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The Finest Maui Coffee
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This is some example content. WordPress is an extremely user friendly content management system for websites and blogs. Users can easily add and update text, images, video, audio and more using the WordPress platform. Curabitur lacinia porta purus. Mauris laoreet dignissim imperdiet. Proin tempor pellentesque neque tempor feugiat. Vivamus odio tortor, pulvinar vitae placerat sed,…
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Suzio Report, Summer Fun
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Howdy Herpers, 9/12/13 Well friends, it has been too long since Typing Boy here has addressed you. I trust that the lack of reports lately has not caused too much angst in your lives? So much has happened since Marty found that little tortoise in the black widow spider web that I hardly know where…
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Rhacophorid frog phylogeny on Borneo
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Kurixalus appendiculatus Rhacophoridae is a major clade of Afro-Asian tree frogs, that has radiated into many different niches. Rhacophorids contribute significantly to the high species richness and reproductive diversity of Sundaland vertebrates. Nonetheless, rhacophorid evolution, especially on Borneo, has not been studied within a phylogenetic context. In a new study Hertwig et al. examine the…
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The record-sized alligator
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The major news outlets are carrying the story of Dustin Brockman of Vicksburg, Mississippi who, with his brother and friend, killed a 727-pound record breaking alligator that was 13 feet, 4.5 inches long. The previous weight record was 697.5 pounds, according to a Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, program coordinator.Brockman is quoted as saying, “We…
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Diet overlap in aquatic snake assemblages
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Competition for prey is thought to be important in structuring snake assemblages. However, given the secretive behavior and low detectability of many snake species, this generalization is based on a limited number of studies, most of which focus on a single study site. In a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Zoology Durso et al…
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Social female copperheads found to be non-kin
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Recent observations suggest snakes may be far more social than previously thought, including the ability to recognize and group with kin, and provide parental care (defense) for young. Inclusive fitness theory predicts that benefits of such groupings should be greater when groups are composed of related individuals. Although the ability required to recognize kin under…
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Eastern coral snake venom found to contain molecules from 15 toxin families
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Snake venom is shaped by the ecology and evolution of the species that makes it. Evidence of positive selection in toxins have been consistently documented, reflecting the role of venoms as an ecologically critical phenotype. New World coral snakes (Elapidae) are represented by three genera and over 120 species and subspecies that are capable of…
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Female mate choice in Hyla chrysoscelis
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From frogs to humans, selecting a mate is complicated. Females of many species judge suitors based on many indicators of health or parenting potential. But it can be difficult for males to produce multiple signals that demonstrate these qualities simultaneously. In a study of gray tree frogs, a team of University of Minnesota researchers discovered…
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Sea snakes disappear at Ashmore Reef despite protection
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The Ashmore Reef National Nature Reserve was established in 1983 and covers 583 km2 Ashmore Reef contains seagrass beds, intertidal sand flats, coral reef flats, and lagoons, and supports an important and diverse range of species, including 14 species of sea snakes, a population of dugong that may be genetically distinct, a diverse marine invertebrate fauna, and…
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The beaded lizard reassed
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The beaded lizard (Heloderma horridum) has a fragmented distribution in Mesoamerica that extends from northwestern Mexico to eastern Guatemala. Locally known as the “escorpión” its natural history is surrounded by mystery, notoriety and misconception. Consequently, it is frequently slaughtered when encountered. Adding to this anthropogenic pressure, beaded lizard populations, with rare exceptions occur primarily in…
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A second specimen of the bush viper, Atheris hirsuta
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Atheris hirsuta The viper, Atheris hirsuta was described by Ernst & Rödel in 2002, based on a single specimen found near the ecological research station in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire. The holotype was found in secondary rainforest between a field station and the town of Taï. It was collected on a dirt road…
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Suizo Report — Thanks and July 2013
