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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.
Wednesday, January 31 2024Rat snake survives eating car part Second Chance Wildlife Center Yeah you read that right. It is well known that Rat snakes are often chased from hen houses for eating eggs and one of the more common dangers to many native colubrids is golf balls because they resemble eggs, but this one rat snake decided he was going for broke, This rat snake was one of the most unusual cases we have treated at SCWC! Upon intake, it was apparent that the snake had ingested a foreign object resembling an egg. This is common in rat snakes, as golf balls and decoy eggs are often mistaken for fresh chicken eggs. In this case, the object had been trapped in the snake’s stomach so long that there was a hole worn through the snake’s skin. The object turned out to be a gear shift knob and was surgically removed by doctors at Second Chance Wildlife Center, in Gaithersburg, Maryland! She is stable and will winter there before being released in spring. To read the full story click here or visit the rescue's page here. Friday, January 26 2024Zoo Atlanta hatches endangered beaded lizards Zoo Atlanta in Georgia recently sent 11 endangered Guatemalan beaded lizards (Heloderma charlesbogerti) to La Aurora Zoo. (Zoo Atlanta v) With an estimated 500-600 animals in the wild, the Guatemalan Beaded Lizard (Heloderma charlesbogerti) is one of the more endangered lizards on the planet. Now when you consider the fact that they are part of the family of the only medically significant venomous species of lizards, it makes them even more special. Zoo Atlanta has been long involved in their conservation efforts and recently had a clutch hatch! "The lizards that went down will not be released into the wild themselves, however," Zoo Atlanta's Curator of Herpetology Robert L. Hill explained on Wednesday. When I spoke in 2022 at the International Herpetological Symposium, I had the pleasure of seeing the breeding setup at Zoo Atlanta! It was very amazing to see in person and get up close to conservation project in action! Congrats to the full Zoo Atlanta team! To read the full story, click here! Monday, January 15 2024Polar vortex, what are your back up plans? actual photo of me braving the blizzard in Wisconsin One week ago, we had zero snow on the ground, Until last Friday, our temperatures here in Wisconsin had been above average for the month every single day. Tuesday we had our first smack of winter. Our first winter storm hit Wisconsin. I live very close to Lake Michigan which is still holding temps above 40 degrees, so here in Milwaukee we didn't get nothing. You know, it was like my first marriage. Full of promises but it really failed to deliver. We all laughed. Then the Polar vortex started dropping. Thursday night's storm hit and it snowed from Thursday until late Saturday. We ended up with areas well over a foot of snow and it was really wet and heavy. Power lines and trees were falling at a rapid pace and the impassable roads made it hard for crews to get things put back together. Our temps began plummeting. This scene played out across the entire country. I'm a pet sitter and was going to be away from home for the nights. This led to a big panic. What if the power went out when no one was home? How would the reptiles fare? I know my dog would be OK but what about the reptiles? And then where would I go? Time to kick the plans into gear. Especially knowing I could be gone with more than 12 hours of no power and a house full of reptiles Continue reading "Polar vortex, what are your back up plans?" News Wrap: Snakes gone wild in Australia Not really, but snakes being snakes and making the news. I mean it is Australia. Recently we shared the combating carpet pythons in the middle of a gold tournament, but Australia said, hold my Fosters. An Eastern Brown wanted a better seat at the Brisbane International Tennis Tournment during Dominic Thiem’s opening qualifying round. “I really love animals, especially exotic ones,” former US Open champion Thiem told the Brisbane International website. “But they said it was a really poisonous snake and it was close to the ballkids, so it was a really dangerous situation. To catch the full story click here And then the age old fear of the snake in the toilet. You know, the one from all of our childhoods. Follow the jump to read the next story! Continue reading "News Wrap: Snakes gone wild in Australia" Friday, January 12 2024Venomous snake may help with high blood pressure Yep, you read the headline correct! Scientists recently found proteins in the venom of the lancehead pit viper Cotiara (Bothrops cotiara) could help lower blood pressure and may be used in treatments down the road. "Venoms never cease to surprise us. Even with so much accumulated knowledge, fresh discoveries are possible, such as