After saving over 700 eggs from poachers, the Costa Rica National Guard released 446 Sea Turtle babies recently!

Costa Rica, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, is home to five of the seven sea turtle species. They are natural-born fighters, as only one in every 1,000 sea turtle eggs will become an adult. Hatchlings are prey to almost everything up until that point.

Once they reach adulthood, which can take up to 30 years, their list of enemies decreases significantly. The biggest predators they face are humans.

To read the full story and see the release video, click here.

Credit: Francisco Farriols Sarabia via Wikimedia Commons

While studying lizard skulls at the National Dinosaur Monument in North Dakota, Dalton Meyer discovered a new species of fossilized Gecko. While inspecting a pair of skulls of previously labeled as European skink ancestors, the use of 3D imaging proved one to be exactly that, however the other emerged to be a gecko type of animal closely resembling the banded gecko common to the US.

What caught my attention the most about the story other than the fact that it was basically about dinosaur geckos (and please click through to the story at the end to read everything) was this part!

In naming the new species, Meyer chose “helioscopus,” which roughly translates into “sun watcher,” and “dickersonae,” which honors his grandmother, Helen Dickerson, his great aunt, Shirley Dickerson, and Mary Cynthia Dickerson (no relation), who was the first curator of herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

“Both my grandmother and great aunt were extremely important people in my life, and my great aunt passed away while I was in the early stages of working on this fossil,” Meyer says. “I was truly honored to have a chance to get to use their family name in this new species, in part as a memorial that will now persist long after I am gone.”

If you remember my first presentation to the International Herpetological Symposium, you know why! To read the full story, and I strongly suggest you do, click here to visit futurity.org.

Photo of Gideon, a Grand Cayman hybrid bred by Ty Parks in FL, but living his best life safe in WIsconsin - Cindy Steinle

Recently, the State of Florida deemed all Green Iguanas (Iguana Iguana) as a restricted species and created quite a stir, confiscating animals from even private zoos and killing the animals rather than allowing them to be rehomed or allowed to remain on display at the zoo. Now in a move to destroy the reptile industry further, Florida Fish and Wildlife is making the move to change the language from Iguana (Iguana Iguana) to simply Iguana. This would thus include all species including Cyclura and Ctenosaura most definitely but potentially all species under the family Iguanidae which would also include Amblyrhynchus, Brachylophus, Cachryx, Conolophus, Dipsosaurus, and Sauromalus as well.

This is not only bad for pet owners and breeders, but seriously detrimental to worldwide conservation efforts as many assurance populations of a variety of both Cyclura and Ctenosaura species are maintained safely in Florida.

Read the update after the jump or click here to be taken to USARKFL's notice! There is also a link to the bill after the jump.

Being dubbed "The world's bravest golfer", in reality, he is just an Australian playing golf. While teeing off, a golfer had some visitors at the tee pad.

The serpents have been identified as coastal carpet pythons, which don’t have fangs or venom, but are known for their “100 small, sharp teeth which have the ability to cause substantial needle-like lacerations.” No matter what, they use constriction to kill their prey, so perhaps stay away. Just in case

Now we know that it is two males in combat and the Golfer was never in danger. To see the whole story with video, visit Golf Digest here.

The snake that was found in a bag carried by one of the guests at Immigration offices in Kampala recently. PHOTO/KARIM MUYOBO

When a man recently showed up at the immigration offices looking for services in Naguru, Kampala, security was stunned to find a large black snake in his bag. They were even more shocked to learn this large black snake was in fact a Cobra.

Mr Simon Peter Mundeyi, the spokesperson of the Internal Affairs ministry, said when the strange man was asked why he had carried such a dangerous reptile (a cobra), he said it is his "brother" and that he moves around with it wherever he goes

Remember, leave you snake at home when visiting government offices! To read the rest of the story, click here!

Garter snakes come together in communities led by older females, new research shows.ALL CANADA PHOTOS/ALAMY

The general belief is that snakes are solitary animals, but as more research into these animals happens we are learning that many have very developed social communities. In a first of it's kind study of thousands of wild snakes, we learn that Garter snakes have a very complex community with social structures and a female based hierarchy.

Ecologists had long assumed snakes are antisocial loners that hang out together only for core functions such as mating and hibernation. However, in 2020, Morgan Skinner, a behavioral ecologist at Wilfrid Laurier University, and collaborators showed in laboratory experiments that captive garter snakes have “friends”—specific snakes whose company they prefer over others. Still, studies of wild snakes were lacking “because they’re so secretive and difficult to find,” Skinner says.
Then he learned that the Ontario Ministry of Transportation had funded an unprecedented long-term study of a huge population of Butler’s garter snakes (Thamnophis butleri) in Windsor, Canada. Ecologists began to monitor the flute-size slitherers in 2009 to keep them safe from nearby road construction. They regularly captured snakes in the 250-hectare study area, using identifying markings to track more than 3000 individuals over a 12-year span—about the lifetime of a garter snake.

The study goes into much more detail and deserves a look! To read more on this incredibly interesting study, visit Science.org here.

In the hottest and wryest region of Vietnam, deep in the dry lowland forest of Nui Chua National Park, researchers discovered a new species of blind skink. Searching around the leaf litter around the yellow-bellied termite mounds that these skinks preferred to dine on, the found 7 specimens. When they looked closer, they realized they had a new species, the Ninh Thuận blind skink ()

Ninh Thuan blind skinks have a “worm-like” body that can reach about 4.6 inches in length, the study said. Their eyes are “rudimentary” and “completely covered by scales.” They are also “limbless” with only males having “rudimentary” hind limbs that form “flap-like structures” near their tails.

To read more about this cool discovery click here.

photo courtesy - Missouri Department of Conservation The male hellbender found in the Gasconade River

An Eastern Hellbender, reared in the St. Louis Zoo and then re-released as an adult in the wild was found to have been the first zoo reared animal to have reproduced in the wild having fathered 86 "well-developed" eggs in the Gasconade River.

Justin Elden, curator of herpetology and aquatics at the Zoo, said hellbenders are cryptic, secretive creatures. Numbers might be rising faster than known.

“If there’s one there’s likely many more,” said Elden. “It’s exciting stuff, and my hope and thought is that this is the first of many that we will find.”

This means awesome things for the future of hellbenders! Go check out the full story here!

The Snapping turtle in the aquarium at the scene, photo by author

When I saw the message pop up from the director of the shelter, I figured she wanted to let me know I might have a few animals to prepare for. My local news was filled with the story of a large confiscation of dogs in my city. I was not expecting what came next. 
"Cindy, are you available to help us tomorrow? We aren't done. Today was just the dogs and there are a lot of exotics and we need you to look at things. There are alligators."

I was still under some restrictions from my shoulder surgery and they knew I was limited in what I could do, but they needed my eyes and knowledge more than my arm. I said the only thing I could. "What time and where do you need me"