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.
Friday, January 26 2024
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.
"The plan is that these animals would reproduce in their beaded lizard-specific facilities, and that following a quarantine period, the offspring would then be transferred from La Aurora Zoo to protected areas within the known wild range of the species in the dry forests of the Motagua Valley."
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!
Friday, January 5 2024
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.
Once they reach adulthood, which can take up to 30 years, their list of enemies decreases significantly. The biggest predators they face are humans.
To read the full story and see the release video, click here.
Wednesday, January 3 2024
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.
The team found that while populations of kukri snakes and stink ratsnakes were estimated to have declined by 12 per cent and 8 per cent per year between 1997 and 2020, lizard species saw drops of 11 to 25 per cent every year.
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.
Friday, December 29 2023
Photo of Gideon, a Grand Cayman hybrid bred by Ty Parks in FL, but living his best life safe in WIsconsin - Cindy Steinle
Recently, the State of Florida deemed all Green Iguanas ( Iguana Iguana) as a restricted species and created quite a stir, confiscating animals from even private zoos and killing the animals rather than allowing them to be rehomed or allowed to remain on display at the zoo. Now in a move to destroy the reptile industry further, Florida Fish and Wildlife is making the move to change the language from Iguana (Iguana Iguana) to simply Iguana. This would thus include all species including Cyclura and Ctenosaura most definitely but potentially all species under the family Iguanidae which would also include Amblyrhynchus, Brachylophus, Cachryx, Conolophus, Dipsosaurus, and Sauromalus as well.
This is not only bad for pet owners and breeders, but seriously detrimental to worldwide conservation efforts as many assurance populations of a variety of both Cyclura and Ctenosaura species are maintained safely in Florida.
Read the update after the jump or click here to be taken to USARKFL's notice! There is also a link to the bill after the jump.
Continue reading "ACTION ALERT FLORIDA: Florida moves to include all species of Iguanas as restricted species"
Friday, December 15 2023
In the hottest and wryest region of Vietnam, deep in the dry lowland forest of Nui Chua National Park, researchers discovered a new species of blind skink. Searching around the leaf litter around the yellow-bellied termite mounds that these skinks preferred to dine on, the found 7 specimens. When they looked closer, they realized they had a new species, the Ninh Thuận blind skink ( )
Ninh Thuan blind skinks have a “worm-like” body that can reach about 4.6 inches in length, the study said. Their eyes are “rudimentary” and “completely covered by scales.” They are also “limbless” with only males having “rudimentary” hind limbs that form “flap-like structures” near their tails.
To read more about this cool discovery click here.
Tuesday, December 12 2023
photo courtesy - Missouri Department of Conservation The male hellbender found in the Gasconade River
An Eastern Hellbender, reared in the St. Louis Zoo and then re-released as an adult in the wild was found to have been the first zoo reared animal to have reproduced in the wild having fathered 86 "well-developed" eggs in the Gasconade River.
Justin Elden, curator of herpetology and aquatics at the Zoo, said hellbenders are cryptic, secretive creatures. Numbers might be rising faster than known.
“If there’s one there’s likely many more,” said Elden. “It’s exciting stuff, and my hope and thought is that this is the first of many that we will find.”
This means awesome things for the future of hellbenders! Go check out the full story here!
Monday, December 11 2023
A Nanorana laojunshanensis, or Laojunshan slow frog, seen from the top and underside. Photo from Tang, Liu and Yu (2023)
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article282426903.html#storylink=cpy
While studying the mountain range of Yunnan in China, biologists ran across 6 different frog species, and one of them turned out to be a brand new one!
Laojunshan slow frogs are considered “small,” reaching about 1.4 inches in size, researchers said. They have “robust” limbs, “oval” tongues and “rough” skin. Photos show the multicolored Laojunshan slow frog. The frog’s back is chestnut brown with dark brown-black splotches. Underneath, its belly is creamy white with “yolk-yellow” groin and armpits, the study said.
To read more visit here.
Wednesday, December 6 2023
Sea turtle tracks coming up the beach and zig-zagging through the sand. Photo by CHNS.
A Green Sea Turtle nest found December 3 on Hatteras Island, NC is a record for the latest nest ever laid! The previous record was October 31! This year also marked the return of the Leatherbacks for the first time in 11 years!
The new nest also means that 2023 now boasts the second-highest number of turtle nests reported on Ocracoke, Hatteras, and Bodie Islands since data collection began.
The top three years for sea turtle nesting activity within CHNS have all occurred within the past five years, and are as follows:
2019 – 473 nests
2023 – 380 nests
2022 – 379 nests
Of these 380 nests in 2023, 324 were Loggerhead sea turtles, 52 were Green sea turtles, 3 were Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles, and one was a Leatherback sea turtle.
To read more about the track at Cape Hatteras National Seashore click here.
Friday, December 1 2023
Presque Isle Co, MI, July 4, 2007, photo by kingsnake user ratsnakeheaven
The Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy is closing on 457 acres of property known as the La Grange Valley wetlands that is known as a "biodiversity hot spot" that houses a pair of nesting bald eagles and two endangered species, including the eastern massasauga rattlesnake.
The agency’s ultimate goal is to protect an important fen habitat with upland islands and tall hardwood trees that harbor a lot of wildlife, including several state threatened or endangered species like the Blanding’s turtle. And no, Hansen says, the agency’s not revealing the other federally endangered species — apart from the massasauga rattlesnake — out of a need to protect it.
To learn more about the project visit swmlc.org
To read the full article, click here.
Wednesday, November 29 2023
Do you remember "Jawlene", the alligator that was found without an upper jaw in Florida? Gatorland recently shared an update!
It has been such a blessing and a wild ride since this little angel showed up at Gatorland!
Jawlene is an incredible testament to the strength and resilience of the great American Alligator. From learning how she had adapted to living as a wild alligator to being patient and watching her show us how to best feed her so that she doesn’t get frustrated and give up.
She’s gaining weight, learning to trust us and getting stronger every day. Gatorland Global, our conservation arm exists for situations just like this one.
Jawlene has gained 2 pounds since being there and she is almost fully cleared of parasites. For the full story, with video, visit Fox35 here.
Photo courtesy of NPR article
With their new found popularity from Minecraft, almost everyone now knows the Axolotl with it's goofy grin. The National Autonomous University is hoping that people love them enough to adopt one, well virtually at least! It might seem amazing with their popularity as a pet, but their wild numbers are on a rapid and drastic decline. Right now, they are running a campaign where you can virtually "adopt" an animal by naming one for a year, donating meals towards one or even donating towards habitat purchase!
Over two decades ago, there were about 6,000 of these tiny salamanders for every square kilometer in Lake Xochimilco in Mexico City. In the last count from 2014, there were only about 36 axolotls per square kilometer, according to Luis Zambrano, who was involved in the axolotl census.
"It's gotten worse. They're not completely extinct, but it's worse," said Zambrano, who is also an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
As always, the biggest threat to the Axolotls is humans, this time it isn't the pet trade however. It is from the over expanding population in their native environment and the poisoning of the groundwater. We all know the importance this tells us about the stability of that area as a whole!
To read the full article, go to NPR here.
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