic signature obtained using the DNA method is unique for each individual turtle.
Not only does this DNA information identify the turtle mother, but it also allows researchers to speculate on population recovery, including how many nests are being laid, how often turtles nest and how many females are laying eggs. Over the first two years of the study, UGA identified around 800 nesting mothers along the Georgia coast, and researchers continue to track those turtles, including where they've nested over the years and how often they've returned to nest.
We love everything that rattles, but today we give the spotlight to this baby timber rattlesnake in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user jameswv!
It's summer, so we end our week with something a lil hot with this photo of a Lansberg's hognosed pitviper (Porthidium lansbergii) in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user neverscared!
This week's Herp Video at least gives the fisherman proof of the one that got away! This angler loses his big Northern to the original fisherman in this lake, a giant snapping turtle!
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 week's Herp Video at least gives the fisherman proof of the one that got away! This angler loses his big Northern to the original fisherman in this lake, a giant snapping turtle!
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!
Collected by biology students visiting Cuba, then introduced to Florida, this species has thrived!
Hearkening back a half century or so, I can remember standing at the Hialeah Racetrack with Jerry Fine in the early 1960s and wondering if we ever would see one of the (then) rather newly and deliberately introduced knight anoles.
Although they were said to be gaining a foothold in Dade County, Florida, we had failed to find one. But within a few years these big anolines became common in roadside trees in Coral Gables. Ditto at the before mentioned Racetrack locale. And they were ever more commonly seen hanging head down on the trunks of palms or ficus trees, in many (most?) urban Miami plantings.
By the 1980s, the question was whether there was any place in Miami where they couldn't be seen! Today, after finding them in thickets along the south shore of Lake Okeechobee, in Palm Beach and Collier counties, and in exotic plantings in St. John's County (where they may have been carried in the plantings and may not be established) the question has become how far north of Dade County can this 16 inch long predatory lizard establish itself? And what are its prey items?
Insects (including large beetles and roaches) and other anoles (most often the introduced brown anole) are grist for the mill of the knight anole.
How much does it cost relocate threatened tortoises to a conservation area? Almost $100,000.
From wftv.com:
There are about 75 gopher tortoises on the property. Rodriguez was surprised to learn what it might cost to move them.
"Wow, yeah, that's a big number. That is a very big number for them to actually move them," she said.
City officials said the burrows are on approximately 80 acres, which they are going to use to build retention ponds for a large reclaimed water project.
In Florida, the gopher tortoise is a threatened species, so the reptile and its borrow are protected under state law.
Most commonly known as the harlequin toad, this Atelopus barbotinitakes center stage in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user jamesmatthews!
After toiling for many days, a thought stuck to my mind to take a break from my schedule and go herping to one of my favorite scenic beauties of India, where you find flora and fauna as a paradise on earth.
This amazing place is known as Western Ghats of India, which has rich vegetation and magnificient creatures.
The Indian bullfrog, Haplobatrachus tigerinus, is a large species of frog found in India and especially in Western Ghats. As I was herping in suitable climate, it was my fate that I could easily find this beautiful creature and take some closeups.
An adult bullfrog measures 6.5 inches from snout to vent. I came across many adult bullfrog but as I approached them they jumped and disappeared. Finally I encountered a young and active but co-operative bullfrog -- and trust me, this one was more beautiful than others. It was green in color with blackish-brown spots on it. I was quick enough to grab it and settle it on a leaf.
Losing no time, I took some photographs and he too showed patience and allowed me to do so.
After taking these photographs I left him and continued with my journey in these beautiful mountains and also encountered many lovely reptiles.
Do you support this petition calling for the green iguana to be designated a domesticated animal?
From change.org:
Having this designation would afford them many advantages such as the protection under the humane laws that dogs and cats already enjoy. It would raise public awareness and education about the Green Iguana and that would give it more respect and better care like other domestics.
The definition of "Domesticated" will vary with every person that you speak to, but we agree with the one that is used legally by most city ordinances that states that it shall mean: bred for and adapted to living dependently in an urban household setting.
Ten crocodiles born in Sweden will be released in Cuba, their parents' native habitat.
From Global News:
The Skansen Zoo in Stockholm sent the reptiles to Cuba’s National Zoo in April to help encourage reproduction of the protected species native to the island.
Hiram Fernandez, a veterinarian at the Cuban zoo, says the reptiles will be released soon in Zapata Swamp, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southeast of the capital. Their ranks have been thinned by hunting and diminishing habitat, with few examples of Crocodylus rhombifer still found in Zapata Swamp and Cuba’s Isle of Youth.