"Amphibians were the first land animals and have a 350-million-year history. They are an environmental barometer and we can analyse the quality of our environment by studying them. We cannot imagine life without frogs. If there are no frogs, it would not be possible to grow anything in our fields," (researcher Dr. Sathyabhama Das) Biju says.

Biju, who works in the Systematics Lab of DU's Environmental Studies department, has been spending seven months a year in the forests of the Northeast and the Western Ghats for the past two decades. It's with this experience that he says the 'dream forest' cover of the Northeast will be lost forever in 20 years' time if urgent interventions are not made.

The scientist then makes a staggering claim: "India is yet to identify 50% of its flora and fauna." Many species of animals will become extinct, he says, without our even knowing they exist.

"For instance, 63 out of 350 amphibian species are no longer found. Amphibian conservation is less about money and more about rapid identification and management and creation of wetland and marshy areas. But we need to do this on a priority," he says. Biju is at present working on 28 new species of frogs which are yet to be described.

At more than 2 feet long, the Ozark Hellbender is the one of largest salamander species in the United States, with an unusual biological ability to regenerate injured or missing body parts.

"In the last 20 years we have been finding a tremendous number of injuries on these animals and those injuries are not healing," Nickerson said in a university release Monday. "Now the population is down to almost nothing and we are very worried about the species and the environmental changes around them."

In the study, microorganisms from abnormal and injured salamander tissue were examined for pathogens that may be causing a lack of regeneration and population decline among the hellbenders.

“What we have detected is minimal, but it is very significant because this virus can threaten the already declining amphibian population in our forests to total extinction,” said RGCB scientist Sanil George, who along with Juha Merilla of the University of Helsinki headed the study.

With permission from the state Forest Department, the scientists had taken swabs off the frog’s skin from various locations in Kudremukh, Agumbe, Aralam, Athirapalli, Periyar, Munnar, Vellarimala, Ponmudi and Peppara regions of the Western Ghats.

This was the first such screening reported from the Indian sub continent, which until now, was generally believed to be free of the deadly fungus.

Professor Carsten Rahbek from the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate (CMEC) at the University of Copenhagen and his team identified various factors that put global amphibian diversity at risk, but noted that the spatial distribution of these threats and interactions are poorly known. Climate change, land use change and the fungal disease chytridiomycosis are some of the serious threats that the amphibian species face.

The researchers postulate that the greatest proportions of species adversely affected by climate change, what is probably the most serious threat, will be in Africa, parts of northern South America and the Andes. Their data also suggest that amphibian declines will probably accelerate in the 21st century, due to the multiple drivers of extinction that could threaten their populations more than previous, monocausal assessments have reported.

A genetic analysis, published in the latest Current Biology, found that DNA footprints of the long lost tortoise species, Chelonoidis elephantopus, exist in the genomes of its hybrid offspring. These tortoises turn out to be a mix of C. elephantopus and another giant tortoise from the area, C. becki.

While researchers have yet to isolate a purebred C. elephantopus individual, such tortoises must exist, based on the DNA data. The study marks the first time that a species has been rediscovered by way of tracking the genetic footprints left in the genomes of its hybrid offspring.

"This work also underscores the importance of museum collections in facilitating new discoveries," co-author Ryan Garrick told Discovery News. "Here, we were able to extract DNA from tortoise bones that were collected many decades ago, and use this DNA to characterize the gene pool of purebred C. elephantopus."

Mark L. Haas remains in intensive care with a collapsed lung at Crozer-Chester Medical Center after being shot Sunday in the parking lot of Woodlyn Shopping Center, said Ridley Police Lt. Scott Willoughby. His injuries are not life-threatening, he said.

Haas was supposed to sell the snakes to a buyer from New York, but police still do not know if the deal went bad or Haas was the victim of a random carjacking.

The suspect took off in Haas' car with two boxes of snakes inside and eventually hit a pole in Folsom, then ran away. Willoughby said police found the car and removed the boxes - one containing 20 baby pythons and the other a five- or six-foot python - back to the police station so they would not freeze.

