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.
Wednesday, February 6 2013
This image of a blonde blood python was uploaded by kingsnake.com user jsignoretti, and it's our herp photo of the day.
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Tuesday, February 5 2013
This image of an arrow frog was uploaded by kingsnake.com user amazonreptile, and it's our herp photo of the day.
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Monday, February 4 2013
Good thing kingsnake.com user BlueKing brakes for Box Turtles! This image of one he saved from becoming road kill is the star of our herp photo of the day.
Upload your own reptile and amphibian photos photos at gallery.kingsnake.com, and you could see them featured here!
Saturday, February 2 2013
The business world is buzzing over the sale of Bow Tie, Inc., publishers of Reptiles and a number of other pet-related magazines and books. Bow Tie had recently closed several of its publications, and one, Thoroughbred Times, declared bankruptcy last fall.
From Folio:
A newly formed joint venture between Mark Harris, co-founder and co-owner of National Publisher Services (NPS), and David Fry, chairman of NPI Ventures LLC and CTO of Fry Communications, called I-5 Publishing LLC has acquired the books, magazines and websites of special interest publisher BowTie Inc.
Terms of the deal were not released, but Harris and Fry ballparked it at $10 million-plus. Included in the sale are Cat Fancy, Dog Fancy, Pet Product News International, Horse Illustrated, Urban Farm, AnimalNetwork.com, DogChannel.com and books like Dog Heroes of September 11th and The Original Dog Bible.
What does this mean for the future of Reptiles and other former Bow Tie properties?
In a media release quoted in Folio, Harris, who is serving as interim CEO of I-5, said:
We seek to expand content and make it available on all platforms. We believe in further investing and bringing in more expertise to the company to help raise the bar for us....
We’ll be looking at growing topline revenue with brand extensions and the introduction of new products... We’re open minded to partnerships, which will be a big priority, as well as further developing the existing digital strategy. We think there is a very large opportunity there.
Read the story here.
Friday, February 1 2013
Uploaded by kingsnake.com user Michael56, this image of a Northern Watersnake is our featured photo of the day!
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Thursday, January 31 2013
Some Dart Frog family values in our herp photo of the day, uploaded by kingsnake.com user stefan31!
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Wednesday, January 30 2013
Scientists at the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung have discovered nearly 500 new species, including the Yellow Dyer Rain Frog ( Diasporus citrinobapheus).
Science Daily has the story:
Whether in the deep sea of the Antarctic, in the rainforests of Laos or in domestic, pastoral landscapes -- scientists from the ten Senckenberg institutes have discovered new species of plants and animals everywhere. They have even made new discoveries in allegedly familiar research collections -- either by studying previously unidentified material or using new research methods. "The objective always is to record and preserve the diversity of life on earth, in other words, biodiversity," explains Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Volker Mosbrugger, Director General of the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung.
491new species from all parts of the globe were described in the last two years by Senckenberg scientists. The extent of new discoveries ranged from colourful island crabs to the Yellow Dyer Rain Frog and fossilised woodpeckers to the first eyeless huntsman spider. Some of the animals have barely been discovered and are already threatened with extinction.
Read the rest here.
Photo: Yellow Dyer Rain Frog ©Senckenberg
Uploaded by kingsnake.com user SandBoaMorphs, this image of a Red Phase Western Hognose is our featured photo of the day!
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Tuesday, January 29 2013
Australian scientists have discovered that Bessie the Moo Cow may be one-quarter snake, genetically speaking.
From ABC News:
The head of Molecular and Biomedical Science at the University of Adelaide, Professor David Adelson, led the project and says it involved comparing dozens of DNA sequences from different species.
"There was an observation backs in the '80s that snakes and cows shared a segment of DNA that looked to be quite similar in sequence and that was found to be a repetitive sequence," he said.
"We basically went and scoured all of the databases for sequence, and did sequencing of our own across some species where there was no available information, and put all of that together."
Professor Adelson says the DNA sequence shared by cows and reptiles is known as Bov-B.
Read the whole fascinating story here.
Uploaded by a kingsnake.com user with the awesome name of SlytherLyn, this image of a cornsnake is our featured photo of the day!
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Monday, January 28 2013
Happy Monday! These anoles were uploaded by kingsnake.com user ReptileLove, and we've made them our featured photo of the day!
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Friday, January 25 2013
This image of pretty Leopard tortoise sisters was uploaded by kingsnake.com user TylerStewart, and it's our featured photo of the day!
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Thursday, January 24 2013
Don't you just hate it when things like this happen?
Around 15,000 crocodiles escaped from a farm in South Africa following heavy rain.
The crocodiles sprung from the Rakwena Crocodile Farm in the far north of the country when owners were forced to open the gates to prevent a storm surge after the nearby Limpopo river rose.
A number have since been recaptured, but at least half remain on the loose, scattered far and wide.
Read all about it here...
This image of a beautiful Blue Sorong Green Tree Python was uploaded by kingsnake.com user snakemanskynard, and it's our featured photo of the day!
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Wednesday, January 23 2013
Seems like it was a slow news day in the UK, where headlines blared about some mysterious orange frogs found in the snow in a Derbyshire alley. You know, things like "Experts baffled!" and "Mystery frogs!"