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Howdy Herpers, 07/31/13 Thank you cards are slugging their way toward the nine kind souls who gave our fiscal situation a jump start. Thanks to their efforts, we can not only keep the animals in the game that we have, but also add a few more. I do not wish to embarrass anybody by mentioning…
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A novel approach to treating venomous snakebites
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SAN FRANCISCO (July 30, 2013) – A team of researchers led by Dr. Matt Lewin of the California Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with the Department of Anesthesia at the University of California, San Francisco, has pioneered a novel approach to treating venomous snakebites—administering antiparalytics topically via a nasal spray. This new, needle-free treatment may…
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The sharp-tailed snake vs the developer
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Photo credit Bill Bouton. A friend used to define the difference between a developer and an environmentalist as, one builds houses in forests, and one lives in them. Development can certainly be a threat to some aspects of the environment and cause some species to become expatriated. And, snake populations living in or near developments…
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Two western garter snakes proposed as threatened
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Thamnophis rufipunctatus The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service propose to list the northern Mexican gartersnake (Thamnophis eques megalops) and narrow-headed gartersnake (Thamnophis rufipunctatus) as threatened taxa on July 10, 2013. Comments are accepted on this proposal until September 9, 2013. The northern Mexican gartersnake had a limited historical distribution in New Mexico that consisted of scattered…
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Suizo Report — Ellie Drops
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Howdy Herpers, 07/20/13 First off, Typing Boy sometimes sends out “knock your socks off” missives that he expects multiple “ooos and ahhhs” from the gallery. And all he gets in return is the sound of crickets. There is no accounting for taste with this audience. Then, whilst mired in email Armageddon, he sends out a…
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A lost frog from the lost world
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Allobates amissibilis sp. nov., newly discovered micro-endemic frog. © M. Hölting & R. Ernst/Senckenberg. Dresden, 17. July 2013. Ecotourism and Conservation – Can it work? In the context of a study in the forests of central Guyana, a team of scientists from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Dresden investigated this very question and by chance…
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Fruit-eating in crocodilians
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Reptile roles in ecosystems are frequently acknowledged as predators, scavengers and prey but their role as pollinators and seed dispersal agents are often overlooked. In a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Zoology Platt et al (2013) report on the evidence that crocodilians disperse seeds. The authors ask the questions: (1) Do crocodilians consume fruit…
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Snake pattern evolution
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Color patterns of snakes have been the subject of many studies and even more speculation. Why is it that some species are uniform in color, while others are striped, banded, or some other combination of patterns. Allen and colleagues (2013) note that an understanding of the diversity of color patterns found in snakes requires detailed…
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The asp viper reacts to a changing climate
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The asp viper. Photo credit: Felix Reimann The asp viper (Vipera aspis) is a small, viviparous snake with a range in Central and Southern Europe, juveniles feed on lizards and adults feed on mice and shrews. It inhabits a wide variety of habitats, from Mediterranean to mountainous areas and as such it is one of the…
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Evolution not fast enough for climate change
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Many vertebrate species would have to evolve about 10,000 times faster than they have in the past to adapt to the rapid climate change expected in the next 100 years, a study led by a University of Arizona ecologist has found. Scientists analyzed how quickly species adapted to different climates in the past, using data…
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Turtle shells develop from endoskeletal tissue
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A team of researchers from Japan has finally solved the riddle of the origin of the turtle shell.By observing the development of different animal species and confirming their results with fossil analysis and genomic data, researchers from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology show that the shell on the turtle’s back derives only from its…
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A second species of Azemiops (Viperidae)
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The holotype of Azemiops kharini (ZISP 26028) from Tam Dao, Vinh Phuc Province, Vietnam. Fea’s viper, Azemiops fea was described by Boulenger in 1896, and assigned to its own subfamily in 1971. Its elliptically shaped, flattened head; enlarged head plates; smooth dorsal scales; folding front fangs; the absence of heat-sensing pits; and a coiled venom…
