Reptile & Amphibian News Blog
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.
Monday, December 16 2013
This image of an Iguana hatching, uploaded by kingsnake.com user tony1515, is our herp photo of the day!
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Friday, December 13 2013
Check out our Herp Video of the Week, "Field Herping 2013," submitted by kingsnake.com user smetlogik.
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 image of a Hagen's Pit Viper, uploaded by kingsnake.com user knotsnake, is our herp photo of the day!
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Thursday, December 12 2013
Venom from the Southeast Asia pit viper ( Deinagkistrodon acutus) may help stop human heart attacks and strokes.
From the Montreal Gazette report on the Canadian study:
Using venom milked from the snake, researchers filtered out all but one protein to create a drug called Anfibatide, which in human testing prevented blood clots from forming but didn't prolong bleeding as is the case with some clot-busting drugs.
"The concept that we can harness something potentially poisonous in nature and turn it into a beneficial therapy is very exciting," said Dr. Heyu Ni, a scientist at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto involved in the drug's development.
Anfibatide is designed to target a specific receptor on the surface of platelets in the blood that is instrumental in the formation of clots.
Read the rest here.
Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO - St. Michael's Hospital
This image of an Iguana, uploaded by kingsnake.com user twylin, is our herp photo of the day!
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Wednesday, December 11 2013
Ever heard of Siats meekerorum? Our old dino friend T. rex did, and not in a good way.
Check out this video all about Siats, and why he's been dubbed a "man-eating monster."
This image of a Midland Mud Salamander, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Kevin Saunders, is our herp photo of the day!
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Tuesday, December 10 2013
Dead mice pumped full of poison are being dropped from planes onto Guam to kill brown tree snakes ( Boiga irregularis).
From NBC News:
They floated down from the sky Sunday — 2,000 mice, wafting on tiny cardboard parachutes over Andersen Air Force Base in the U.S. territory of Guam.
But the rodent commandos didn't know they were on a mission: to help eradicate the brown tree snake, an invasive species that has caused millions of dollars in wildlife and commercial losses since it arrived a few decades ago.
That's because they were dead. And pumped full of painkillers.
The unlikely invasion was the fourth and biggest rodent air assault so far, part of an $8 million U.S. program approved in February to eradicate the snakes and save the exotic native birds that are their snack food.
Read the full story here.
Photo: kingsnake.com user Tereza
This image of an Everglades Rat Snake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user eric561, is our herp photo of the day!
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Monday, December 9 2013
This image of a Pastel Ball Python, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Unstable3lement, is our herp photo of the day!
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A robotic turtle, deveoped at the Tallinn University of Technology's Centre for Biorobotics, premiered at Robot Safari at the London Science Museum. The robot is intended to be used to investigate shipwrecks, but after that will probably take over the world.
Read all about it here.
Photo: Tallinn University of Technology
Friday, December 6 2013
Check out our Herp Video of the Week, "Eastern hog defensive display," submitted by kingsnake.com user wisema2297.
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 image of a Panther Chameleon, uploaded by kingsnake.com user itsajeepthing, is our herp photo of the day!
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Thursday, December 5 2013
New research into the Cerataphora lizard, an endangered agamid lizard from Sri Lanka, suggests that the animal uses its horns to communicate.
From National Geographic:
Ruchira Somaweera, a zoologist at the University of Sydney and principal investigator in the yearlong field study, which is funded by the National Geographic Society, said the data is still being analyzed, but the primary hypothesis is that the horns are used in communication within specific species.
Somaweera and his team focused mainly on the critically endangered leaf-nosed lizards (C. tennentii) and found that on these and on rhino horn lizards (C. stoddartii), the males of both species can move their horns slowly at a 45-degree angle while opening their mouths in a threat display.
This may aid in communication between males, he said.
Read more here.
Photo: National Geographic
This image of a Northern Water Snake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Michael56, is our herp photo of the day!
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Wednesday, December 4 2013
This image of a Sunset Boa, uploaded by kingsnake.com user lostworldproductions , is our herp photo of the day!
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Students at Wichita State University have found chytrid, a fungus deadly to frogs, in Kansas ponds and streams.
From the Wichita Eagle:
Students working with (biologist Mary Liz) Jameson in her Wichita State University field ecology class over the last three years have confirmed the fears of anyone in Kansas who likes frogs: They found an amphibian-killing fungus called chytrid in streams and ponds of Kansas.
They found it in several streams and ponds near Wichita, and in Wichita at Chisholm Creek Park, near 32nd Street North and Oliver. WSU released a statement earlier this year outlining the basics of what Jameson and her students found, including a warning from one of her graduate students, Timothy Eberl.
Eberl said in the news release that this has implications beyond the death of frogs.
Read the full story here.