Finally, one newspaper thought to contact the reptile house at the London Zoo, where team leader Ben Tapley explained the frogs don't hail from Mars, but are African clawed frogs, commonly kept as pets.
Pretty cute for mutant aliens from outer space.
It's tortoise time! This image was uploaded by kingsnake.com user TylerStewart, and it's our featured photo of the day!
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Tuesday, January 22 2013
Whether you're a football fan or not, Colin Kaepernick may just be every herper's favorite pro football player.
Seems the 49er quarterback, who is expected to make his first Super Bowl start when the 49ers face off against the Baltimore Ravens in New Orleans, still has the now-115-pound tortoise he got as a pet when he was 10 years old.
From NESN.com:
When Colin Kaepernick was a child of just 10 years old, he got a pet tortoise. However, unlike the reptiles ...of many children which have since been flushed down the toilet, Sammy — as the tortoise is named — is still very much alive, and has grown to a whopping 115 pounds over the years.
Go, Colin! Go, Sammy!
This image of a Green Tree Python, uploaded by kingsnake.com user CrocodilePaul, is our featured photo of the day!
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Monday, January 21 2013
This image of a Boelen's Python, uploaded by kingsnake.com user alanb, is our featured photo of the day!
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Sunday, January 20 2013
What do we know about reptiles and antibiotics? Not nearly enough.
That's the word from Mads F. Bertelsen, DVM, DVSc, DACZM, DECZM, the chief veterinarian at the Copenhagen Zoo. Dr. Bertelsen spoke on ""Long-Acting Antibiotics in Reptiles -- What Works and What Doesn't" as part of the Association of Reptile and Amphibian Veterinarians (ARAV) track at the North American Veterinary Conference (NAVC) today in Orlando, Fla.
He focused on long-acting antibiotics because they typically can be administered at greater intervals, which can help avoid stressing a sick animal. Unfortunately, he said, what we do know about antibiotics and reptiles is limited, and what we may know about a particular species usually can't be extrapolated even to closely related species, let alone from an animal like a sea turtle to a snake to a lizard.
"Even in tortoises and turtles, there can as much as 10 times the difference in the half-life of a drug," he said.
Long-acting antibiotics also increase the risk of developing a drug-resistant infection. That's because, as the drug wears off over time, levels in the body gradually decrease from those that will inhibit the bacteria to those that no longer will. But because the drug is still present in sub-therapeutic levels, it puts pressure on the bacteria to develop resistance to it.
This is not a concern only in reptiles, Dr. Bertelsen said, but in all species.
One such drug, cefovecin (Convenia) is widely used in veterinary practice, including in exotic medicine. "We use it at the zoo," Dr. Bertelsen said, "and it's a good drug for many birds and reptiles."
The problem, he said, is a lack of documentation of efficacy and dosage across different species. What data there is demonstrates how wildly the drug's half-life can vary: In the Patagonian Sea Lion, the half-life of cefovecin is 13 days, which is considered exceptional. In the Green Iguana, it's 3.9 hours, in a chicken, it's 52 minutes, and in a Ball Python, it's 64 hours.
Dr. Bertelsen reviewed four categories of drug: The fluoroquinolones, like enrofloxacin (Baytril), a drug frequently used on reptiles; the third-generation cephalosporins like cefovecin; the macrolides like azithromycin, a drug he thinks shows promise in treating a variety of species; and the tetracyclines, which he said have been studied fairly extensively on sea turtles but not other species of reptile.
Until there's a much larger body of research, he said most reptile veterinarians are probably operating under the 10-10-80 rule when it comes to choosing antibiotics for their patients: "In exotic medicine, 10 percent of the animals we make better, 10 percent we make worse, and in 80 percent, what we do makes no difference."
Photo: Dr. Mads Bertelsen at the North American Veterinary Conference
Friday, January 18 2013
Not just another day at the office, honey. A Florida woman who was bitten while working at a snake-milking facility is suing the company's owner -- who is also her ex -- for "failing to inspect or adequately inspect the screening to the cage containing the venomous snake ... to ascertain whether the improperly secured lid constituted a hazard to employees and members of the public utilizing said cage.” Read more...
Pythons 1, Sen. Bill Nelson 0. Florida senator Bill Nelson, the man responsible for the python ban, got in on the python hunting challenge -- or tried to, anyway. He blamed it on the weather. Read more...
In other python hunt news.... only 21 of the snakes are reported to have been killed. Apparently, TV crews outnumber snakes on the ground in Florida these days. And the proponents of the hunt are lowering expectations as hard and fast as they can, with one spokesperson insisting he'd be happy if all they got was 100, or even the 11 that was the total a couple of days ago. And really, the main point is the research, not the killing. Etc. Read it all here...
Finally, some good news about climate change. At least, if you're a ratsnake, a species that's thriving in the new hotter world order. Read about it here...
Photo: Ratsnake, John White/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
This image of a Tomato frog, uploaded by kingsnake.com user alex_reid33, is our featured photo of the day!
