An alligator snapping turtle was found in Oregon reservoir last week.

From KGW.com:

It was the first time the invasive species was found in eastern Oregon, according to Rick Boatner of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The species is native to the southeastern United States, Boatner said. It can grow to 250 lbs.

"I'd hate to see these turtles get established in Oregon," Boatner said. "We already have problems in the Willamette Valley with common snapping turtles."

He added that the alligator snapping turtle can be very aggressive, and it's a safety hazard to people.

"It has quite a bite," he said.

Read the full story here.

Photo: Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife

Let's go surfin' now, all the snakes are learnin' how...

Okay, not all the snakes. But some Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnakes have been spotted on a Florida beach and in the ocean recently.

From WFTV.com:

Valeh Levy shot video Friday New Smyrna Beach but said her son was one of the first surfers to spot the snake in the waves.

"My son came running up toward my minivan and he said, 'Mommy, you're not going to believe this but there's a rattlesnake in the surf,'" Levy said.

Witnesses estimate it was 4-5 feet long and came onto the beach from the ocean. Levy said her son described how surfers tried to avoid the snake swimming right by them.

"He said the coolest part was that the snake raised half of its body up and looked out towards the surf and a wave was coming and the snake turned towards the beach and kind of let the wave bump it on in," Levy said.

Experts said it isn't common to see a rattlesnake in the ocean, but Smyrna Dunes Park near where the one was spotted is a natural habitat for them where they eat rats, small rabbits, and even baby raccoons.

Read the rest here!

Photo: WFTV

Why are so many humans afraid of snakes? Scientists may have the answer.

From the LA Times:

We’re not born with a fear of snakes, but it sure seems to develop early.

Now scientists may be closer to a explaining why ophidiophobia ranks among the top fears of humans, and seems to be shared with other primates.

Researchers inserted probes into the brains of Japanese macacques and found that neurons in a part of their brain that controls visual attention were more strongly and quickly activated in response to images of snakes, versus other objects.

The results, published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, appear to support a theory that early primates developed advanced perception as an evolutionary response to being prey, not as an adaptation that may have made foraging or hunting easier.

Read the full story here.

Photo: kingsnake.com user cochran

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People broke the law, but it's the alligator who died.

Because Florida law prohibits relocating alligators larger than 4 feet in length, this healthy, 11-and-a-half foot animal was killed after some idiot tethered him to a tree behind an apartment complex.

From the Tampa Tribune:

That alligator gator stretched 11 feet, 6 inches and may have hatched when Richard Nixon was president, said Phil Walters, the licensed trapper called out Wednesday afternoon to corral and kill the beast behind the Rivertree Landing Apartments off Sligh Avenue, east of 56th Street.

The back of the complex borders a scenic stretch of the Hillsborough River just south of Temple Terrace.

“We had heard that a couple of people had caught and tied the gator to a tree,” Walters said.

That was indeed the case. A stretch of parachute cord stretched from a tree over a 4-foot seawall and into the river, where the gator floated at the other end of the line.

Walters said some residents told law enforcement that unidentified people “had caught it and was feeding it cats,” keeping it as a backyard pet of sorts.

Whether the cat diet rumor is true or not, Walters was unsure. He does note that it’s a bad idea to feed an alligator anything because the free food makes the reptiles lose their fear of humans and associate people on the shore with getting a snack.

Read the full story here.

Photo: Phil Walters/Tampa Tribune

On Monday, we reported on an immune system characteristic that leaves amphibians particularly susceptible to the chytrid fungus, which is responsible for massive declines in amphibians populations around the world. Now, it looks like the herbicide atrazine is also increasing the susceptibility of frogs to chytridiomycosis.

From Phys.org:

USF Biologist Jason Rohr said the new findings show that early-life exposure to atrazine increases frog mortality but only when the frogs were challenged with a chytrid fungus, a pathogen implicated in worldwide amphibian declines. The research is published in the new edition of Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

"Understanding how stressors cause enduring health effects is important because these stressors might then be avoided or mitigated during formative developmental stages to prevent lasting increases in disease susceptibility," Rohr said.

Read the full story here.

Photo: kingsnake.com user galen

A thriving population of green anoles is living in a Los Angeles neighborhood.

From KCET.org:

The lizards that biologists just found thriving in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles aren't a new species: they're the extremely well-studied green anole. But as the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum's Lila Higgins reports, the discovery marks the first confirmed established population of the common reptile in Los Angeles County, and scientists are curious as to what effect the little lizards may be having on native wildlife.

Green anoles are native to the southeastern U.S. and nearby islands, where --- ironically they're in trouble due to competition from exotic reptiles. Hancock Park isn't the first beachhead green anoles have made in the state: a population has been established in San Diego's Balboa Park for many years, and reptile watchers also report a thriving colony of the sleek lizards in and around Temecula. Individual green anoles have been documented in places like Northridge and Chino Hills.

