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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, July 31 2011Saturday, July 30 2011Friday morning talks at IHS I wish I would have made the David Lazcano talk, I happened to come in at the end and he was funny. Emmanuel Van Heygen was the first talk I caught. Speaking on the North-Western Madagascar and the Phelsuma Geckos he gave a quick break down of each species and its distribution range. Any talk that Emmanuel gives is always accompanied by lovely photos he has taken when in the field. Bamboo sounds as if it is the key to proper husbandry of the Phelsuma geckos. There was a lot of breakdown of each species with photos of them in their natural habitat. A multi-disciplinary approach needs to be used to look at vet med for endangered species. More than treating the illness but treating the situation and environment. The program that they worked with for the Rio Grande River Cooters targeted the area pollution as well as the water pollution oat the TX-Mexico borders. The compared both pristine as well as contaminated river systems for the research and they used the animals from the Devil’s and Peco’s Rivers as their baseline species. They did sampling, physicals, blood work, to compare with the Rio Grande population. They also assisted on the Cyclura pinguis project on the Virgin Islands. It was a head start program to help reintroduce the species on the wild. The benefits of releasing head-started animals are obvious, but the drawbacks are issues. They tend to imprint on the birth location, they have a harder time finding hide spots, feeding and basking locations. The project head-started, implanted transmitters and then tracked the animals after release. Continue reading "Friday morning talks at IHS" Friday, July 29 2011IHS Thursday Afternoon The post-lunch talks started with Dr. Gary Ferguson on his field work with the Texas Horned lizards. They are secretive, slow moving, and cute. How true that is. They are opportunistic insectivores however while they will go after anything that moves it appears the ants are what they can only catch/ The common agreements seem to be that they are a longer-lived animal, with the oldest so far tracked at 8 years ago going strong. In Texas they seem to be a species of concern, but their global status is fairly stable. In Texas, pretty much everyone knows the Horny Toad; they are the mascot of TCU. In captivity, they are very hard to maintain, but it really is possible. The diet seems to be the hardest part of the husbandry. One lizard can eat between 30-100 ants per day. They also have a very large space requirement and for their size they need an exceptionally large cage in comparison. He explained the UV and thermal gradient studies that they did. Sharing a bit of the natural history of their campsite, he went on to describe the techniques. One difference between the sexes is that the males tend to spend more time midday hiding at ground level under the vegetation, but the females, while still staying out of direct sunlight, they tend to climb higher. Ari R Flagle then spoke on the basking levels of Boelen’s Pythons. Continue reading "IHS Thursday Afternoon" Thursday, July 28 2011Wednesday, July 27 2011Pardon our mess while we make some adjustments! Is it upgrade time again? Already? Yes you have probably noticed that we have changed things around here a bit this week. While change can be painful, it is also good and necessary if a web site needs to grow, and once again it's time for kingsnake.com to grow. And as usual it hasn't been without it's bugs either. As of today kingsnake.com's server farm consists of 16 servers, billions of lines of code, and millions of files. As you might imagine changing all of that out is a massive undertaking, and while the majority of the changes have been implemented it will be weeks before all of our files have been converted, upgraded, or tweaked. I would ask our members to hold off on reporting bugs in the system until Monday to give us a fair chance to find and kill them on our own. Until then please look around and check out some of the new features. On Monday I will be posting a rundown of what's new to the site and what has changed. And a big thanks goes out to Jerry Kruse for allowing us to use his Zonata image for our new logo! Leopard 100% het Piebald clutch hatching today - 2011 clutch # 3
After many many years of seeing the "Leos" popping up in Peter Kahl's Piebald project, I've finally hatched some "on purpose". I remember seeing a Leo hatchling at Pete's place in the mid 90's. At the time we didn't think much of it.....just brushed it off as one of those "non genetic" Jungles....aka "Classic Jungle"
At that time I had been buying pieds, hets and poss hets to get my own Pied project on the ground. I even produced a couple Leos while producing hets and poss hets for myself.........yep.........I sold them!!! Didn't give them a second thought as being anything "special"..........Pete was doing the same thing. Selling the Leos and Pied Leos as regular hets and Pieds......... Well, without getting into too much TOP SECRET stuff........the Leo gene was figured out once it hit on a Spider........at that time the gene was called "Jungle"...this was just a name to describe what they looked like........the name "Leopard" was then "agreed on" and now we have a fresh new "pattern chopper" to use in our arsenal for producing crazy pattern mutations. Getting back to the Leo Spider.......I remember seeing one for the first time and my jaw dropped. That's when I knew the the Leo gene was the "real deal" and I was kicking myself in the ass for not paying more attention to what I was producing from my own stock........I had "Platty Daddy" on the brain!!..........but that's another story..  