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Variation in Sistrurus venom does not support specific status for subspecies
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Sistrurus is a clade of rattlesnakes containing two named species: the massasauga (S. catenatus) and pigmy rattlesnake (S. miliarius) rattlesnake. Each species consists of three named subspecies (S. c. catenatus; S. c. tergeminus, and S. c. edwardsii, and S. m. milarius, S. m. barbouri, and S. m. streckeri ). Recently, a phylogenetic analysis of the…
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Suizo Report — The Third Dimension of Desert Herping
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Howdy Herpers, 24 June 2013 Typing Boy here has always thought that herping in the Sonoran Desert as being a two dimensional affair. The herps are either on the ground, or under it. But on occasion, a third additional dimension exists out there. We’ll let the pictures do the talking: Image 1: This would make…
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The decline of cantils and systematics
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Agkistrodon cf bilineatus. JCM The idea that a single species could occur in several different forms, varieties, or subspecies can be traced to Ernst Mayer’s book Systematics and the Origin of Species. The idea advanced evolutionary thought but also added confusion to the concept of species and concealed the concept of cryptic species. Molecular analysis…
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Molecular phylogeny of a possibly extinct snake
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Coluber cursor Lacépède, 1789, was described from Martinique and has been placed in the genera Herpetodryas, Dromicus, and Liophis at various points in time. But molecular work suggests the snake is one of 41 species in the now greatly expanded genus Erythrolamprus. Erythrolamprus cursor. Jowers and colleagues (2013) failed to find the snake in a search…
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Psuedoboini diet & microhabitat
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A Psuedoboa neuwiedii that contained the remains of an Ameiva atrigularis. JCM Recently, I found a large Pseudoboa neuwiedii lying in vegetation about 50 cm above the ground with its head down. It was most certainly waiting for prey to pass by. We collected the snake, and when removed from the bag the snake regurgitated…
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Evidence for reptiles filling mammalian roles in the Paleogene greenhouse
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Artist’s rendition of Barbaturex morrisoni. Credit Angie Fox, Nebraska State Museum of Natural History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Some 40 million years before rock singer Jim Morrison’s lyrics earned him the moniker “the Lizard King,” an actual king lizard roamed the hot tropical forests of Southeast Asia, competing with mammals for food and other resources. …
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Oil palm plantations favor frog species of least concern
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Species like Hylarana erythrea thrive in oil plam plantations while other species disappear. Oil palm plantations in Malaysia are causing threatened forest frogs to disappear, paving the way for common species to move in on their turf, scientists have revealed. The study, carried out by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) describes how forests converted…
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Why female loggerhead sea turtles always return to their natal beach
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Above a Loggerhead Sea Turtle. Photo: V. Stiebens, GEOMAR Marine turtles are among the most endangered species of the world ocean. For a better protection of these fascinating animals, scientists try to understand why turtles return to their birthplace in order to reproduce after rather long distance migrations. Using molecular tools applied to turtles from…
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Invasive treefrog changes calls of native frog
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Cuban Treegrog, USGS May 30, 2013 — Human-produced noises from sources such as traffic and trains can substantially impact animals, affecting their ability to communicate, hunt, or even survive. But can the noise made by another animal have the same detrimental effects? A new study presented at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics (ICA 2013)…
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Suzio Report: Some animals from the famous hill
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Howdy Herpers,We got our good photographers, and we got our bad photographers. When I say “bad photographers,” there are 2 meanings. These are those who, like me, dumbly point the camera, squeeze the trigger, and pray that something good will somehow miraculously happen. (Most times, it doesn’t.) Then there are those “bad photographers” who are…
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Lung ventilation & the evolution of the turtle shell
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The skeleton of the South African reptile Eunotosaurus africanus fills a gap in the early evolution of turtles and their enigmatic shell. Photo Credit: Tyler Lyson. Through careful study of an ancient ancestor of modern turtles, researchers now have a clearer picture of how the turtles’ most unusual shell came to be. The findings, reported…
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How many species of snakes and other squamates are there? Part 2. And, the bigger problem.