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Thursday, January 17 2013
This American Toad photo uploaded by kingsnake.com user AdrenalineImages is our featured photo of the day!
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Wednesday, January 16 2013
This Super Hypo Orangetail photo uploaded by kingsnake.com user vin russo is our featured photo of the day!
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Tuesday, January 15 2013
The Florida python hunt is shaping up to be just as cruel and pointless as any opponent could have predicted. From the Huffington Post:
The state of Florida this weekend unleashed a thrill-seeking public on the Burmese python, an invasive species that has set up house in the Florida Everglades and surrounding wildlife management areas over the past decade or so.
[...]
Based on results from the first weekend, a lot more people might need to sign up to appreciably diminish a python population estimated in the tens of thousands.
By 4 p.m. today, hunters had turned in a total of 11 dead snakes to the wildlife commission.
"I didn't see any snakes, much less Burmese pythons," Mark Reynolds of Seffner said this morning. "I saw plenty of alligators and birds and fish, but not a single snake of any kind."
[...]
The "harvesting" of snakes means killing them, and there are by-the-book ways to do that -- mostly a bullet into the top of the head.
Decapitating the squirming beast is not really recommended, because, biologists say, the brain of a python remains active for hours even after it is separated from the rest of the body and experiences excruciating pain during that time.
Read the full article here.
Photo: Huffington Post
Check out this Burmese Black Mountain Tortoise photo uploaded by kingsnake.com user emysbreeder.
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Friday, January 11 2013
Mr. Teeth, a 16-year-old dwarf caiman seized in a drug bust in the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this week, died while being cared for by veterinarians at the Oakland Zoo. From NBC News:
Dr. Karen Emanuelson said the animal, which looks like an alligator, was actually a dwarf caiman. And when he came to the zoo Tuesday after an unusual drug bust, he was critically ill and non-responsive.
Veterinary staff said they examined Mr. Teeth, took blood samples and determined his prognosis was poor. Emanuelson confirmed Thursday that the animal died sometime in the night, but no one at the zoo would explain or discuss any more. It was not clear why the caiman, thought to be about 16 years old, died, or if guarding drugs at a man's house had any connection to his death.
Mr. Teeth was found in a tank with $100,000 worth of marijuana. The news story noted the reptiles require specific care and environmental conditions to be healthy, and that it was still not known if animal cruelty charges were being considered.
Read the full story here.
Wednesday, January 9 2013
An Ecuadoran court has convicted a German man of trying to smuggle four threatened iguanas out of the Galapagos Islands.
From Phys.Org:
Dirk Bender was convicted "of having altered the local ecosystem of the archipelago," park authorities said.
The Galapagos National Park has requested the maximum four-year jail term for Bender, who should be sentenced in the coming days.
Bender was arrested at the airport on Baltra Island on July 8 after park officials noticed him carrying a suspicious package, which was found to contain four lizards wrapped in canvas.
The hidden reptiles were Galapagos Land Iguanas (conolophus subcristatus), which the International Union for Conservation of Nature ranks as "vulnerable" on its Red List of Threatened Species.
Read the whole story here.
Friday, January 4 2013
In his new series on the Galapagos, Sir David Attenborough has captured a rare pink iguana on film for the first time. “It’s a remarkable thing in this day and age when you think about the number of scientists per square metre in the Galapagos, and yet suddenly we have discovered a new species,” Sir David said. Read more...
In New York, the Bronx Zoo welcomed five Chinese yellow-headed box turtles as part of a part of a Wildlife Conservation Society effort to save endangered turtle species. Caution: Cute alert. Read more...
Biologist Michel Garey discovered a new species of tiny, three-fingered frogs, back in 2007, and last summer, the little critters got a name: Brachycephalus tridactylus. The story of the frog species' discovery was published in Herpetologica, a journal about the study and conservation of reptiles and amphibians. Read more...
Thursday, January 3 2013
You might have heard the story on NPR, or seen it come across the wires or your Google alerts: A North Carolina man was arrested, charged with felony animal cruelty, and held on a $20,000 bond for allegedly shooting his pet python.
It's not at all clear what happened -- initial reports didn't include the shooter's side of the story, and he's now claiming the snake, named "Anonymous," was a beloved pet who was already dead when he shot him. From the Charlotte Observer:
“I couldn’t bury him or the other animals would get him,” Ericcson told NBC Charlotte, the Observer’s news partner. “I had to shoot it to get the gas out of him, then I was going to burn him.”
Ericcson said the snake was his pet for about 17 years. “I’ve had that snake since he was so small he could just wrap around your wrist,” he said. “Me and my wife can’t have kids, so the animals are our kids.”
Ericcson claimed he was so distraught over the snake’s death, he shot up the large cabinet that contained his Dale Earnhardt collection.
Setting aside the made-for-reality-TV elements of the story, the extraneous details, and the conflicting news accounts, focus on just one thing: In North Carolina, the media is uniformally referring to a python as a "pet," and authorities charged someone who allegedly shot a python with felony animal cruelty.
In Florida, they're paying bounty on killed pythons. In North Carolina, they're protected pets. Go figure.
H/T to Alex Scharnberg for the tip.
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