Researchers are learning a lot about extinct reptiles from how American alligators eat.

From NatGeo:

What happens when you throw bones to a group of American alligators? This isn’t a question for late night horror movies, but for science.

Standing behind a safety barrier at Florida’s St. Augustine Alligator Farm, University of Tennessee paleontologist Stephanie Drumheller tossed skeletonized cow legs to a crush of curious alligators. Over and over again, the armored archosaurs rushed in to snap at the morsels, and with every bite they left the predatory hallmarks in the form of punctures and scrapes. These traces were what Drumheller was after. Through understanding the damage modern alligators leave on bones, Drumheller and other paleontologists can follow the depredations of alligators and their croc cousins through time.

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Photo: kingsnake.com user cdieter

Check out this video "Pet Iguana," submitted by kingsnake.com user Minuet.
Submit your own reptile & amphibian videos at http://www.kingsnake.com/video/ and you could see them featured here or check out all the videos submitted by other users!

Summer is always the busy season in the reptile world, with herpers headed off to the field, reptile expo season heating up, and baby reptiles and amphibians popping out left and right. We've been busy here at kingsnake.com as well, getting a whole peck of classified changes, updates and upgrades built, tested, and installed.

As you may have noticed over the last few years, we've been steadily raising the number of ads that can be posted in each category -- from three, then to six, and now to eight per category with a standard account and 12 with an enhanced account!

Other ad posting changes include an optional PayPal 'Buy It Now' button, which will allow customers to make purchases directly from the kingsnake.com classifieds if you have a PayPal account. kingsnake.com takes no extra fees for using the 'Buy It Now' feature, and it's quick and easy to include in your ad.

The Classified Vendor Profile system has been updagted as well, receiving a publicly viewable click-through counter in addition to the other cool features such as event listing and customer recommendations that were introduced at launch.

Finally, the classified index has been slightly adjusted to make it more navigable, and to add the 'New and Updated' business directory listings, as well as a new Updated Classified Profile listing system that lists the last 10 classified profiles that have been updated by vendors.

To update your classified ad vendor profile please visit http://market.kingsnake.com/account/.
To purchase a classified account please visit http://kingsnake.com/shared/services/classified.php.

Buisness directory listings are on sale for half price ($75.00 off) thru July 4. To add your web site to our business directory please go to http://www.kingsnake.com/services/businessdirectory_SALE75.html to purchase a listing on sale for half price or to update your current listing go to http://www.kingsnake.com/myaccount/bus_dir.php.

This yellow-bellied sea snake was rescued and rehabbed in New South Wales, Australia:



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Photo: Peter Street/Australian National Geographic

Does the key to human limb regeneration like in a salamander's cells?

From researcher Max Yun in The Conversation UK:

This process is rarely found in mammalian cells and this has been suggested as the basis for their poor regenerative abilities. But clearly, unraveling the mechanisms underlying this reprogramming is central to understanding why certain vertebrates can regenerate their limbs while others can’t, and how to repeat this process in humans.

If we were able to crack this puzzle, it could lead to strategies to enhance the reprogramming of cells from patients, and to better understand their disease and design appropriate cures.

We recently found a critical component of the reprogramming mechanism. In our study, published in Stem Cell Reports, we demonstrated that the sustained activation of a molecular pathway (a group of molecules in a cell that work together to control a particular function or functions) – called the ERK pathway – plays a key role during the natural reprogramming of salamander muscle cells. Only when the ERK pathway is constantly switched “on” are the cells able to re-enter the cell cycle, which is key to their regenerative potential.

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Photo: kingsnake.com user emajor

The scarlet kingsnake looks like the coral snake because there's a survival benefit to tricking predators into thinking you're too dangerous to mess with.

But once the coral snake vanishes, why do local kingsnakes not just maintain that resemblance for decades, but intensify it?

Scientists had no idea, but now they've figured it out. Once the coral snake became extinct in the North Carolina Sandhills, they say, the risks of attacking the wrong snake diminished. Predators began to take more changes, targeting those kingsnakes who least resembled corals, and removing them from the gene pool.

But what happens now? Find out here.

Photo: kingsnake.com user coolhl7