Check out this video "Two headed bearded dragon," submitted by kingsnake.com user RoachMei.
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Someone thought Mother Nature could be improved on with nail polish and glitter when it came to the shell of an Eastern Box Turtle -- putting the turtle's life at risk.

From care2.com:

Earlier this week, the good folks at the Wildlife Center of Virginia rescued an Eastern box turtle discovered at a nearby campground after it fell victim to an unscrupulous ‘artist’. According to staff, the reptile’s shell had been vandalized with several types of nail polish and glitter — threatening its survival by making it an easy target for predators.

“Box turtles have this great natural camouflage that just allows them to blend into their environment,” says staffer Amanda Nicholson. “And this is really sending a message to the world of, ‘hey, look at me.’”

The wildlife center isn’t certain whether the turtle is an abandoned pet, or if someone ran across it in the wild and decided to add this gaudy graffiti, but the tagged shell does offer some clues as to who might be responsible. Along with the word “Sheldon”, taken to be the female turtle’s name, are the initials “SKR” and “BDM” — perhaps belonging to the culprits.

Read the story here and watch the video here.

University of Texas at Arlington evolutionary biologists Todd Castoe and Matthew Fujita are part of the team unlocking secrets of the Western painted turtle genome to find ways to help humans.

From the Star-Telegram:

Castoe and Fujita were among nearly 60 co-authors of a paper published in the journal Genome Biology this spring that described the findings from the genome sequencing, only the second full genetic mapping on a reptile.

The researchers found that the painted turtle’s genes used for tolerance of extreme cold and oxygen deprivation are common to all vertebrates but that they are more active in turtles that experience the extreme conditions. One gene that humans share became 130 times more active in turtles subjected to low-oxygen environments.

Further study of the turtle genome could yield clues related to human health and well-being, particularly oxygen deprivation, hypothermia and longevity.

“It’s very hard to do research on people,” said Pamela Jansma, dean of the UTA College of Science, “but if you know that animals have a similar gene pairing, you can study how those genes trigger responses to environmental stimuli. You can map that to humans, and you can then imagine developing gene therapies to address certain diseases.”

Read more here.

Photo: Brandon Wade/Star-Telegram.

Frogs bearing Charles Darwin's name are at risk of extinction in Chile.

From Live Science:

Charles Darwin first discovered the frogs while traveling in Chile in 1834. Scientists who later studied the mouth-brooding animals found that there are actually two species, naming one Rhinoderma darwinii (Darwin's frog) and the other Rhinoderma rufum (Chile Darwin's frog).

From 2008 to 2012, a team of researchers led by zoologist Claudio Soto-Azat surveyed 223 sites in the frogs' historical range, from the coastal city of Valparaíso south to an area just beyond Chiloé Island. R. rufum has not been seen in the wild since 1980, and despite the recent extensive search effort across every recorded location of the species, no individuals were seen or heard during the four-year survey, the researchers said. R. darwinii, meanwhile, was found in 36 sites, but only in fragmented and small populations, each with likely less than 100 individuals.

The findings suggest Darwin's frogs have disappeared from, or at least rapidly declined in, many locations where they were recently abundant, the researchers wrote in a paper published online June 12 in the journal PLOS ONE. Habitat loss and fragmentation may be the culprits.

Read more here.

Photo: doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0066957.g001

From the Reporter-Herald:

Scientists believe that a protein in (snake) venom helps snakes relocate their prey so they can continue their dinner.

This protein, called a disintegrin, enables the snake to relocate its prey, explains (University of Northern Colorado researcher Anthony) Saviola. He says scientists performed studies where a rattlesnake struck a mouse, and when a second rattlesnake of the same species was given a choice between that mouse or one that had not been injected with venom, the second rattlesnake usually always chose the one with venom.

Snakes also have an advanced olfactory system and special chemosensory organs in their mouths. Snakes will tongue-flick rapidly, says Saviola, to pick up chemical cues in the environment. But it appears to be the disintegrin that helps them find prey.

Integrins, by definition, are a large group of molecules that promote cell adhesion. "Some of these you don't see in normal, healthy tissue," says Saviola, "but you will see them expressed 100 fold in abnormal, cancerous tissue."

