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.
Two news reports are reporting an adder was found in a box of grapes imported to the UK from Spain, but some information just doesn't add up.
From the BBC (the Yahoo article just takes excerpts from the BBC article):
The 10" long adder was found during a quality check by a worker at Orchard County Foods in Craigavon.
The grapes were imported from Spain.
The staff member did not panic and raised the alarm with management.
The USPCA was called to the scene and took the snake away to a specialist reptile shop in Belfast.
....
Wayne said the reptile is poisonous and dangerous to anyone who is allergic the bee stings.
He added: "You can tell that it is some sort of adder because of the shape of its head. It turns into a diamond shape when it gets annoyed. This is because it has venomous glands on either side."
Dr. Bryan Greig Fry posted this to his Facebook page, and a lively discussion ensued. One of his friends ID'd it probably more correctly as a Natrix Maura or perhaps, as Fry says, a Natrix tessellata. But it is most definately a Natrix. You decide; the grainy lead photo is from the news article, but after the bump, photos of the other two more probable species.
Fluffy was a record holder after being raised by python breeder Bob Clark from a hatching. She measured 24 feet and weighed in at 300 pounds. She died Tuesday at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio of what appeared to be a mass on her ovaries.
Fluffy came to the Columbus Zoo as a temporary addition, but the Zoo actually ended up buying her from Bob for the whopping price of $35,000 in 2008. She was a crowd favorite and had an amazingly mellow disposition, which helped gain her fans.
Fluffy will be cremated and the words of Carrie Pratt, Assistant Curator at the Zoo, to the Columbus Dispatch ring true.
"To us and probably a lot of our guests, she really is an irreplaceable animal,"
While Ohio folks think of the Zoo and Fluffy, we folks here think of Fluffy with Bob. After the bump a few images and videos of Fluffy and Bob.
I prefer by far to purchase animals in person in Tinley Park simply because I can drive them home, but this time I broke the rules.
Shipping can be stressful, although I would almost say it was harder on me than the snake! I spent all of Tuesday stalking the Fed Ex tracking page. Not like the purple tracking bar was going to move, but if for some reason the package landed in say Africa, I would know. I woke up extra early, pottied the dogs so they would not be out and got some clothes on. I even had my shoes on and was ready well before 8:00 am.
Last evening I was going to clean up the kitchen, but since that window overlooks my front side walk (exactly where the Fed Ex man would be this morning) I put it off and crashed. As of now, my dishes are half done, but Madness is in my house.
At NARBC Anaheim, I was in heaven, finally getting to see some of the Psychotic Exotic snakes in person. Going through their boxes the night of set up was like Christmas, one purty snake after another. For some reason when I got home, I had a TON of pics of the same snake. On my cell phone, on both my cameras, even on my husband's camera. Yeah they had other snakes, but the head markings on this one caught my eye.
So I made a deal with myself. If when I next saw Kerry, if he had NOT sold the snake, I was going to buy it. Amazingly, what I thought was the coolest looking Jag at Anaheim did not sell. Ahhhh, for once the fates were with me!
The SREL study may have shown that Burmese Pythons pose no threat outside of Florida, but Everglades National Park wildlife biologist Skip Snow is determined to re-write national law to ban their transport and sale anyway. From the Christian Science Monitor:
“We’re bringing them into the county under the idea that they’re all innocent until proven guilty. But we have historically had such a high standard of guilt, if you will, that it requires these animals to first of all escape, establish, get out in the wild, breed, and do something egregious like eat something that someone likes,” Snow said. “By then it’s way too late.”
[....]
Burmese pythons have been crawling amok in South Florida since at least the mid-1990s. The population's forerunners were probably released by pet owners daunted by the prospect of maintaining a predator that can grow to 20 feet (6 meters) long and weigh 200 pounds (90 kilograms).
No one knows exactly how many there are now, but estimates put their numbers in the thousands or tens of thousands. The pythons have been devouring local wildlife, indulging in mega-meals like deer, bobcats and alligators, as well as endangered species like the woodstork and the Key Largo woodrat.
Wow, this hits all the regular notes: Blaming pet owners despite evidence that indicates the initial snakes came from one small, genetically isolated population more than likely displaced from a breeding facility during a hurricane. Implying that banning interstate transport will somehow reduce Florida's wild populations. And ignoring the science of the SREL study (just like we predicted everyone would do.)
