Photo: Photo: Sun Sentinal
The Palm Beach Zoo recently noticed Hannah, one of their Komodo Dragons (Varanus komodoensis), was showing pain symptoms. After a CT scan to better pinpoint the source of her discomfort, they brought in a new treatment, acupuncture, to comfort her without the possible side effects from medications. Although acupuncture is a common treatment for humans and other mammals, it is a relatively new treatment methodology in the reptile world.

"Although the research is still inconclusive, current findings suggest that the mediators released by acupuncture may serve to lessen or block the pain response." Dr. Cara Pillitteri

Hopefully more holistic treatments like acupuncture will prove to be successful and can be used to treat other reptiles who suffer as well without having to resort to medications and their side effects.

Read more and see the video at Sun Sentinal.

A new snake crosses your table, although it exhibits traits of a known venomous snake, it is missing several key markers.

What is it? Is it venomous? If so, just how venomous is it?

The situation becomes less an exercise in academics when the unknown subject of your research bites you.

That is the situation herpetologist Karl P. Schmidt found himself in at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago in 1957. After being bitten his time was limited and he knew it. So he did what any good researcher would do, he documented it. He knew there was no accessible anti-venom, but never believed he had received the full dose of venom. In a short video, you spend those last hours with him as he documents his experience.

Read more at Science Friday.

Gallery Photo by user dallashawks
Currently the genomes of only 9 species of reptiles (among 10 000 species) are available to the scientific community. To change this a team at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Swit- zerland, has produced a large database including, among others, the newly-sequenced genome of the corn snake, Pantherophis guttatus, a species increasingly used to understand the evolution of reptiles. Within the same laboratory, the researchers have discovered the exact mutation that causes albinism in that species.

Suzanne Saenko collaborated with a Swedish team, to identify in the corn snake the mutation responsible for amelanism, a form of albinism due to a defect in the production of melanin (the black and brown pigments of the skin). The skin of the wild type corn snake exhibits a light orange background colour covered with a pattern of dark orange dorsal saddles and lateral blotches that are out- lined with black, however, some individuals lack all signs of melanin in the skin and eyes. The Swiss team decided to search for the DNA mutation that determines that specific coloration. To this end, they bred wild-type corn snakes with amelanistic individuals and they sequenced each offspring born from that cross.

Thanks to the newly-sequenced genome of the corn snake, the precise identification of other mutations responsible for multiple variations of snake skin coloration will be greatly facilitated.

Read more at phys.org

Pygmy Freshwater Crocodile - Photo: Adam Britton
Long time friend of kingsnake.com and famed crocodillian researcher Adam Britton is attempting to save the Pygmy Freshwater Crocodiles in Australia. Although they are considered the same species as the Freshwater Crocodiles (Crocodylus johnstoni), researchers are looking into genetic variations that may lead to their listing as a brand new species.

The biggest threat to the Pygmy Freshwater Crocodiles is sadly the invasive Cane Toad (Rhinella marina). The crocs appear to be very susceptible to the toxins from the toads. Working in a partnership with local landowners, the project has passed it's first hurdle. Now it needs our support.

Read more about the Pygmy Freshwater Crocodiles and watch the video at Tiny Toothies.

photo by Grant Adams
Grant Adams will always have a little something extra to remember his time in the Peace Corp. Adams, a recent graduate in biology from Denison University was just hoping to find some scientific task to keep his resume up to date. He sent an e-mail to a mailing list for ecologists, offering to collect data for them during his two-year stint in the Andes. He heard back from Tiffany Doan, a biologist from the University of Central Florida who asked him to collect lizards instead.

"I had no interest in lizards or snakes at all, but it sounded like something fun I could do," "It's going to be one of those lifelong stories, discovering a species," "I'll always carry that with me." - Grant Adams

It wasn't long before they had their lizard, a species Doan had never seen before, and it quickly became obvious that the lizard had never been formally described. Doan's studies formalized the lizard in the literature as Euspondylus paxcorpus.