Soooooo..........after many years I've finally focused on what the heck these things look like and isolated them all in my collection in hopes to start producing some new combos of my own........many breeders have already started the Leo project and have nice established groups to work with. I know a "secret" about the LEO that not many others do ( it's TRUE POWER! )......aside from the people who have been working very closely with it for many years. A few of you reading this know exactly what I'm talking about........the rest of you can wait!!....HA!! Anyway..........Kyle and I shot a video clip of 2011 clutch # 3......it was a Leo Pied male bred to a normal female.......in the video we have one female Leopard out. I will post more vids and updates as more hatch out this season. Is this called "bloggin'"?........I think some loud mouth snake dude used to do that wayyyy back in the day when it was not cool.......back then they told the poor bastage to "get a life"..........now we can't live with out a blog can we?!......Ha!!...........I'm OUT!!!!.......and oh yeah.........as retro as it is..........ROCK ON!!!!!!!!!!.........dot,dot,dot.......... 2011 Leopard Het Piebald Video International Herpetological Symposium: kingsnake on the roadHaving survived the Biology of the Rattlesnakes Symposium in Tuscon, we are continuing our road trip. I will be hitting the pavement with Bryan Grieg Fry to make our way to the International Herpetological Symposium in Fort Worth, Texas. We will be making a pit stop along the way, paying a visit to former chat guest Doug Hotle at the Albuquerque Bio Park in Albuquerque, NM.This year, follow me on kingsnake connect and you will see everything I am doing as it happens. You can also follow us on the Kingsnake.com blog, Facebook, or Twitter. Are you a regular Twitter user? We have started a hashtag for the event! Post from the show with #IHS to join in on the fun! Not familiar with how hashtags work? No problem! Check out this helpful link for more information. Safe travels to all on their way to and from the show. If you see me, please stop and say hi! On the Road to IHS: Albuquerque Bio Park My original reason for visiting the Albuquerque Bio Park was to see Doug Hotle and his sea snakes, but the prize was the Komodo Dragon. How did I not know there was one there? After leaving the Chiricahuas early in the morning, Bryan Fry and I headed on our long journey to visit Doug and see his amazing collection. We arrived a bit later than we would have liked, but it worked out in the end as Doug had a slight emergency to deal with in the morning. After making my first drive in mountains and a very long desolate drive from one side of the state to the other, we arrived at the Bio Park mid-afternoon. Grabbing Doug quickly at the end of the day, we had an amazing tour. Starting with some of the animals in his garter snake program and ending with the sea snakes, it was one of the top venomous collections out there. The true joy for me came when I turned around in one room and saw the sign on the door. KOMODO. The sheer happiness and excitement that those words put in all of us was epic. But when Doug said we could play, that sent me to insane peaks of ecstasy! Guiding us in to meet the male, I was very glad I wore shoes that covered my toes. An outgoing man of beautiful shades of turquoise and orange, he slowly took the time to greet each of us. Then one of Doug's assistants made my day offering to allow me to feed him. Snuggling and feeding? Can it get more epic? More photos after the bump. Continue reading "On the Road to IHS: Albuquerque Bio Park" Tuesday, July 26 2011Herpin' New Mexico - O'Shea style Sometimes being the early bird is a good thing, and today was no different. I was up with the sun and stepped outside to get a few shots of the Chiricahua Mountains in the morning light, and behind me came a very well known face planning to do the same thing. While I stayed barefoot on the slab of the lodge, Mark O'Shea walked with a purpose. He wanted to get a clear shot of the fire damage and trotted across the street.I stood in my jammies taking a few shots and keeping half an eye on Mark as he crossed the street until I saw that well known white shirt drop down. Turning to look, I saw him coming toward me, camera over his shoulder and snake held very securely in both hands. At that point being barefoot really didn't matter; I had to see what he had. It was a Mojave Rattlesnake and the two of us ran up to the lodge and bagged it. Of course this resulted in everyone present being woken up, but hell -- it was a Mojave! Needless to say, we then started walking a bit more of the grass, Mark, who caught the snake by almost stepping on it in sandals, switched to boots, and I put shoes on and walked the shoulder of the highway. Nothing else was found, but what a way to start a day! Continue reading "Herpin' New Mexico - O'Shea style" The Greatest Compliment...
I, like many of you probably do, spend most of my time hanging around what I call, "civilians" in real life. That is my wife and daughters are little ladies that I open the door for. Though I look a bit like a cave man, I treat my wife with great tenderness and compassion as she is my queen. I attend church regularly. I am friendly with a number of biker types, to use the cliché for guys with plenty of hair and long beards right? I’m not a bar guy at all, though to most people, I suppose I sort of look like one. In fact... I don't even have a single tattoo. Pathetic I know. It's ironic given that many of the people I hang around with in my Boa business and obsession, are the tattooed counter culture type. There are plenty of other regular guys you wouldn’t give a second look if you passed them in the mall. You know what I mean. I get along great with anyone involved in the Reptile business regardless of their own proclivity to have a more attention grabbing appearance or the typical more conformist style. So...
As a guy with a BIG beard, I never really know what most people think about my beard. Now I know that since I am the more masculine type, I would never admit to caring one whit about what anyone else thinks about my beard, but, deep down inside, it is kind of neat when you know a person that really admires the whiskers. Which brings me to the single greatest compliment anyone ever paid me regarding my beard.  It was about a year ago. The beard was a tad shorter than it is now. I was standing at my table at a Reptile show plying my wares, when a little guy came down my isle. He was, oh about ten years of age. A typical looking kid, like I once was a while back. Not that long ago you people that I was just a boy… LOL! He looked up at me with wonder in his eyes and said those words clearly and with great confidence, that I shall never forget, I can hear those words like they were yesterday, he exclaimed, "you have a MIGHTY BEARD!" Might Beard... I’ll take that. |
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