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Suzio Report, Off Plot Part 2
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What ho, Herpers! 04/27/12 Roughly a year ago, I sent out a report on a trip that John and Devon Slone and I made to some cerberus dens. In that report, I mentioned getting lost, and being rescued by a combination of a friendly guy on an ATV and the fortuitous arrival of a forest…
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Suizo Report — Off Plot Part 1
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Howdy Herpers, 04/26/12 Every once in a while, I cut the herps on our beloved plot a break, and wander off elsewhere. As far as I can tell, they don’t seem to miss me much. From 30 March through 1 April, Herrmann the German and I joined Dale DeNardo, Marty Feldner and John Slone. Our…
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Bd Outbreak in Mountain Yellow-Legged Frogs
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Appearance and behavior of mountain yellow-legged frogs (Rana muscosa) and during a chytridiomycosis outbreak in Sixty Lakes Basin, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California. A) A frog showing clinical signs of severe chytridiomycosis including abnormal posture. B) Dead frogs following a chytridiomycosis outbreak in Milestone Basin. PLoS Figure. SAN FRANCISCO, April 25, 2012 — The fungal infection that has…
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Freeing loggerhead turtles comes at a price
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When loggerhead turtles are accidentally captured by humans, a recovery process follows, the complexity of which varies according to the turtle’s injuries. Spanish researchers have analysed the process of reintegrating these animals into the environment and they have discovered that there are changes in the behaviour of the turtles that have a complicated recovery process.…
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Komodo Reefs & Sea Snake Habitat Damaged by Fish Collectors
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BEFORE: A Pinnate batfish swimming among other fish in Tatawa Besar in the waters of Komodo islands, Indonesia. AFTER: damaged coral reefs in the water of Tatawa Besar, Komodo islands, Indonesia. Photo Credit: ROBERT DELFS / MICHAEL W. ISHAK. The following article by Jacob Herin is being carried by theStar.com. KOMODO ISLAND, Indonesia — Coral…
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Suzio Report, April 2012
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What ho, Herpers! 04/18/12 Things are finally starting to pick up out in paradise. The monsters are up and motoring about, as are the atrox and molossus. The only sluggos on our plot are the tiger rattlesnakes, which have been walled up and mostly invisible since December. But as one of the images below demonstrates,…
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Egg laying – the downfall of the Dinosaurs?
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Why there were no small dinosaurs: While mammals occupied the various ecological niches with different species (left), the egg-laying dinosaurs occupied the same niches with few large species – in their respective different growth stages (right). Consequently, there was no room in the niche for smaller and medium-sized species (far right). The absence of species…
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Temporary Fluctuations in Snake Populations?
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Changing climates as well as weather changes may result in some snake populations increasing – at least for the short term. Articles like the one below are showing up in newspapers accross the USA. NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Did you enjoy the mild winter? How about all of the rain North Texas received in the…
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More State Legislation to Control Exotic Animals – West Virginia
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Group seeking exotic animal rules won’t give upBy Mannix PorterfieldRegister-Herald Reporter CHARLESTON — Welcome to “Wild, Wonderful, West Virginia,” and that slogan remains applicable to exotic animals born outside the majestic mountains, since the Legislature failed to turn in legislation acceptable to Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin. One of his few vetoes this year was SB477,…
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Snakes in Advertising, circa 1949
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From the Bingboing web site. This 1949 Winchester Batteries ad was posted to the Vintage Ads LiveJournal group by noluck_boston, depicting a mother-daughter pair whose wise choice of reliable Winchester Batteries have rescued them from the terrible fate of being bitten by a deadly snake in the dark. Now they can be bitten by it…
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Frog Fitness & The Genome
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Physically fit frogs have faster-changing genomes, says a new study of poison frogs from Central and South America. Stretches of DNA accumulate changes over time, but the rate at which those changes build up varies considerably between species, said author Juan C. Santos of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina. Tree frogIn…
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Oldest Reptile Embryo
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Dating back 280 million years or so, the oldest known fossil reptile embryos have been unearthed in Uruguay and Brazil. They belong to the ancient aquatic reptiles, mesosaurs. The study of these exceptionally well-preserved fossils suggests that mesosaurs were either viviparous(1) (pushing back this mode of reproduction by 60 million years) or that they laid…
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The Need to Conserve Turtles
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JCM Natural History Photography The 327 species of turtles that remain on earth are heavily exploited for food (above are some Malaysian snail eating turtles being cooked in central Thailand) as well as having their numbers reduced due to environmental degradation. The following story is from the Wall Street Journal by WILL JAMES The Wildlife Conservation Society,…
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Suzio Report, March Madness 2012
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What ho, Herpers! Well, March Madness came and went in a very subtle fashion this year. The very cold night temps, combined with a couple warm ups at times that I couldn’t make it out, sort of caused egress to be a whimpering, sporadic affair. But I did get some stuff worth sharing. I thought…
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Florida Pythons Confirmed Consuming Limpkin Eggs
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Two Limpkin (Aramus guarauna) crushed but intact eggs (top; EVER 44949) recovered from a Burmese Python digestive tract and compared to a reference Limpkin specimen (below; USNM 25786) for size and color patterns. The arrow shows fragments of eggshells from the python sample placed on the museum specimen for colorcomparison. Photograph by Don Hurlbert, Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian…
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Rattlelsnake-Squirrel Interactions
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From the University of California at Davis. Robot squirrels from the University of California, Davis, are going into rattlesnake country near San Jose, continuing a research project on the interaction between squirrels and rattlesnakes. In the lab, robot squirrels have shown how squirrels signal to snakes with heat and tail flagging. Through field experiments, researchers…
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More on Roads as Barriers to Wildlife
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Psammodromus algirus a forest species that does not appear to cross roads. Photo Credit: Mario M. Roads, railways, fences and other linear structures may act as barriers to dispersal of a variety of species. The long term effects may be to interrupted gene flow between populations, but the impact of linear structures may differ for…
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Training Dogs to Find Florida Pythons
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Time is carrying the following story. “Sit. Speak. Good boy. Now go find a snake that can swallow a 76-pound deer.” Trainers at Auburn University in Alabama have put Labradors on the scent of Burmese pythons—those Asian snakes that are running amok in the Florida Everglades. In recent years, the Sunshine State has tried to…
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Artificial Snake Hibernaculum A Succsess
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Rob Carmichael, curator of the Lake Forest Wildlife Discovery Center, holds several brown snakes that spent the winter in a wine chiller in the center. The snakes were released Monday in Illinois Sate Beach Park in Zion. Michael Tercah/Chicago Tribune The Chicago Tribune is carrying the following story. After spending most of the winter curled…
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Amphibians, Reptiles, & Natural History
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