Read more at The Washington Post

Tuatara Gallery photo with the late Rico Walder
The rare New Zealand Tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) doesn't have a penis but it may go a long way to help scientists understand phallic evolution.

Researchers at the University of Florida in Gainesville found that the tuatara develop tiny nubbins as an embryo but the development of these nubbins stalls and they never form into a proper penis. Nubbins represent an early trace of the phallic development process. This initial growth suggests the phallus developed only once throughout the evolution of mammals and reptiles, according to the UF researchers.

Their research indicates that the tuataras lost a phallus, indicating that the basic penis evolved only once.

Check out more at Wired.CO.UK

It's a sad sight no self-respecting reptile hobbyist wants to see. Three pet Boa constrictors, purposely frozen and then dumped along a rural road. Sheriff’s deputies in northern Wisconsin are investigating a reptile mistreatment case after the reptiles were found frozen in a tote box along a road near Irma.

The Lincoln County Humane Society says it appears no one wanted the snakes and chose to kill them by filling the tote with water and deliberately freezing them. Temperatures were well above freezing when the snakes were found this week.

With all the reptile rescues and education programs, as well as regular animal shelters, there is no need to euthanize healthy snakes in this manner. If you have a reptile you can no longer care for please make an effort to place them with a rescue organization. If you have to euthanize a sick or injured reptile, please do so humanely, and please dispose of the remains properly.

To read more, please visit Fox6Now.com

The owner of a king cobra that went AWOL for over a month in Orlando Florida is appealing a ruling that he should no longer be able to own venomous snakes.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has ordered to revoke the "sanctuary status" of the facility, which the commission said was applied in error. The escaped king cobra, Ophiophagus hannah, went missing in early September and was not found until a month later when it turned up in a neighbor's laundry room under a dryer.

The new details came one day after the State Attorney’s Office said the owner would be charged with three counts in connection with the venomous snake’s escape. He is charged with holding wildlife in an improper manner that caused it to escape, not maintaining proper housing and failing to report the escape immediately.

For more read the full story at UPI.COM

Gallery photo by user Dean Alessandrin
Police are trying to track down a Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) stolen from the Pierrelatte crocodile farm in the Drôme département of southeastern France. The monitor lizard was one of four on loan from the Barcelona Zoo where it was born in captivity.

"This is the work of an enthusiast, or at least someone who was acting on orders," farm manager Samuel Martin

The dragon, which weighed around 12 pounds and measured 4 feet long, was the only reptile taken by the thieves who used a cloth over the lizard's eyes to prevent it from panicking.

Read more at TheLocal.fr.

Gallery photo by user antshrike
The British newspaper The Guardian has published an in depth article targeting the illegal trade in protected lizard species in Europe. The article details some of the species it's undercover reporters encountered in their search, including Earless Monitor Lizards and Alligator Lizards, as well as others.

“All the specimens (of Earless Monitor Lizards) available outside Borneo have been illegally obtained and brought there,” Mark Auliya, IUCN’s monitor lizard specialist group

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) will hear proposals to ban the international trade in earless monitor and some arboreal alligator lizards at its next conference in South Africa in 2016.

To read more, check out The Guardian

kingsnake.com gallery photo by chaz901
Four campers in Maryland that decided to go all "Bear Grylls" on a protected timber rattlesnake, Crotalus horridus, by killing it with a BB gun then grilling and eating it, have been sentenced to probation and a $200.00 fine and probation from 14 to 28 months each. Court records show the men from Glen Burnie plead guilty Tuesday in district court to possessing or destroying the snake, a state-protected species.

A fifth defendant is scheduled for trial Dec. 8.

To read more check out the story at ABC11.com

Photo: (Photo: Andrea Stetson/Special to The News-Press)

Two locations in Florida are reporting record sea turtle nests this year, despite the actual numbers of hatchlings being slightly lower than last year.

