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SerpentResearch.Com

Amphibians, Reptiles, & Natural History

World Snake Day

July 17 is World Snake Day. Snakes play varied roles in human lives. Snakes are powerful symbols in cultures around the world. Snakes are important in the food webs of many ecosystems. Snakes provide important clues to understanding the evolution of tetrapods. Snakes contain the keys to producing many new pharmaceutical products that will improve human health. But snakes are threatened by habitat loss, pollution, and excessive harvesting. Also, humans consume snakes for food and traditional medicine. Expanding human appreciation for snakes and, their ecosystems is necessary if many species are going to survive the century.

World Lizard Day

August 14 is World Lizard Day . Lizards are both predators and prey, making them an important link in the food chains in the ecosystems they live in. Most feed on insects and some are strict herbivores. They in turn, are eaten by snakes, birds, and carnivorous mammals. Lizards have been around for more than 250 million years. They typically live in the tropics and temperate regions of the world in forests, shrublands, grasslands, and deserts. Lizards can also be fossorial and live most of their lives underground. Because snakes evolved from lizards, technically snakes (all snakes) are lizard. But of course, all lizards are not snakes – not even many of the species that have lost their limbs.

World Turtle Day

World Turtle Day is May 23 of each year and is sponsored by American Tortoise Rescue. The day was created as a yearly observance to help people celebrate and protect turtles and tortoises and their disappearing habitats, as well as to encourage human action to help them survive and thrive.

World Croc Day

June 17th is World Croc Day  and highlights the plight of the world’s 23 species of crocodilians (crocodiles, alligators, and gavials)..

World Frog Day & Save the Frogs Day

The earliest known mention of World Frog Day appears in an April 26, 2009 email exchange between Canadian SAVE THE FROGS! Volunteers Annette Tanner and David Wong as they organized events for the inaugural Save The Frogs Day, which took place worldwide on April 28, 2009.

Annette inadvertently referred to Save The Frogs Day as World Frog Day—much like calling Thanksgiving “Turkey Day.” While Save The Frogs Day was created by SAVE THE FROGS! as a global amphibian conservation initiative, World Frog Day emerged as a misnomer that later took on a life of its own. World Frog Day is not an independent creation but rather a direct byproduct of SAVE THE FROGS!’ conservation efforts!

Both Annette and David continued to support amphibian conservation by organizing multiple Save The Frogs Day events over the years. Their contributions include hosting Dr. Kerry Kriger’s 2009 presentation at Qualicum on Vancouver Island and securing an official Save The Frogs Day proclamation from Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson on April 28th, 2009.

March 20, 2017: The First Known World Frog Day Event & Electronic Newsletter Announcement

On March 20, 2017, SAVE THE FROGS! sent out the first known electronic newsletter recognizing World Frog Day, reaching thousands of subscribers. Written by SAVE THE FROGS! International Campaigns Coordinator Michael Starkey, the newsletter introduced World Frog Day to thousands of SAVE THE FROGS! supporters and encouraged action for amphibian conservation.

In the announcement, Michael emphasized the urgent threats facing frogs worldwide and highlighted Save The Frogs Day, the world’s largest day of amphibian education and conservation action. Readers were encouraged to: Organize a Save The Frogs Day event
Support conservation efforts by purchasing an official Save The Frogs Day t-shirt; join a SAVE THE FROGS! Facebook Live event in celebration of World Frog Day

The First Known World Frog Day Event: A Facebook Live Discussion

As part of the celebration, Michael Starkey hosted a live discussion on the SAVE THE FROGS! Facebook Page, inviting supporters to join an informal conversation about frogs, amphibian conservation, and the work of SAVE THE FROGS!. This is the earliest known World Frog Day event, providing a platform for community engagement and education.

California Wildlife Day & The California Red-Legged Frog

The newsletter also recognized the inaugural California Wildlife Day, which coincided with World Frog Day, and celebrated the California Red-Legged Frog (Rana draytonii) as the state’s official amphibian designation SAVE THE FROGS! successfully campaigned for in 2014.

This newsletter marked a major milestone in World Frog Day’s history, as it was the first widely broadcast email announcement, reaching thousands of subscribers and helping bring greater awareness and structure to the day’s celebration.

The World of Squamata

The Squamata form a clade because they all shared an ancestor. Squamata are the lizards and snakes. Lizards include the amphisbaenians – which are highly specialized for life underground. Of the approximately 11,000 species of squamates, more than 7100 are considered lizards and they are organized into about 44 families. Lizards most have four well-developed limbs. Nevertheless, some are limbless, some have two limbs, some have none, and many have greatly reduced limbs. Most lizards are terrestrial or arboreal, although a few are subterranean or semi-aquatic, and one species enters the ocean to feed. Global distribution includes all continents except Antarctica.

The Ruschenburger’s Treeboa that spends much of its life in the treetops and feeds mostly on mammals.
The West African Burrowing Boa, spends much of its time underground.
The semi-aquatic Checkered Keelback is in ands out of the water many times each day, .

So, some snakes are adapted for an arboreal lifestyle, others spend much of their life underground, and some spend much of their life in the water.

Pituophis melanoleucus mugitus
Others spend time on the ground and below the surface. A Florida Pine Snake. JCM

The Lissamphibia

The World of  Lissamphibia

The features uniting the Lissamphibia were first noted by Ernst Haeckel, even though in Haeckel’s work, Lissamphibia excluded the caecilians. Nevertheless, Haeckel considered the caecilians to be closely related to what he called Lissamphibia, which is now called Batrachia and includes frogs and salamanders. In the early to mid 20th century, a biphyletic origin of amphibians (and thus of tetrapods in general) was favored. In the late 20th century, a flood of new fossil evidence mapped out in some detail the nature of the transition between the elpistostegalid fish and the early amphibians. Most herpetologists and paleontologists, therefore, no longer accept the view that amphibians have arisen twice, from two related but separate groups of fish. The question then arises whether Lissamphibia is monophyletic as well. The origin and relationships of the various lissamphibian groups, both among themselves and among other early tetrapods, remain controversial. Not all paleontologists today are convinced that Lissamphibia is indeed a natural group, as it shares important characteristics with some non-lissamphibian Palaeozoic amphibians.