A California tortoise had a brush with law enforcement after police picked him up near a city intersection.

From Yahoo! News:

The roaming reptile, named Clark, was reunited with its human family on Sunday after it was spotted near the intersection of Sixth Street and Norwood Place, in the southeastern part of the city, at around 1 p.m. Saturday and retrieved by police.

Someone cornered Clark until officers arrived, Alhambra Police Department Sgt. Esther Rodriguez told ABC News in a Sunday interview.

"Since he was kind of heavy, two officers picked him up, put him in our trunk and transported him to our station," where he was placed in a kennel until Los Angeles County Animal Care and Control arrived shortly afterward, Rodriguez said.

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If you have trouble keeping your garden free of slugs and mice, consider these tips to turn it into a snake sanctuary.

From the David Suzuki Foundation:

Tip 1: Avoid pesticides

Slug bait is harmful to snakes, other wildlife, children and pets!

Tip 2: Imitate nature

Avoid monocultures of plants that are planted in straight lines.

Tip 3: Use stones

Move objects like stones and slate carefully. They may be providing cover for your snake friends.

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Photo: kingsnake user ssssnakeluver

How do you examine a snake's heart? With lots of help.



From BBC News:

Reticulated pythons are the longest snake species in the world.

So it took a team of eight handlers to hold the snake in order that it could be examined.

The huge reptile, named JF, is thought to be one of the biggest snakes in Europe - at 7m (23 feet) long, and weighing approximately 60kgs.

As well as ensuring the snake is healthy, the check-up was part of a cardiological research study.

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Going where no gecko has gone before, Russia launched a research satellite filled with geckos who will, hopefully, mate in a zero gravity environment. The satellite briefly stopped responding to mission control's commands, but contact was restored three days later.

From the Washington Post:

At this very moment, a Russian satellite full of geckos -- (possibly) having sex -- is floating around in space -- and mission control has lost the ability to control it.

The Foton-M4 research satellite launched on July 19 with five geckos on board. The plan: To observe their mating activities in the zero-gravity conditions of Earth orbit. Several other earthly creatures, including plants and insects, were also placed on board for experiments.

But shortly after the satellite made its first few orbits, it stopped responding to commands from mission control. The equipment on board, however, is still sending scientific data back to earth, a spokesman for Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems said.

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Photo: kingsnake user snake_lab

Suburban homeowners in Georgia don't like sharing their backyards with native copperheads, giving rise to a disturbing trend.

From Slate:

Some people are trying to fight snakes with snakes. People in one neighborhood nearby, Druid Hills, which backs up to the Fernbank Forest, imported and released a bunch of black rat snakes into their yards. They hope the snakes will crowd out the copperheads and compete with them for the same food sources. The other day I attended my first-ever snake release party—complete with balloons on the mailbox, a local snake expert, and a kingsnake in a box—right in my own neighborhood after a small child was bitten on the foot while chasing fireflies.

This cannot be normal, can it?

To find out, I reached out to David A. Steen, a wildlife ecologist and research fellow at the Alabama Natural Heritage Program at Auburn University. (And a blogger and occasional writer for Slate.)

“Wow—I don't even know where to start with what's wrong with that,” he said of the snake release efforts.

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Photo:kingsnake.com user coolhl7

As the organism that causes chytridiomycosis in amphibians threatens their existence worldwide, a study published in the journal Nature suggests that turning up the heat and the frogs' own immune defenses may hold the key to beating the fungus.

From the New York Times:

To find out, the scientists swabbed Bd onto the bellies of Cuban tree frogs. After the frogs became infected, the scientists cured them by taking advantage of a weakness of the fungus: it can’t survive for very long at high temperatures.

[University of South Florida chytrid expert Dr. Jason R.] Rohr and his colleagues kept their frog chambers heated to 86 degrees for 10 days, after which the fungi disappeared. The scientists then repeated this procedure three more times.

Frogs that had already been exposed to Bd produced a much stronger immune response to a new infection, the scientists found. They produced more immune cells, and the fungus produced fewer spores.

The exposed frogs were also much more likely to survive an infection than a frog exposed for the first time. What’s more, these effects became stronger after each exposure.

Dr. Rohr and his colleagues also found that amphibians can learn to avoid the fungus. In another experiment, they put oak toads in a chamber. One side of the chamber was contaminated with fungal spores, while the other was fungus-free. They found that toads that had never been exposed to the fungus would explore both sides of the chamber, becoming infected along the way.

