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The Asian keelback genus Amphiesma separated into three genera
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Amphiesma stolatum from Thailand. JCM Asia is the geographic center for the origin of most modern snake lineages. The Asian natricines known as keelbacks (Amphiesma) are widely distributed and inhabit a variety of niches and exhibit significant morphological variation. The genus keelbacks in the genus Amphiesma comprise at least 42 species of small to medium-sized…
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Giant tortoise reintroduction to Española Island, Galapagos
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An endangered population of giant tortoises has recovered on the Galapagos island of Espanola. Photo Credit: James P. Gibbs, SUNY-ESF. Some 40 years after the first captive-bred tortoises were reintroduced to the island by the Galapagos National Park Service, the endemic Española giant tortoises are reproducing and restoring some of the ecological damage caused by feral goats…
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Rapid evolution of the hind feet of the green anole
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The left hind foot of the green anole after evolution. Toe pad measurements were taken on the expanded scales at the end of the longest toe. Photo Credit: Yoel Stuart/U. of Texas at Austin Scientists working on islands in Florida have documented the rapid evolution of a native lizard species — in as little as 15…
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A new leopard frog from the east coast
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Rana (Lithobates) kauffeldi discovered by Rutgers researchers and a team of others living along the I-95 corridor from Connecticut to North Carolina will be named after the ecologist who first noticed it more than a half century ago. Photo Credit: Rutgers University. Note the authors described this frog as a member of the genus Rana, but…
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Molecular study reveals the small yellow treefrog Dendropsophus minutus to actually be 19-43 species
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This Trinidad and Tobago frog, formerly regarded as Dedropsophis minutus is now Dendopsophus goughi (Boulenger). JCM Cryptic genetic diversity is now so commonly reported in molecular studies of amphibian species that the existence of nominally widespread tropical species has been called into question. However, supposedly widespread species occurring across multiple biomes and countries are rarely comprehensively…
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Biodiversity hotspots produced multiple events
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Over 90 percent of the more than 700 species of reptiles and amphibians that live in Madagascar, like the jeweled chameleon (Furcifer campani) shown here, occur nowhere else on Earth. A study of how Madagascar’s unique biodiversity responded to environmental fluctuations in the past suggests thatthe climate change and deforestation that the island is experiencing…
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Rattlesnakes & Robotic Tech
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Top. A sidewinder. Bottom A robot model. The amazing ability of sidewinder snakes to quickly climb sandy slopes was once something biologists only vaguely understood and roboticists only dreamed of replicating. By studying the snakes in a unique bed of inclined sand and using a snake-like robot to test ideas spawned by observing the real…
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Australia sea snakes and the absence of Laticauda
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Hydrophis czeblukovi a species found in Australian waters. Globally there are about 70 species of sea snake (aquatic elapids, in the subfamilies Hydrophiinae and Laticaudinae), inhabiting tropical and subtropical waters of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, from the east coast of Africa in the west to the Gulf of Panama in the east. Most…
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