Even on the heels of that study, in which ten animals were left exposed and died (ummm, PETA, where is your outrage over intentional killing of pythons for science?), he is claiming NEW research is out there!
All 10 pythons did well through the summer and fall, and even survived 12 December nights that were no warmer than 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius). Then, in January, the region was plunged into an extremely unusual cold spell. With temperatures dipping below freezing at night for long stretches, the 10 snakes died, according to a paper published in September online in the journal Biological Invasions.
Still, said study leader Michael Dorcas of Davidson College in North Carolina, "there certainly is a possibility that pythons could survive in South Carolina and possibly even farther north."
[....]
Finally, the pythons that survived the longest were the ones that crawled into underground cavities at night, and Dorcas wonders whether they might have fared even better outside the enclosure.
"There are certainly in South Carolina much deeper retreats that they could have found if they were out in the wild, such as armadillo burrows," Dorcas said. “If we provided deeper refugia, well, would they have survived? We certainly had snakes that survived a long time and were finally killed by the extreme cold snap we had in January. But snakes had survived many nights where it got below freezing.”
The problem is there won’t be people digging deeper holes to aid in python survival. Continually subjecting these animals to freezing temperatures is a drain on federal funds for real and valid research. It also is inhumane.
Enough already; your first study did not get the hoped for result. Just accept it. Why must we again go through a winter with animals suffering needlessly to prove what we pet owners already know?
Elephants are nature's greatest ecological engineers. As they tramp through their habitat, the create microsystems in which reptiles and amphibians are able to flourish.
A recent study pointed these damages out and I know NONE of this will come as a surprise to herpers. Notice what they call the heavy damage, sounds a bit like laying tin to me.
HABITAT DAMAGE CATEGORIES High - main trunk pushed over and/or uprooted Medium - damage to the main trunk (not pushed over) and more than 50% of branches and foliage damaged
* Low - no damage to the main trunk and minimal damage to branches and foliage
....
"They will do everything from digging with their front legs, pulling up grass to knocking down big trees. So they actually change the shape of the landscape."
Not to mention their great ability to fertilize the landscape.
He added that elephants' digestive system was not very good at processing many of the seeds that they eat.
"As the faeces are also a great fertiliser, the elephants are also able to rejuvenate the landscape by transporting seeds elsewhere," Dr Schulte told BBC News.
They had 4 areas that they looked at and the species count was variable.
"Eighteen herpetofaunal (amphibians and reptiles) species... were sampled in areas of high elephant damage. Medium damage areas were comprised of 12 species, while areas of low damage had 11 species.
"The control site (fenced area) had the lowest species richness with only eight species."
During the busy October Northwestern Berks Reptile Expo in Hamburg, PA, I had an opportunity to catch a moment with John and Gregg from Squatama Concepts. They have developed the S.I.M. incubator container.
From their website:
The S.I.M. stands for Suspension Incubation Method relating to how the eggs are incubated on a grid off the substrate. This prohibits direct contact with a wet substrate and allows approximately 100% gas exchange between the container environment and the egg membrane. Eggs incubated buried in dampened substrate are subjected to excess water which often results in drowned egg(s). Also in contrast to this, too little water or humidity results in egg desiccation.
Lucy, an African Spur Thigh Tortoise, or Sulcatta, decided a few weeks ago that she wasn't fond of the confines of her fenced in yard and proceeded on a walk-a-bout.
For those not really familiar with these guys, there is a reason so many are named Tank. From The Denver Channel.com:
"She can cover some ground," he said. "She walks 2, 3 miles an hour. So, in a single day she can potentially walk 10 miles easily."
Robin said this is typical of Sulcata tortoises, which are native to North African deserts.
"She was seen by several people in Brighton. They put her in a field, believing she was wild," he added.
Even more stunning, Lucy briefly found her way back home.
"She followed her scent all the way from Brighton back to our house," Sheila Rockley said.
Alas, the couple was out of town when Lucy crawled up.
"There was no one there to let her in. So she walked over to the neighbor's house, where a new family was moving in," Sheila said.
"A mover saw her, picked her up and took her to his house," she said. "The mover's wife said that she didn't want her. So he went and dropped Lucy off at a pond in Lafayette."
But Lucy, not being a water-loving turtle, wasn't thrilled with pond life.