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The on-line Reptile Database lists 8,734 species of reptiles (squamates, chelonians, crocodilians and tuataras) as of February 2008, five years later in February of 2013 it reports 9,766 species, an increase of 11.9%. Lizard species increased by 14.1% and snake species increased by 8.9% during the five year period. In May of 2011 a graph…
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Nano scale structure contributes to Gaboon viper camouflage
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Bitis rhinoceros, West African Gaboon viper (a) The snake partly on white background and (b) partly on leafy substrate similar to the natural habitat. The West African Gaboon viper is a highly effective ambush predator that becomes invisible in leaf litter due to the empty black patches of its skin that are virtually indistinguishable from shadows on…
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Bd originated in Xenopus laevis
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An African Clawed Frog. These frogs, originally imported to the U.S. for pregnancy tests, have now established populations in the wild. SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2013 –African frogs, originally imported for early 20th century pregnancy tests, carried a deadly amphibian disease to the U.S., according to a new study published today in the journal PLOS…
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Suzio Report April 6
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Howdy Herpers, About 20 miles north of the center of Tucson lies a mountain range called the Tortolita Mountains. While the Tortolitas are rather vast in the…
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Cannibalistic Tadpoles
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The face of an unfortunate Budgett’s frog tadpole that is being digested inside the stomach of its larger sibling. A carnivorous, cannibalistic tadpole may play a role in understanding the evolution and development of digestive organs, according to research from North Carolina State University. These findings may also shed light on universal rules of organ…
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The Value of Unexpected Creatures
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Recently I did a snake workshop for people who knew little about snakes, but were otherwise very well educated in various fields of endeavor (law, medicine, psychology). While discussing gliding snakes, one participant commented to the effect that we now have to worry about flying snakes. The comment was a reminder that the general public, even the…
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Rana iberica’s hidden life underground
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Do frogs live underground? The answer is yes, some amphibians, such as salamanders and frogs have been often reported to dwell in subterranean habitats, some of them completely adjusted to the life in darkness, and others just spending a phase of their life cycle in an underground shelter. Up until 2010, however, no one suspected…
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Midwest frogs & mammal populations altered by invasive plant
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Western Chorus Frogs in amplexus. JCM The following is a press release from Lincoln Park Zoo. Researchers at Lincoln Park Zoo and Northern Illinois University have discovered a new culprit contributing to amphibian decline and altered mammal distribution throughout the Midwest region – the invasive plant European buckthorn. This non-native shrub, which has invaded two-thirds…
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A new squamate phylogeny
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This new study finds rubber boas are not erycines but more closely related to Ungaliophis. Lizards and snakes (living squamates) number about 9,400 known species. Despite Squamata being one of the most diverse and conspicuous radiations of terrestrial vertebrates, no studies have attempted to reconstruct a phylogeny for the group with large-scale taxon sampling. Such an…
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Correlations between habitat use and morphology in sea kraits
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Laticauda colubrina. JCM In a forthcoming article in the Journal of Zoology Wang et al. (2013) report on the variation of characters in three species of Laticauda at Orchid Island, Taiwan. Previous research revealed that the phylogenetic and taxonomic status of the laticaudine sea kraits had been widely discussed in the literature. They found all…
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Northern Broad-headed snake ecology
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Hoplocephalus bungaroides. Photo from Wikipedia Conservation of highly specialized animals require detailed information on habitat use, dispersal and movement patterns. This kind of data often is often difficult to gather, especially for endangered species because the animals are rare, and because research methods cannot further endanger the species. As a result, knowledge of many endangered taxa is based…
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Treeboa Ecomorphology
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Neotropical treeboas (Corallus) form a monophyletic group of nine species distributed from south-eastern Guatemala to southeastern Brazil They occur on continental and oceanic islands and at elevations between sea level and about 1000 asl. All are moderately sized, with body lengths that are about 1.0–2.0 m, are relatively slender with laterally compressed bodies, thin necks,…
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A new cat-eyed snake from India
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The nocturnal, arboreal, rear-fanged colubrine snake genus Boiga (the cat-eyed snakes) is represented in Peninsular India by six species: B. trigonata, B. forsteni, B. ceylonensis, B. nuchalis, B. dightoni and B. beddomei. Of these, the last four are characteristic of the wet hill-forest tracts of India’s Western Ghats, and, in the case of B. ceylonensis and B. beddomei, the wet-zone of central, hilly Sri Lanka as well.…
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A new technology to deal with envenomation
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Engineers at the University of California, San Diego have invented a “nanosponge” capable of safely removing a broad class of dangerous toxins from the bloodstream, including toxins produced by MRSA, E. Coli, poisonous snakes and bees. The nanosponges are made of a biocompatible polymer core wrapped in a natural red blood cell membrane. Credit: Zhang…
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Ripples in the ecosystem
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Humans have been moving animals around the planet for thousands of years. Hunter and gathers took dogs with them as they migrated, and with the evolution of agriculture soon other domesticated animals were traded between populations. Like all animals, human alter the environments they live-in and so do their commensal species. But humans are special…
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Suzio Report Winter-Spring 2013
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Howdy Herpers, 13 April 2013 It is hoped that your inboxes have not been overtly cluttered with Suizo Reports of late? Truth be told, a few months ago, I got in a bit of hot water at work when a hacker…
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