unpredictable fragments that are parts of known proteins. Despite all the available technology, a great deal remains to be studied in these toxins," Alexandre Tashima, co-author of the study and professor at the Federal University of São Paulo's Medical School (EPM-UNIFESP), said in a statement. On an aside, before I share the link to Newsweek where this article is from, I really need to address their media on this article! It is pretty negative for a pro-snake and pro-venom story. There is not a single photo of the actual species of snake the venom is from, and you know the typical lunging diamondback picture with venom leaking from the fangs instead. This is a story about learning that venom can actually save human lives and really we shouldn't be adding that aggressive view of animals that really only are like that when cornered. That being said I want to thank Wolfgang Wuster again for use of an ACTUAL photo of Bothrops cotiara. To read the full article, which despite my rant on the media placed within it, was quite wonderful, click here. Saturday, January 6 2024New Species of Salamander discovered in Costa Rica . While scientists were researching the tops of the Talamanca Mountain Range searching for salamanders they stumbled across a new species! The research lasted from 2013 through 2019 and while they collected dozens of species, there were 19 species that were the same, but were a totally new species. Those 19 specimens turned out to be a new species Bolitoglossa bolanosi, or the Bolaños’ web-footed salamander, researchers said. The species marks the fourth type of salamander known exclusively from the Isthmian Central America’s subalpine rain páramo — a “vulnerable” ecosystem that is especially “isolated” to highlands in the Talamanca mountains. To read more about this new species of salamander, click here Friday, January 5 2024Hundreds of Sea Turtles released from poachers After saving over 700 eggs from poachers, the Costa Rica National Guard released 446 Sea Turtle babies recently! Costa Rica, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, is home to five of the seven sea turtle species. They are natural-born fighters, as only one in every 1,000 sea turtle eggs will become an adult. Hatchlings are prey to almost everything up until that point. To read the full story and see the release video, click here. Wednesday, January 3 2024Conservation efforts have unintended effects Chelonia mydas, a newly hatched baby green sea turtle. Photo: Shutterstock In Taiwan, saving the Green Sea Turtle on its preferred nesting island was the goal, but drastically impacting the native lizards species was the unintended result. Since 2001, on Badai Beach the only remaining suitable nesting spot on Orchard Island, researchers have protected every Green Sea Turtle Nest with a fine mesh netting. This netting prevented any ground dwelling predators from dining on the babies cooking inside. Orchard Island is also the home of the kukri snakes and the stink ratsnakes, both of which gladly dine on eggs. With the instant loss of their normal food source, they turned elsewhere. The scientists estimated kukri snakes consumed around 120 sea turtle eggs each year before 2001, which would be equivalent to between 5,000 and 18,000 lizard eggs from the five soft-shelled lizard species on the island. Now conservation efforts need to alter their program to protect not only the Green Sea Turtles, but also the existing native species, especially the lizards. This shows how science works best. As you learn how things are working, you adjust to make things work better. To read more of how these efforts are changing, click here. Gecko Fossil name honors Grandmother Credit: Francisco Farriols Sarabia via Wikimedia Commons While studying lizard skulls at the National Dinosaur Monument in North Dakota, Dalton Meyer discovered a new species of fossilized Gecko. While inspecting a pair of skulls of previously labeled as European skink ancestors, the use of 3D imaging proved one to be exactly that, however the other emerged to be a gecko type of animal closely resembling the banded gecko common to the US. What caught my attention the most about the story other than the fact that it was basically about dinosaur geckos (and please click through to the story at the end to read everything) was this part! In naming the new species, Meyer chose “helioscopus,” which roughly translates into “sun watcher,” and “dickersonae,” which honors his grandmother, Helen Dickerson, his great aunt, Shirley Dickerson, and Mary Cynthia Dickerson (no relation), who was the first curator of herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. If you remember my first presentation to the International Herpetological Symposium, you know why! To read the full story, and I strongly suggest you do, click here to visit futurity.org. |
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