She's likes people -- and food.
"She walked over to the Lafayette feed store, because she's very, very smart. She's like, 'I'm not eating this outdoor crap,'" Sheila said.
Returned, slightly lighter but no worse for the wear, Lucy is back home in time for the cold snap. Of course Lucy's story is the biggest reason my rescue microchips Sulcattas. So they can hopefully find their way home.
Sure you play tug with your dog, but would a Komodo Dragon receive the same joy from that game? Can a turtle play ball and actually understand the fun?
Gordon Burghardt is researching those questions, and he's found that play must match the following criteria: "Play is repeated behavior that is incompletely functional in the context or at the age in which it is performed and is initiated voluntarily when the animal or person is in a relaxed or low-stress setting.”
He describes his first encounter with Pigface, a Nile Soft-shell Turtle at the National Zoo in his recent article called "Recess" in The Scientist:
“It was by itself,” recalls Burghardt, currently at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and “it had started to knock around” a basketball provided by its keepers. The year was 1994, and play had only rarely and anecdotally been reported in animals other than mammals, but he thought that might be what Pigface was doing. The 1-meter-long turtle exuberantly pushed the ball around its aquatic enclosure, swimming through the water with ease as it batted the ball in front of it with its nose. “If you saw a dog or an otter going around batting a ball, bouncing around and chasing it, and going back and forth and doing it over and over again, we’d have no problem calling it play,” he says. “And that’s what the turtle was doing.”
....
But despite this void in scientists’ understanding of the behavior, theories about why play exists abound. “Play is intriguing to me because it takes in so many other aspects of behavior. It’s a big mystery,” says Lewis. Although it may be hard to define, “when you see it, you think, ‘What is it, if it’s not play?’ They’re not feeding themselves, they’re not trying to get a mate, they’re not searching for shelter. They’re playing.”
The one key seen in all non-mammals is security. In the wild, reptiles particularly are engaged in avoiding predation, thermoregulating and outright survival leaving less time for fun antics. What we are seeing in captive reptiles is the ability to play. An amazing video is after the bump, showing various acts of play. Be sure to check out the full article to learn how octopi and even wasps play.
The croc had been hidden in a passenger's sports bag - allegedly with plans to sell it - but it tore loose and ran amok, sparking panic.
A stampede of terrified passengers caused the small aircraft to lose balance and tip over in mid-air during an internal flight in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The unbalanced load caused the aircraft, on a routine flight from the capital, Kinshasa, to the regional airport at Bandundu, to go into a spin and crash into a house.
A lone survivor from the Let 410 plane told the astonishing tale to investigators.
Ironically the crocodile also survived the crash but was later killed with a machete by rescuers sifting through the wreckage.
I don't even think Samsonite would make a carry-on that tough.
In December, I'll be speaking at the Southern Nevada Herpetological Society on a topic near and dear to my heart, "The Evolving Roles of Women in the Reptile Community."
There are some amazing women who lead the way for us, and I have reached out to some of them for background on this talk. I would like to hear from everyone.
Here's my story. When I meet new people and talk about reptiles, somehow it all boils down to this: "Oh, your husband must be happy you like his animals." My husband has no clue what animals live in our house nor what their care entails. I can't remember the last cage he cleaned or feeding he did. The animals are all mine, and their care falls to me. The reptiles are my world, he just gets to look at the pretty things.
Last year, Tracy Barker and I collected stories on the proposed legislation would directly impact women. Again I ask for your stories. I want to know how reptiles in general came to be in your life, how it has changed your life and who inspired you along the way. I also want to hear how people perceive you as a reptile keeper.
Tracy has always been one of my herper heroes. She is an amazing spitfire of a woman. Working in the zoological field and the private breeder field, Tracy has taken the python world by storm. She and her husband, Dave, pioneered many of the species I keep today. Grace Olive Wiley was another inspiring woman who lived and eventually died for her passion. While her handling skills still give venomous keepers pause today, she was a pioneer in a world that was at that time heavily male dominated. Both of our ties to the reptile community in Chicago add her to my list of inspirations.
Women make up half of our membership here on kingsnake, and over the years I have always made it a point to spotlight women in all areas of the community. Who inspired or inspires you? What got you going in reptiles? What changes have you seen in folks' perceptions?
