"From our perspective the most important thing is now the state is going to have to be consulted on for any development that happens within the flat-tailed horned lizard habitat," she said.

There is dispute over whether the species is in fact declining, and how many live in the dunes. A biologist with the Bureau of Land Management, Larry LePre, told the Yuma Sun in December the dunes aren't prime habitat since they don't have many of the harvester ants which are the basis of the lizards' diet, and there's no reliable data to suggest they're going up or down in numbers, mostly because they're difficult to detect.

The BLM, which maintains the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, is part of a joint Rangewide Management Strategy for the species covering almost 500 acres in California and Arizona. The center's petition contends this is inadequate since most of the land is open to off-road vehicle use.

Skinks, geckos, frogs, pygmy pythons, and a dead death adder - one of the most venomous snakes in the world - were found in the staggering haul.

A number of invertebrates and 33 dead reptiles, which appear to have been tagged for use as specimens, were also discovered amongst more than 157 reptiles and amphibians being transported out of Western Australia.

Four men were arrested and charged - two from Russia and two from the Czech Republic - at Perth International Airport on February 6 after an investigation by the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service and the WA Department of Parks and Wildlife.

The government-funded study took place at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park over the past four years.

"Alligators live in a pretty inhospitable environment, “ said Barney Bishop, one of the lead researchers. “Many of them live in stagnant water where there is lots of bacteria. And while they are predators, they also eat carrion, so they must have a robust immune system to fend off infection in these situations."

The researchers were able to isolate those infection-fighting peptides in the alligator blood. The hope is to use alligator blood as battlefield medicine. Soldiers wounded in battle are vulnerable to bacteria, such as MRSA. Alligators have a natural resistance.

Typically, female poison dart (dendrobatid) frogs lay eggs on land. Once the tadpoles hatch, male frogs, their fathers, then carry them to small nursery pools.

But these pools may be short-lived, and the frogs are too tiny to dig their own.

Enter the peccary, a species of wild pig common in Central and South America.

Peccaries like to fling turf, specifically by digging out wallows – their own individual mud spas.

As they do so, they can radically transform the rainforest floor, creating pools of water that are just the right size for prospective frog parents.

“Surveys confirmed the presence of a medium-sized breeding population of great crested newt within the pond on site, and individual long-eared and common pipistrelle bats roosting in the agricultural buildings as well as the presence of grass snake on site.

“This being the case; the proposed development will result in the loss of a great crested newt breeding pond, confirmed bat roosts, amphibian/reptile suitable habitat and mature trees.”

It states that before planning permission can be granted the newts and bats must be "looked after" and that the club must "demonstrate that the favourable conservation status of the species will be maintained within the whole of the site".

Woo and Rieucau conducted a playback experiment using computer animations of lizard displays. They created three simulated animations of lizards that differed in their shape and skin texture and performed the displays either with natural syntax or reversed syntax. There was the “cyberlizard,” which had normal shape and skin texture; a lizard with normal shape but without realistic skin texture; and an object shaped generally like a lizard but lacking texture.

The researchers found the order of the actions was critical for signal recognition. Even the animated lizards with abnormal shape and texture elicited responses from the jacky dragon subjects, as long as the actions were in the correct order.

The lizards responded to animations with correct syntax by making social signals of their own. These included aggressive signals like fast head bobs or the entire visual display pattern (tail flick, quick arm wave, and push-up body rock) or submissive displays like slow arm waves and slow head bobs.

“This is the first time that a fossilized animal like this has been found in Israel during this period,” she said. “It’s very rare for an animal like this to be fossilized.”

Researchers found roughly 30 fossilized remnants of the reptile known as the Elasmosaurus, which Ashckenazi- Polivoda described as the “cousin of dinosaurs.” It was 8 meters long, with its elongated neck constituting a third of its body, she said.

“The most exciting thing is that this is the first time that a single species’ bones [of this type] were found in the same place here,” she added. “We’ve found similar fossils from 10 million years later, but never during this time.”

For more than a decade, a vial of rare snake venom refused to give up its secret formula for lethality; its toxins had no effect on the proteins that most venoms target.

