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.
Sunday, October 31 2010
 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.
Continue reading "Sour grapes? Nope, just a snake in the box"
Saturday, October 30 2010
The Rally to Restore Sanity hosted by John Stewart in D.C. is the least likely place you would the Turtle Contingent to be.
This just in from Pethobbyist Staffer, Christie Keith, who is in attendance.
Thursday, October 28 2010
 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.
Continue reading "Fluffy, the longest captive snake in the world, dies"
 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!
Continue reading "Stalking the wild Fed Ex driver: New snake at Cindy's!"
Wednesday, October 27 2010
 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?
For the full article click here.
 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."
For the full article, click here.
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