Most news stories focus on the harm being done to the environment by humans, but not this time. Timberline Resort in Tucker Valley, West Virginia, takes steps to help the Cheat Mountain Salamanders have a shot at survival.
But over the years, Timberline has spent time, effort and more than $100,000 to protect Cheat Mountain salamanders living adjacent to the ski trail, as part of a mitigation effort for habitat loss that occurred when the trail was cleared, opening the forest canopy, back in the early1980s.
Timberline is the only ski area in the Mid-Atlantic area to operate on U.S. Forest Service land, although only about 40 acres of Monongahela National Forest property is crossed by the ski trail, according to Tom Blanzy, the resort's mountain manager. The first major turn on Timberline's Salamander run is known as Government Curve by the resort's staff, since it marks the point where the trail enters federal property.
....
This year, the resort completed its most ambitious mitigation project, designed in cooperation with Monongahela National Forest environmental biologist Terri Evans. A 20-head sprinkler system that simulates an inch of natural rainfall over a four-hour period showers a five-acre chunk of known salamander habitat twice a week.
It's great to hear of businesses taking such an active interest in our natural resources, especially after a year of so much damage in the way of environmental accidents.
Peptids found on the skin of African Clawed Frogs show a resistance to bacteria. This research will provide a new way to detect if medical equipment is contaiminated.
Princeton engineers have developed a sensor that may revolutionize how drugs and medical devices are tested for contamination, and in the process also help ensure the survival of two species of threatened animals.
To be fair, some of the credit goes to an African frog.
In the wild, the African clawed frog produces antibacterial peptides -- small chains of amino acids -- on its skin to protect it from infection. Princeton researchers have found a way to attach these peptides, which can be synthesized in the laboratory, to a small electronic chip that emits an electrical signal when exposed to harmful bacteria, including pathogenic E. coli and salmonella.
"It's a robust, simple platform," said Michael McAlpine, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the lead researcher on the project. "We think these chips could replace the current method of testing medical devices and drugs."
Hopes are since frogs aren't harmed in the making of the chip, this will reduce the use of the horseshoe crabs (thus affecting the Red Knot bird population as well).
New species are being discovered every day -- unfortunately, often just before they go extinct:
The three new species, dubbed Callulina laphami, C. shengena, and C. stanleyi, were discovered by an international group of scientists, including Tanzanian scientists. Dwelling in forest habitat, Callulina frogs spend their days hidden away in trees or under the leaf litter; at dusk they climb into the trees where they spend the night before descending again to the ground.
The researchers recommend that each of the frogs be categorized by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List as Critically Endangered, given their incredibly small ranges: C. shengena has the largest habitat of the three at 13.5 square miles (35 square kilometers) and C. stanleyi the smallest at 3.7 square miles (9.7 square kilometers). The remaining habitats are threatened by forest clearing due to agriculture.
Photo in corner is of one of the three new species, Callulina stanleyi. To read the rest of the article and see the other two frogs click here.
It apparently is hell being a Hellbender. From the recent coal slurry in Ohio, to poaching and habitat destruction everywhere else, these guys are having a rough time.
While the EPA is still investigating a spill from 2008 caused by Murray Energy, the sixth spill of coal slurry in a decade occurred this past week. Slurry is the water run off from washing fresh coal. From The Columbus Dispatch:
Crews did not find any dead Eastern hellbender salamanders, an endangered species that lives in Captina Creek, Shelton said. They found and relocated three hellbenders to uncontaminated parts of the creek.
But Lipps, who studies hellbenders, thinks the relocated salamanders won't survive.
"Hellbenders live under giant rocks. You don't find them in the middle of the stream," he said. "The only reason (the crews) found these hellbenders is because they were dying."
Murray Energy will pay cleanup costs and fines assessed for each animal that was killed, Shelton said.
....
This was the sixth large spill blamed on the company in the past decade.
In 2000, the company paid a $100,000 fine for a spill. In 2005, the company paid a $50,000 fine after slurry polluted 2,300 feet of the creek and killed thousands of fish. In 2008, a plume from a spill reached the Ohio River. The EPA is continuing to investigate that spill.
"This is like the drunk driver that keeps hitting kids in the crosswalk, yet the state keeps giving him his license back," said Jack Shaner of the Ohio Environmental Council, an advocacy group.
Interested in what each life costs? Read after the bump to see the "value" of some of the dead animals.