Photo: Wichita State University
Tuesday, December 3 2013
Malaysian authorities are pointing fingers at each other after a documentary, The Return of the Lizard King, alleged that Anson Wong was still active in the illegal wildlife trading business after a high-profile arrest and conviction in 2010.
Wong was orginally sentenced to five years for trafficking wildlife including endangered species like snow leopards, pandas, and rare reptiles, but his sentence was reduced to 17 months.
From the Star:
(Election strategist Dr.) Ong (Kian Ming) claimed that there was an obvious question of corruption within Perhilitan (Department of Wildlife and National Parks) as public records show that Wong and his wife, Cheah Bing Shee still owned companies involving in importing and exporting wildlife.
He said there was a need to see if there was anyone who was helping them obtain the permits, despite the Government's insistence that all of Wong and Cheah's licenses had been revoked.
"This affects Malaysia's reputation. Anson Wong could just be the tip of the iceberg. If Malaysia is identified as a possible transshipment hub for illegal wildlife activities, this will give us a bad reputation, " he warned.
Read more here.
Photo: The Star
This image of an Albino Monocled Cobra, uploaded by kingsnake.com user herpetology16, is our herp photo of the day!
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Monday, December 2 2013
A former Animal Planet personality admitted he sold endangered lizards in a federal court last week.
From NBC Los Angeles:
Donald Schultz, 35, the former host of "Wild Recon" on Animal Planet, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to violating the Endangered Species Act by offering to sell, and actually selling, two live desert monitor lizards (Varanus griseus) in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. District Attorney's Office.
Schultz admitted that on July 29, 2010, he sold the lizards to an undercover agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who was posing as a prospective buyer, and shipped the lizards from Los Angeles to Buffalo, New York.
Schultz told NBC4 that he kept the lizards as pets, but decided to sell them because he was moving.
"Someone contacted me and asked to buy them from me," said Schultz. "In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to do. I had no idea it was against the law."
Read the full story here.
Photo: US Attorney
This image of a Green Tree Monitor, uploaded by kingsnake.com user roadspawn, is our herp photo of the day!
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Friday, November 29 2013
Check out this video "White Leucistic Spanish Ribbed Newt," submitted by kingsnake.com user rhacadank.
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This image of a You looking at me?, uploaded by kingsnake.com user LizardWizard, is our herp photo of the day!
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Thursday, November 28 2013
This image of a Happy Thanksgiving, uploaded by kingsnake.com user anialady, is our herp photo of the day!
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Wednesday, November 27 2013
The skeleton of a drowned baby dinosaur was discovered in Canada.
From NBC News:
The toddler was just 3 years old and 5 feet (1.5 meters) long when it wandered into a river near Alberta, Canada, and drowned about 70 million years ago. The beast was so well-preserved that some of its skin left impressions in the nearby rock.
The fossil is the smallest intact skeleton ever found from a group of horned, plant-eating dinosaurs known as ceratopsids, a group that includes the iconic Triceratops.
Finding intact baby dinosaurs is incredibly rare.
"The big ones just preserve better: They don't get eaten, they don't get destroyed by animals," said study co-author Philip Currie, a paleobiologist at the University of Alberta. "You always hope you're going to find something small and that it will turn out to be a dinosaur."
Read more here.
Photo: Philip J. Currie, Robert Holmes, Michael Ryan Clive Coy, Eva B. Koppelhus/LiveScience
This image of a Scorpion Mud Turtle, uploaded by kingsnake.com user Serpentin, is our herp photo of the day!
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Tuesday, November 26 2013
Don't let anyone tell you toxic parenting is all bad. The strawberry poison frog ( Oophaga pumilio) uses to make their babies unpalatable to predators by feeding them unfertilized eggs laced with bitter alkaloids. This means of chemical defense is currently unique to the species.
That's the word from a study headed up by researcher Ralph Saporito of Ohio's John Carroll University. From National Geographic:
For their study, the researchers measured alkaloid content in strawberry poison frogs during different stages of development.
In one group, tadpoles were reared and fed by their mothers, and a second group was reared by the researchers and fed with eggs from another species of frog not known to harbor alkaloids.
As the tadpoles from both groups developed, the team analyzed their alkaloid contents. The results were clear-cut: Tadpoles reared by mom contained alkaloids in most stages, whereas tadpoles from the second group showed no sign of these chemicals, according to the study, published November 12 in the journal Ecology.
Read the full story here.
Photo: Robert Pickett/National Geographic
This image of a Beautiful Baby, uploaded by kingsnake.com user mesozoic, is our herp photo of the day!
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Monday, November 25 2013
After 30 years of captivity, two sea turtles named Touche and Daisy were released off the Desert Islands in Portugal. How's that for a happy ending?
See the release in the video blow.
This image of a Gopher Snake, uploaded by kingsnake.com user pitparade, is our herp photo of the day!
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