The disintegrin protein in snake venom, when injected into cancer cells, binds the outside of the cell via these integrin receptors. Chemotherapy, used most often to help stop the spread of cancer, not only kills cancer cells but also the healthy cells. The disintegrin from snake venom acts differently. "It doesn't kill the cell," says Saviola. "It binds the outside and doesn't allow the cell to communicate with surrounding cells. That's when cancer becomes cancer ... when it spreads throughout the body."

Read more here.

Check out this video "Twins and Triplets," submitted by kingsnake.com user prehistoricpets.
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Not everyone starts out liking reptiles -- but that can change, as this profile of Hogle Zoo reptile keeper Emily Merola demonstrates.

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

Emily Merola can relate. The Hooper native and psychologist is Hogle Zoo’s primary reptile keeper. She takes care of 52-year-old Kronk, a huge Aldabra tortoise that sometimes follows her around like a puppy during feeding time, Bill and Hillary — the crocs, not the political couple — and an assortment of snakes, lizards, turtles, tortoises and amphibians.

"You have to work with reptiles to really appreciate the grand scale of them," she said. "They are unlike any animal that I have ever worked with before. They are kind of a challenge. You can’t read them like an ape or a giraffe. They don’t have facial expressions. They are the most laid back animals you could ever work with, and the most difficult."

Merola began her Hogle Zoo career volunteering and then serving an internship. She became part of the staff called Eco Explorers that took live animals or exhibits around the grounds and interacted with visitors. She took a seasonal position and, two years later, earned her way into the reptile supervisor position.

Read more here.

Photo: Tom Wharton/Salt Lake Tribune

A donated $24,000 laser is helping the South Carolina Aquarium rehabilitate hundreds of injured sea turtles and another mammals, fish, and wildlife.

From the Herald Online:

An endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle was fitted with a black hood and held quietly Tuesday as it received laser therapy for a joint injury that, under normal circumstances, could keep it in the South Carolina Aquarium's Sea Turtle Hospital for as long as two years.

The turtle, stunned by last winter's cold, has developed a bone infection. The aquarium's new laser will ease the creature's pain and is expected to reduce its recovery time.

Read more here.

Photo: Bruce Smith/HeraldOnline.com

The Global Conservation Group is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the fatal beating of a snapping turtle at the Delbrook Golf Course in Delavan, Wisc., on June 10 between 7:30 and 9:30 a.m.



The female turtle, looking for a place to lay her eggs, was found lying in the sand in a bunker with holes in its shell. She was also struck in the right eye, a wound which appeared to have been from a golf club. Investigators looked for her eggs but were unable to find them.

Anyone with information about this case should call the DNR hotline at 1-800-TIP-WDNR or 1-800-847-9367. Callers can remain anonymous.

If you would like to contribute to the reward fund, you can do so here.

A fungus that has killed snakes in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Illinois has been identified in timber rattlesnakes in Tennessee.

From Nashville NPR:

Infected snakes have been located in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Illinois has seen multiple fatalities over the last several years in a threatened snake species – the eastern massasuaga. While the total number of deaths is small, so is the total snake population in northern states like Illinois.

“Even a few individuals can be significant,” TWRA biologist Brian Flock writes in an email.

One of the leading researchers on the topic is wildlife veterinary Matthew Allender, who says the fungus that’s being discovered is often found on captive reptiles like bearded dragons. He told the University of Illinois News Bureau that finding infections in the wild is significant.

Read more here.

Photo: smalleraperture/Flickr via Nashville NPR

Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates, celebrated World Oceans Day last weekend by releasing a group of critically endangered hawksbill turtles to the Gulf of Oman.

From The National:

The global population of hawksbills, named for their narrow head and shape of their beak, has dropped by 80 per cent in just three generations despite international conventions banning hunting and trade.

They have been threatened in recent years by human encroachment, particularly construction and coastline activity that threaten coral reefs, one of the turtles’ natural habitats.

Other threats include fishing, pollution and eggs being stolen from nesting beaches.

The turtles released at the Mangrove Natural Reserve in Khor Kalba were found by members of the public and taken to Sharjah Aquarium, which has been running a programme to protect and rehabilitate the creatures for the past three years.

Ismail Al Bloushi, a marine biologist, has led a Sharjah Aquarium team rehabilitating turtles for their release.

Read more here.

Photo: Galen Clarke/The National

A giant lizard, named after the Doors' Jim Morrison, who was dubbed "The Lizard King," once lived in Southeast Asia, sharing habitat and food sources with mammals.