It comes from a reclusive redtail coral snake, or Micrurus mipartitus, which is primarily found in Costa Rica and parts of South America.

But recently, an international team of researchers figured out the venom's recipe—a toxin that permanently activates a crucial type of nerve cell protein, causing deadly seizures in prey. The details were published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.

The specific name ventriflavum comes from the Latin venter, meaning belly, and flavus, meaning yellow and refers to the golden yellow and orange coloration on the body.

The populations of several species of the water frog genus Telmatobius have declined dramatically over the past 30 years, and the genus is now thought to be extinct in Ecuador. These declines have been associated with the spread of the fungal disease chytridiomycosis.

Telmatobius ventriflavum was discovered in the species-poor coastal valleys of central Peru, a region well studied but apparently still hiding surprises.

It is possible that the reason the lizards were conjoined was partly due to the low amount of genetic variation that stemmed from having parents that were siblings, according to the report. In 2002, research was published on snakes, called Natrix tessellata, which showed a link between an increased rate of developmental abnormalities and a low genetic variability in small populations that had a limited number of ancestors.

Moreover, a study on sand lizards "revealed a significant effect of parental genetic similarity on the risk of hatching malformations," van Schingen said.

However, previous reports have also pointed to other potential causes of malformations in reptiles. For instance, in 2010, researchers described a case of a crocodile hatchling with eight legs and two tails in Venezuela that was found in an area that was exposed to chemicals from agriculture, according to the report.Another cause of deformations in reptiles may be adiet that is not well-suited to the needs of animals kept in captivity, which has previously been the case with bone malformations in green iguanas, van Schingen said.

The site now has a purpose built courtyard for the lizards which are mascots for the station.

Cheryl Hackett, the Belconnen Station's administrator, said being the chief lizard carer at the site was on the job description when she took over the role last year.

"They're beautiful, they really are, I never had a lizard, never owned one but I just love 'em," she said.

Earlier this week the lizard population at the station swelled from eight to 18 when one of the females gave birth.

Moorman, coordinator of N.C. State’s fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology program, said he couldn’t estimate the state’s overall population. He said the survey didn’t try to tabulate all possible gators. They’ve shown up in recent years in inland waters as far west as Harnett County, which is between Raleigh and Fayetteville.

An alligator hunting season could manage growing populations and potential nuisance gators, offer a hunting opportunity to sportsmen and sportswomen, and provide revenue from permit sales to fund the monitoring of populations.

Nevertheless, “alligators in North Carolina may be more vulnerable to environmental stochasticity (randomness), including harsh winters and frequent hurricanes, than elsewhere, so predicting long-term effects of a sustained hunter harvest is especially difficult,” the researchers cautioned.

The reptile-napper was caught on surveillance camera snatching Godzilla from her outdoor sanctuary in front of Paramount Pet Enterprise on Monday.

Store owner Holly Cepeda said Godzilla is well-known in the community, and she regards her as part of her own family.

Mitu Monteiro, 31, had spotted the Loggerhead while catching waves at Serra Negra Beach on Sal Island in Cape Verde, Africa after the little fella became tangled in a plastic net, Caters News Agency reports.

Upon further inspection, Monteiro noticed the neck and fins of the turtle were terribly entwined in the frayed edges of the packaging.

Thinking fast, the heroic surfer scooped up the turtle, placed him on his board and sailed back to shore — where the net was removed with the help of other surfers, according to Caters.

Over the past six months, scientists have collected 12 snakes and milked them of their venom. The snakes have been stored in a fluid preservative.

The snakes belong to the tiger snake lineage of species, with variants including two species of copperhead snake, a white-lipped snake and a small-eyed snake.

The venom library will progressively add other species, such as blue-ringed octopus, spiders, scorpions, platypus – which has a venomous spur - and other snakes. It will be the first facility in Australia to have a dedicated storage of venom along with full tissue samples of the animal the poison has been extracted from.

School officials say a boa constrictor disappeared from its cage at the Jeffords Center over the weekend. Students had a snow day Monday. On Tuesday, the professor who owns the snake discovered it was gone.

"I didn't know there was a snake on campus before now, it's kind of scary," said Justin Goulet, a sophomore.