But toads that had previous been exposed (and cured with heat) tended to avoid the side of the chamber with the fungus. If they were exposed more than once, they were even less likely to go to there. Dr. Rohr and his colleagues are investigating how the toads learn to avoid exposure to Bd. It’s possible that the toads can detect a chemical made by the fungus.

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American Tortoise Rescue is asking parents not to let their kids get pet turtles just because they love the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

From Today Parents:

Hundreds of thousands of live turtles were purchased after each of the previous movies in the franchise, with many later dumped, deliberately killed or flushed down the toilet, the group said on its website. It estimates 90 percent of the animals died.

“We're asking you to save a turtle's life and perhaps even your child's,” co-founders Susan Tellem and Marshall Thompson write in an open letter to parents.

Previous film versions of the lovable "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" story have led to thousands of pet turtles being purchased and ultimately abandoned or killed.

“Unfortunately, children do not realize that real turtles do not fly, perform stunts or do any of the exciting moves fictional movie turtles do. Parents, trying to please their children, purchased live turtles which ended up languishing in tanks.”

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Breaking news from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission:

The two teenage girls responsible for the viral video of them torturing a gopher tortoise have been arrested today. Thanks to your concern and tips, Danielle Susan Dionne, 15, and Jennifer Emoke Greene, 18, have been arrested on charges of felony cruelty to animals, a third-degree felony.

They were also charged with a second-degree misdemeanor: taking, harassing, harming or killing a gopher tortoise.

The FWC worked with the State Attorney’s Office of the Fourth Judicial Circuit to decide the appropriate charges related to the crime. State Attorney Angela Corey said, “We are committed to fully prosecuting those responsible for the torture and death of this vulnerable and threatened species.”

The video, which is highly disturbing, can be viewed on the FWC's Facebook page.

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The very first Philippine crocodiles to be bred in Britain made their debut at the London Zoo.



From the Orange News:

The six new-born critically-endangered crocs - born over a 48 hour period - are among the world's rarest reptiles.

As they are native only to the Philippines the baby crocodiles were named after the islands they typically inhabit; Jolo, Luzon, Mindoro, Samar, Sulo, and Mindanao.

It is hoped that their arrival will help to boost the numbers of the species which has been hit by habitat loss and hunting for their skins.

The parent crocodiles. which play a significant role in the European breeding programme for the species, were born at a conservation centre in the Philippines.

Deputy Head of the Reptile House, Iri Gill, said: "The arrival of these six Philippine crocodiles at ZSL London Zoo is a massive cause for celebration for us, and we couldn't be more thrilled."

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A 4-foot alligator was rounded up near Wisconsin's Sheboygan River.



From the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel:

A team of sheriff's deputies and Sheboygan police officers corralled and snared the snarling reptile in a ditch near the Sheboygan River after a brief search that started in the 2700 block of Indiana Ave. in the city of Sheboygan, Sheriff's Sgt. Matt Spence said Sunday.

The sheriff's office received a call around 10:30 a.m. Sunday of an alligator sighting in that block, east of S. Taylor Drive, Spence said.

After the gator's snout was taped shut for the officers' safety, the animal was turned over to a conservation warden with the state Department of Natural Resources, according to Spence.

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Photo: Sheboygan County Sheriff's Office

As temperatures in their native ranges change, male reptiles may need to disperse to survive. That's according to a study published in the journal BMC Ecology.

From BBC Nature News:

Alligators, some turtles, and the tuatara - found only in New Zealand - all produce offspring whose gender is determined by temperature.

These species are considered to be especially vulnerable to climate warming, because at higher temperatures they produce only one sex.

Previous studies have suggested that the best way for reptiles to respond is to alter the temperature of their nest by seeking shaded areas, digging deeper nests and nesting earlier in the season.

But the authors say their study is the first to demonstrate that dispersal by the sex that occurs least in a population may be just as important, if not more so, in compensating for the effects of climate change.

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Don't you just hate it when the tortoises turn on you?

From the BBC:

A police officer in Uganda has reportedly shot a tortoise dead after being attacked by the "aggressive" creature.

The incident happened in the Nebbi district in the north of the country near the Congolese border. The officer - named as Charles Onegiu by the New Vision newspaper - said the animal entered his home and attacked him while he was enjoying a post-work cup of tea. "I tried to scare it but the tortoise became very aggressive. I took a stick to chase it but it instead became more violent," he told the paper. After attempting to fend off the tortoise with a plastic chair, he said he "instinctively" drew his firearm and shot it dead. A local Christian group later prayed for Onegiu, "before burning the dead reptile to ashes."

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