From Science Daily:
A team of U.S. paleontologists, led by Jason Head of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, describes fossils of the giant lizard from Myanmar this week in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Their analysis shows that it is one of the biggest known lizards ever to have lived on land.

The creature's scientific name is Barbaturex morrisoni -- which means "Lizard King," in honor of the aforementioned Doors singer.

At almost six feet long and weighing upwards of 60 pounds, the lizard provides new and important clues on the evolution of plant-eating reptiles and their relationship to global climate and competition with mammals.

In today's world, plant-eating lizards like iguanas and agamids are much smaller than large mammal herbivores. The largest lizards, like the giant, carnivorous Komodo dragon, are limited to islands that are light on mammal predators. It is not known, however, if lizards are limited in size by competition with mammals, or by temperatures of modern climates, Head said.

But B. morrisoni lived in an ecosystem with a diversity of both herbivorous and carnivorous mammals during a warm age in Earth's history -- 36 to 40 million years ago -- when there was no ice at the poles and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were very high. The creature was larger than most of the mammals with which it lived, suggesting that competition or predation by mammals did not restrict its evolution into a giant.

"We think the warm climate during that period of time allowed the evolution of a large body size and the ability of plant-eating lizards to successfully compete in mammal faunas," Head said.
Read more here.

Photo: Craig Chandler / University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University Communications

Rumors of the Hula painted frog's extinction may have been premature.

The frog, declared extinct 60 years ago, has been discovered in Israel. From Science Daily:
The Hula painted frog was catalogued within the Discoglossus group when it was first discovered in the Hula Valley of Israel in the early 1940s. The frog was thought to have disappeared following the drying up of the Hula Lake at the end of the 1950s, and was declared extinct by the (International Union for Conservation of Nature) in 1996. As a result, the opportunity to discover more about this species' history, biology and ecology was thought to have disappeared.

However, a team of Israeli, German and French researchers now report in the scientific journal Nature Communications on an in-depth scientific analysis of this enigmatic amphibian.
Read more here.

Photo: Sarig Gafny/Science Daily

The reptile exhibit at Zoo Atlanta is the oldest area in the facility. But the reptiles will soon have a shiny new exhibit, designed to display the animals in a more natural habitat and focus on giving children a herp's-eye-view at the same time.

From the Zoo's media release:

Something spectacular is coming to Zoo Atlanta, and the evolution officially began on June 4, 2013. At a gathering of elected and appointed officials, community partners and Zoo Atlanta leaders and staff, ceremonial shovels broke ground on Scaly Slimy Spectacular: The Amphibian and Reptile Experience, scheduled to open in late 2015.

Scaly Slimy Spectacular will represent the largest fundraising effort in the Zoo’s history. Zoo Atlanta has raised just under $22 million as part of an ongoing capital campaign to fund the roughly 14,000 square-foot experience, with a goal of raising an additional $1.4 million over the next few months.

“We’re standing on the cornerstone of a new era for Zoo Atlanta. Our community has shown willingness to make a significant investment in the future of the Zoo,” said Raymond B. King, President and CEO. “We hope that as the public aspect of our capital campaign continues, Zoo Members, families and guests will also want to play a personal role in seeing history being made with what will truly be a world-class experience for Atlantans and Georgians.”

Winter Johnson Group, a partnership of the Atlanta-based Winter Construction and Johnson Construction Services, has been selected as general contractor; Scaly Slimy Spectacular will be the company’s 22nd construction project. Project architects are Torre Design Group Consortium, Ltd.

Scaly Slimy Spectacular will replace the 51-year-old World of Reptiles, the Zoo’s oldest building still in use for public exhibits. The new complex will be erected on a separate site which has not been accessible to the general public in decades.

There are more than 450 reptiles and amphibians at Zoo Atlanta, but a sizable portion of these animals have not been on exhibit as a result of space constraints in the World of Reptiles. Scaly Slimy Spectacular will provide naturalistic new homes for members of the existing collection while introducing large crocodilians and other exciting new arrivals. The complex will feature interactive indoor venues and state-of-the-art exhibits showcasing the amazing extremes in size, speed, color and behavior that make reptiles and amphibians such compelling animals to observe, study, and protect.

Follow the story here.