The Castleton Community received an email this week alerting them that the 4-foot long rainbow boa was "thought to [have been] stolen from a lab."

"Based on what we've seen so far we tend to think it's been taken based on the snake's usual habits," said Dikeman. "It tended to be shy and timid, and doesn't like to be outside of a warm tropical environment."

Sunshine Coast snake catcher Stuart McKenzie said while carpet pythons are common across the north coast he’s never come across one dining out.

Mr McKenzie said the python was as big as they come.

“This is one of the bigger ones I’ve come across as a snake catcher,” he said.

“A lot of the time as snake catchers we’ll get to the property and the chicken or the guinea pig will already be in its belly, so it’s pretty awesome to see it halfway through.”

Given that all of these animals died within a tail's length of one another, it's likely that the adult was caring for the young, they said.

"Although it is possible that the individuals were all swept together during or soon after the event that killed them, it is [felt] that this specimen more likely represents an instance of postnatal parental care," the researchers wrote in the study.

Parental care is seen in other animals, including crocodiles and birds, which lived during the time of the dinosaurs. For instance, crocodiles defend their young from predators, and birds protect and feed their young, the researchers said.

"The armor actually protected me and stopped the bite," Loxley said in a video posted online.

"I could feel the teeth on the plastic, scraping, but the armor actually stopped something," he said.

"So all those people that rag on the old stormtroopers, you know, 'the armor doesn't do this it, doesn't do that', it stopped a snake bite and probably saved my life today," he added.

The former soldier is walking around Australia dressed as a stormtrooper to raise $80,000 for the Monash Children's Hospital in his home city of Melbourne.

Frank Lundberg, a herpetologist, testified in support of the bill and was disappointed after it failed.

"It is a mistake to ever overestimate the ignorance of the Idaho Legislature," he said.

Idaho fourth grade classes study state symbols as part of Idaho history, and a fourth-grade teacher backed the bill as well.

But Rep. Ken Andrus, R-Lava Hot Springs, voted against the salamander after recalling being repulsed by them as a young boy.

"They were ugly, they were slimy, and they were creepy," he said. "And I've not gotten over that. So to elevate them to the status of being the state amphibian, I'm not there yet."

The snake can jump five metres and disappear in a trice, says wildlife biologist Bubesh Guptha who has spotted it near the temple town of Tirumala in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Around three feet long and sporting big eyes and skin patterned in ash and olive green, he has spotted the same species twice in and around the same hills.

The mildly venomous tropical snake Chrysopelea taprobanica eats bats, lizards, geckos, smaller snake species, skirls and birds, reports Nature Asia.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife conservation biologist Susan Barnes called the failure to spot a single individual at 15 sites “moderately alarming.”

“It’s clear that there are not a lot of turtles out there, but it will take more years of data to understand what’s happening with local western pond turtles and why,” said Barnes, who oversaw the survey.

Pond turtle populations have declined throughout their West Coast range for a number of reasons, including destruction of their wetland habitat, conflict with invasive species and a recently discovered shell disease.

The young woman has been pushing the bill for five years now, and last year, it passed the Senate on a 33-2 vote. But it never got a committee hearing in the House. “In all fairness to her, we were really at the end of the session last year, and we had an awful lot to do,” Loertscher said. “It doesn’t mean that I’m going to vote for it, but in fairness to her, I thought it should be heard.” He said he’s expecting to set a hearing on the bill for early next week.

“I think that the Idaho giant salamander is the best candidate to represent our state,” Ilah told the State Affairs Committee this morning. “It has ‘Idaho’ in its name. The pattern on its skin looks like a topographical map of the Bitterroot Mountains. And it makes its home almost exclusively in Idaho.” She called the salamander an “intriguing animal” and said its designation as a state symbol could help engage students, like her, in learning about Idaho.

The new species is named Kurixalus motokawai to honor Dr. Masaharu Motokawa from Kyoto University. He is a researcher of mammals and has made many contributions to the study and conservation of biodiversity in Vietnam.

This is the second species of Kurixalus tree frog discovered in the Central Highlands in 2014, bringing the total number of species of tree frog in Vietnam to 73, accounting for 20% of all species of tree frogs of the world.