Collier County and Sanibel Island in Lee County smashed the turtle nesting record for the second year in a row, with 1,510 nests laid on Collier beaches this season and 522 nests laid on Sanibel.

"We had a really good year" "At the end of July we had storms that lasted over a period of 3-4 days with extremely high tides so we did have some inundations and some washouts," "Last year we didn't have any storm issues at all." - Maura Kraus.

The 2015 numbers on Sanibel and Captiva include 26 green turtle nests, which is a record for green turtles as most of the turtles that lay eggs on the local beaches are loggerhead turtles.

To read the full article, visit The News Press.

Photo : Florida Atlantic University
Loggerhead sea turtles have been around for 60 million years and have survived through many changing environments, however, a new study has revealed the turtles survival is being threatened by climate change. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) discovered that warming temperatures during incubation yield more females, while more males develop under cooler conditions.

"If climatic changes continue to force the sex ratio bias of loggerheads to even greater extremes, we are going to lose the diversity of sea turtles as well as their overall ability to reproduce effectively. Sex ratios are already strongly female biased,""That's why it's critical to understand how environmental factors, specifically temperature and rainfall, influence hatchling sex ratios." - Dr. Jeanette Wyneken Florida Atlantic University

To read the full article, visit natureworldnews.com.

While the IUCN lists The Panamanian golden frog Atelopus zeteki as critically endangered, it may in fact have been extinct in the wild since 2007, but thanks to efforts like the captive breeding project at the Maryland Zoo, they may have a better chance. For 15 years the program has been running with the tiny amphibians being bred and reared in the zoo, with hopes for eventual release into the wild.

“We’re the first institution to breed the frogs and we’ve been instrumental with a lot of the husbandry and medical side of things,” said Kevin Barrett.
Barrett is the herpetology collection manager and runs Project Golden Frog at the Maryland Zoo.

This year the Zoo is being acknowledged for it's efforts with a conservation award from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

To read the full article and watch the video, visit CBS Baltimore.

Photo: AUREAPTERUS/ISTOCKPHOTO
A new study shows that the prehistoric amphibians were not all that different from their modern day relatives. Limb regeneration was found in animals estimated to be 290 million years old.

The findings suggest that some salamander ancestors had the ability to regenerate body parts nearly 80 million years before the first salamander existed.
The results “show that salamander-like regeneration is not something that is salamander specific, but was instead widespread in the evolutionary past,” says study coauthor Nadia Fröbisch, a paleontologist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin.

To read the full article, visit Science News.

Photo: Cuba HeadlinesScientists have announced the discovery of a new species of small frog only about 14 mm long, near Guantanamo, Cuba.

First found in 2014, scientists have now officially named the newly discovered amphibian Eleutherodactylus beguei.

"This vertebrate has close to brown coloration. Its natural habitat is the soil moist, hence its survival in this area of eastern Cuba where rainfall is abundant throughout the year" - Gerardo Begue-Quiala

To read the full article, visit Cuba Headlines.

Photo by Dan England @greeleytribune.com
He doesn't even have a name, but over the years a Bullsnake (Pituophis catenifer sayi) in a Greeley Colorado nature center has helped thousands of kids and adults overcome their apprehension and fear of snakes. The snake was given a permanent home at the center four years ago after repeatedly becoming ensnared in live traps the nature center puts out to monitor wildlife along it's trails. Since then he has become a reptilian ambassador, seemingly as curious about these humans as they are of it. And to staff it seems the snake enjoys the interaction with both the staff and the public.

“If you interact with it,” “you realize you don’t have to kill it.” - Ray Tschillard - Poudre Learning Center

The snake did escape once, a couple of years ago, when a volunteer left his cage open after feeding him and was gone most of the winter, until he poked his head out from under a bookshelf. He had many chances to leave and simply didn’t take them.

Read the whole article at the Greeley Tribune.