So, that snake infamously fished out of an Alabama toilet? It was retrieved by police officer Ali Thompson and identified by Hueytown Police Chief Chuck Hagler as a venomous cottonmouth. Local herpers came out of the proverbial woodwork, however, to say he was wrong.



From AL.com:

tidey : Don't know about fangs... but this appears to be a rat snake. Very common and not poisonous. Doesn't have the markings of a cottonmouth or copperhead.
umgrizz1: good grief... I know any kind of snake in the house is frightening... but that snake is NOT even venomous, much less a cottonmouth...
AUwildlife81: All snakes can't climb, primarily here in Alabama only the rat snake and corn snake are able to climb because they also feed on birds they would need this ability. Water moccasins eat fish and fish don't live in trees so they don't need to climb. Water moccasins as with most venomous snakes have stocky bodies which will prevent them from climbing. I have a degree in wildlife biology have taken numerous herpetology classes and I used to remove snakes for living. Yes other snakes can climb but those snakes are found in South America, Asia, and Africa.

Hagler's standing firm on his ID, however.

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Photo: Hueytown Police Department

The eastern hellbender may be joining its Ozark cousin on the endangered species list.



From Fox News:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is conducting an assessment of the eastern hellbender — one of two subspecies — to determine if it should be added to the federal endangered species list. The other subspecies, the Ozark hellbender, found only in Missouri and Arkansas, was declared endangered in 2011 after a 75 percent decline.

Such a designation could free up federal money to protect their habitat and aid in their recovery.

Hellbenders — the origin of the name isn't known — have been present on this continent for at least 10 million years and are found in hill-county rivers and streams in the area stretching from New York to Missouri to North Carolina.

"There's nothing else like them in North America," said federal biologist Jeromy Applegate, who's leading the eastern hellbender assessment.

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Researchers have found a chemical in Missouri waterways that is making male turtles' sex organs develop more like those of female turtles.

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

A pilot study conducted at the University of Missouri showed that the synthetic chemical bisphenol A — or BPA, which is known to mimic estrogen and disrupt hormone levels in animals — can alter a turtle’s reproductive system after exposure in the egg. Turtles are perfect creatures for this type of study, because their sex is determined by the temperature of the environment during their development in the egg.

“Cool dudes or hot babes,” explained Sharon Deem, director of the St. Louis Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Medicine and a lead investigator on the study.

The researchers dropped a liquid form of the chemical onto hundreds of eggs that were incubated at cooler temperatures required to produce male turtles. A few months after they hatched, the turtles’ sex organs were removed and studied. The male turtles had developed gonads that were closer to ovaries than testicles.

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Photo: Huy Mach/St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Jamaican iguana, one of the rarest lizards in the world, came back from extinction once already. Can he do it again?

From the Jamaica Observer:

The Jamaican iguana is listed as a critically endangered species, but it has been saved from extinction. However, this triumph of the conservation movement is now threatened by the plan to turn the Goat Islands into a $1.5-billion economic zone, transshipment port and logistics hub.

The official name for the project is the Portland Bight Economic Zone and Transshipment Port, and foreign journalists seem to be converts to the campaign against it. The Guardian newspaper in London recently published a portfolio of beautiful photographs of the lizard by the prize-winning photographer Robin Moore.

But it is not just the lizard that is threatened. The livelihood and way of life of fishing communities in and around the Goat Islands would disappear. And the flattening of the Goat Islands, as well as the dredging involved, would threaten 50 species of plant life found only in Jamaica, including 17 that are endangered.

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Photo: Jamaica Observer

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A Long Beach, Calif., park has been named after an early snake expert, Grace Olive Wiley.

From the Press-Telegram:

Known as The Snake Lady, Wiley earned national recognition for her collection of reptiles and venomous snakes. Some of her snakes were featured in films such as “The Jungle Book” and “Cobra Woman.” Wiley herself appeared as a snake charmer in the film “Moon Over Burma,” starring Dorothy Lamour.

Born in Chanute, Kan., in 1883, Wiley, who has been described as headstrong in many biographical accounts, attended the University of Kansas at a time when very few women sought out a higher education.

She began collecting and observing rattlesnakes while doing fieldwork in the Southwest, and within a few years she became the first person to successfully breed rattlesnakes in captivity.

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The Bristol Zoo's giant tortoise has been laid low with a sinus infection.



From the BBC:

Helen, a 90kg (14 stone) tortoise, was given a health check after keepers noticed her unusual breathing.

Staff vet Richard Saunders said: "The whistling, raspy breathing in her nose could be heard from several feet away, so we took samples under anaesthetic."

The 32-year-old tortoise, described as a "good patient" by Mr Saunders, is currently on a course of antibiotics.

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Photo: BBC News

What's attracting diamondback terrapin turtles to the runways at JFK Airport, and is there anything that will stop them?

From the New York Times:

The incident, in 2009, naturally drew headlines. While there had always been turtles in the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, just south of Kennedy Airport, their occasional presence on the airport’s grounds did not normally cause a stir.

But on that July day five years ago, Russell Burke, the chairman of the biology department at Hofstra University, said, “Something made a huge number of turtles come up to Runway 4L.”

Two years later, it happened a second time. And on Thursday, a group of turtles appeared on Runway 4L yet again, despite recent steps aimed at keeping them away.

For Dr. Burke, who has long studied the terrapins that live in the wildlife refuge, the reptiles’ repeated forays onto the tarmac are the subject of serious study. Shortly after the first invasion, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey enlisted him to help it come to a better understanding of the turtles and their mysterious ways. As part of that effort, he works closely with the Port Authority’s chief wildlife biologist, Laura Francoeur, who described the turtle takeovers as among the more vexing challenges confronting her unit.

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Thanks to the efforts of the Blue Iguana Recovery Programme, there are now an estimated 850 blue iguanas in Grand Cayman.

From Cayman 27:

This staggering increase means the reptiles, which are indigenous to Grand Cayman, can now be moved off the critically endangered list.

“Previously they were listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as being critically endangered, which is actually only one step away for being extinct in the wild,” said Mr Watler. He went on to tell Cayman 27 that, “the fact is that this is an upgrade, it sounds kind of counter intuitive to say its a good thing that they are only on the endangered list but it really is much better than being critically endangered.”

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Not all venomous snakebites are created equal -- and neither are all antivenoms. Now researchers at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) have identfied important differences in venoms that may lead to breakthroughs in snakebite treatment worldwide.

From Phys.org:

LSTM's Dr Nicholas Casewell, first author and NERC Research Fellow, said: "Our work shows that venom variation observed between related snake species is the result of a complex interaction between a variety of genetic and postgenomic factors acting on toxin genes. This can involve different genes housed in the genome being turned on or off in different snakes at different stages of venom toxin production. Ultimately, the resulting venom variation results in significant differences in venom-induced pathology and lethality and can undermine the efficacy of antivenom therapies used to treat human snakebite victims."

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How do you save turtles and protect motorists' lives? Build a tunnel.

From KARE 11:

It's a specialized culvert built in Germany, which has small holes at roadway level to allow sunlight to get into the tunnel.

The location was picked after the MN Herpetological Society documented a large number of turtle crossings which were deemed hazardous to both turtles and motorists, who were stopping on the two-lane highway to avoid hitting them.

The $50,000 price is paid for with a $10,000 grant from the University of Minnesota, a $37,000 grant from the DNR's Legacy funding, and $3,000 from the Herpetological Society.

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Photo: KARE

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.

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Photo: Stephen Loman/SCMP

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.

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