“Fifteen years ago, these reptiles could be easily spotted lazing along the river bank of scenic Malacca River. Now, they are hard to come by,” said city councillor Ronald Gan Yong Hoe.

“In some countries, monitor lizards are protected under Endangered Species Acts. We hope the state government will move to conserve our local reptiles,” the member of the Malacca Historic City Council said.

“If nothing is done, the extensive poaching of this reptile could lead to its extinction,” he said.

Gan said the local monitor lizards, known locally as biawak, are large water monitor species (varanussalvator) capable of growing up to three metres long and 25 kilos in weight.

He said that apart from their skin and meat, the reptlie was sought for a liquid from its body that was commonly believed to increase sexual prowess in both men and women.

"Before we knew it, the croc had the mower above his head," Mr Faulkner said. "He got his jaws around the top of the mower and picked it up and took it underwater with him."
The workers quickly left the enclosure. Elvis, meanwhile, showed no signs of relinquishing his new toy and sat guarding it closely all morning.

Eventually, Mr Faulkner realised he had no other choice but to go back in after the mower.

Mr Collett lured Elvis to the opposite end of the lagoon with a heaping helping of kangaroo meat while Mr Faulkner plunged, fully clothed, into the water. Before grabbing the mower, however, he had to search the bottom of the lagoon for two 3-inch teeth Elvis lost during the encounter. He quickly found them and escaped from the pool, unharmed and with mower in tow.

Jo Dodd said she was first alerted to the reptilian intruder by the frantic barking of their family dog.

"We opened the door to our bed-room and looked into our lounge-room area and there was a crocodile," Dodd said.

"It was the most freakiest thing - you don't usually see a crocodile in your lounge room. It was really a very surreal moment."

Snakebite is a major occupational hazard in a country where farmers typically walk barefoot along field bunds. While we can exhort them to wear footwear, it will take years for this long-observed practice to change. People also tend to walk in the dark without a torch. For several decades, the price of disposable batteries was prohibitive for ordinary villagers, but the use of the new, affordable Chinese-made rechargeable torches may reduce the death toll. The other habit that puts rural people in harm’s way is sleeping on the floor. When farm economy is floundering, advising them to sleep on bedsteads will only elicit blank, uncomprehending stares. If people get bitten and are rushed to the hospital, the lack of doctors, trained in treating snakebite, as well as the limited availability and effectiveness of antivenom serum, jeopardize their lives further.

The only way to save a person from a lethal venomous snakebite is the administration of antivenom serum, even though too many people rely on superstition and alternative forms of medicine. Indians have had a surefire way of surviving a lethal bite as early as the 1920s, when the Central Research Institute began producing this life-saving drug commercially. Yet, almost a century later, despite snakebite continuing to be a major public health crisis, the availability of antivenom serum in small towns and villages, where bites usually occur, is limited.

Farbotnik, an environmentalist, quickly realized that he had chanced upon - luckily, without also flattening - a surge of salamanders in the heat of their annual breeding rite. Jumping out of his truck, he kept oncoming traffic at bay as he shepherded the slithery paramours from one swampy side to the vernal pool on the other, there to hook up.

A half-dozen mating seasons have passed since then in upper Bucks County, and Farbotnik, now 31, has presided as crossing guard at each. On the first mild, rainy evening of late winter or early spring, he heads for the 518-acre Quakertown Swamp, a favored haunt of not only salamanders but also frogs, toads, birds, and muskrats.

Hamilton’s animal control staff has loosened their initial guidelines, and will allow residents to own anacondas, pythons, and non-poisonous tarantulas.

Under the proposed harmonized animal control bylaw recommendations councillors will be debating at their Jan. 12 special planning committee meeting, animal control staff will also allow people to own iguanas, except the dangerous Iguana iguana, non-venomous snakes under three meters long, and non-venomous lizards under two meters in length.

Other changes to the bylaw, which were made after a public meeting last November, include removing the number of pigeons a person owned from the original 40, and allowing people to own raptors in urban areas.