And according to Higgins, Hancock Park neighbors have told Natural History Museum herpetologist Greg Pauly that the anoles have been there as long as they can remember.

Read the full story here.

Photo: PiccoloNamek/Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons License

Scientists are honing in on the immune factor that is allowing amphibian populations to succumb to the fungal disease chytridiomycosis, which has caused a loss of nearly 4 percent of amphibian populations every year between 2002 and 2011.

From Popular Science:

It's been most baffling, given the amphibians' complex immune systems, not far off from the immune complexity of humans and other mammals.

"There's been a big question in terms of why the amphibian immune system hasn't been able to respond to this nasty skin infection," Louise Smith-Rollins, an associate professor of pathology, microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt, tells Popular Science. "The question is, if it's a failure to recognize the pathogen, what's the defect?"

Rollins-Smith has been studying this immune response for more than 10 years, and she and her team have found another clue as to why amphibians can't clear this fungus. This week in Science, a paper she co-authored brings in new information to understanding the answer to that question. The study, led by Vanderbilt graduate students J. Scott Fites and Jeremy Ramsey, shows that it may be the second line of immune defense where the breakdown occurs.

The first line of defense, antimicrobial peptides produced in the skin, seemed to be effective at producing an immune response. But during the next stage, something happened to stop the usual inhibiting response.

"It appears that the defect is that the fungus itself is able to release factors that target vulnerable lymphocytes and induce them to commit suicide," Rollins-Smith says. "Mediators that should be regulating and calling in the troops, they're stopped right there."

Read the rest of the story here.

Photo: Joel Sartore/Popular Science

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Scientists working to protect loggerhead sea turtles know how to save them; they just can't get stakeholders to cooperate.

From Mission Blue:

It's been our experience that those who would spend two decades or more working closely with fishermen to understand and protect sea turtles typically have the best interests of both people and nature in mind, although sometimes they are called "turtle-huggers" or scapegoated over another competing agenda.

Back in the early 1990’s when we learned about the mass mortality of loggerhead sea turtles off the Pacific coast of Baja from geographers Serge Dedina and Emily Young, we responded immediately.

Here’s how Dr. Dedina describes what they found:



"We first started noticing the mortality of loggerheads on Magdalena Island on the trip out to Cabo San Lazaro in the Spring of 1994 when we noticed a few animals stranded on the beach. But as summer progressed we saw more and more. What was fascinating was to see the correlation between stranded loggerheads and the abundant coyote population who fed on the animals as they washed up. There were literally dozens of coyotes sitting in the dunes apparently satiated after a night of feeding.

By July 1994, on one return trip from San Lazaro, we counted more than 224 dead loggerheads, so many, that the fishermen we were with were clearly embarrassed. They all knew that the turtles were being caught in gill-nets. In fact we had been out shark fishing with fishermen in the spring and had seen the problem ourselves."

Read the full story here.

Photo: Mission Blue

The sea turtles are here!

Every year in early fall, hundreds of olive ridley sea turtles hit the beaches on Mexico's Pacific coast to lay their eggs.



Read all about it, and see the complete photo gallery, here.

Photo: Weather.com

Regeneration of lost organs or body parts is the stuff of science fiction, but it's also science fact. At the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, researchers are studying the many species that can regenerate cells in their body, and hoping to find information humans can benefit from, too.

From a Las Vegas Sun interview with UNLV researcher Kelly Tseng:

Most people don’t know that tadpoles can regenerate their tails — and very quickly. It usually takes seven to 14 days. Planaria, which are flatworms, can be cut into pieces, each of which will regenerate. Zebrafish can regenerate their heart, even if on-third of it is cut away. Antlers of a moose can grow two centimeters a day, which is the fastest rate of organ regeneration. Salamanders are basically the champion of regeneration. They can grow back a limb, a tail, their retina, even part of their brain.

It’s really amazing, all these animals with abilities we would like to have.

The full story is here.

Photo: Las Vegas Sun

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If you live in Washington state and think you could provide a good home for an abandoned python, the veterinarians at Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine want to hear from you.

From KGW News:

Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine captured and hospitalized the abandoned 11-foot-long reticulated python Tuesday night. The snake is believed to have been abandoned by renters in a house near Colfax according to WSU officials.

This is the second time in a month that law enforcement has asked for assistance from WSU to catch a large snake, according to College of Veterinary Medicine officials.

WSU workers said the snake was slightly undernourished but weighed 22 pounds. It suffered moderate burns before its capture according to staff at WSU. They said the cold-blooded snake curled around a heater at the rental property.

[...]

Anyone interested in donating to the snake’s care or joining a registry for selection as its potential new owner can contact the WSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital at 509-335-0711.

Read the full story here.