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Here is the link to the Terrarium Morbidum Forum – THE forum for European reptiles and amphibians.

“Spider-Man lizard” (Mwanza Flat Headed Agama)

Demand for a striking blue and red lizard has surged among comic fans thanks to its uncanny resemblance to Spiderman. Pet shops specialising in exotic animals have reported a surge in popularity for the Mwanza Flat Headed Agama lizard, which is native to Africa. Karen Baker, of amphibian and reptile specialist store Exotic-pets.co.uk, said that the lizards, which live for up to 15 years, had currently sold out.

"Spider-Man lizard" (Mwanza Flat Headed Agama)

 

She said: ‘People are drawn to them because of their unusual colourings.
‘These lizards usually live in groups with one dominant male who is usually the most colourful.
‘We should have another batch of these lizards available in October, the demand just keeps going up and up.

Demand for the unusual pet soared after photographer Roy Daines captured an image of the lizard while on holiday in Kenya.
He said: ‘I was relaxing around the lodge pool, when the lizard appeared out from behind a wall surrounding the terrace I was bathing on.

‘I was absolutely fascinated by him, I have never seen anything like it before.

Uncanny resemblance: The African lizard resembles Spider-Man with its distinctive red and blue markings

‘His colourings were very bright making him look like he was dressed in a suit – crawling around on the rock made him look exactly like Spider-Man.’

Rich Nunn, of Nostalgia and Comics in Birmingham said that the resemblance to the Marvel superhero was amazing.
He said: ‘The colouring is unbelievably similar, especially in the chest arms and legs.

‘I am sure there would be lots of comic fans who would want a lizard like this, because it looks so much like Spider-Man.’

From Daily Mail

Hundreds of sand lizards released

Hundreds of rare sand lizards are being released into the wild at locations in England and Wales from where they had previously disappeared.

They will be reintroduced at five sites in Surrey, Dorset and mid-Wales.

The sand lizards were bred in captivity so they could be released into the wild

The sand lizard was once a common sight across heathland, but the gradual destruction of its habitats has led to its extinction in many places.

Some 400 of the creatures would be set free within a fortnight, the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation group said.

The first release of about 80 two-inch-long baby lizards, reared in special hatcheries, will take place at a National Trust nature reserve in Surrey on Thursday.

According to the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation group (Arc), the lizard was lost altogether from a number of counties including Kent, Sussex, Cornwall, Cheshire and north and west Wales.

More than 90% of suitable habitat has also vanished from Surrey, Merseyside and Dorset.

Reptiles and amphibians are coming under pressure from an increasing number of factors including habitat loss, disease and a future of climate change Dr Tom Tew, Natural England

Frogs, toads, newts, lizards and snakes have all been affected by the loss of their habitats, often because of changes to agricultural practice, the planting of forests and building developments.

But Arc, formed by the merger of Froglife and the Herpetological Conservation Trust charities, said the animals and their habitats were now protected by law.

Nick Moulton, of Arc, said: “It’s great to see them going back, now safely protected, where they belong.”

The reintroductions were part of efforts to “turn back the clock on amphibian and reptile declines” in Britain, a statement from Arc added.

‘Reverse the decline’

The young lizards were bred in captivity at locations that include the zoos at Chester and Marwell, and also specially modified back gardens.

The breeders minimised contact with the reptiles to prevent them becoming too tame, which would leave them at risk of being eaten in the wild by their main predator, the smooth snake.

The reintroduction of the sand lizards is part of a 133-point action plan, intended to reverse the decline of the UK’s frogs, toads, lizards and snakes.

The plan includes research, monitoring species and encouraging land-owners to create habitats such as ponds to help wildlife flourish.

Dr Tom Tew, chief scientist at Natural England, the government’s conservation agency, said: “Reptiles and amphibians are coming under pressure from an increasing number of factors including habitat loss, disease and a future of climate change.

“This important reintroduction programme is an example of the action that must be taken to reverse the decline in England’s biodiversity and to conserve the habitats that our unique wildlife relies upon.”

From BBC NEWS.

Rattlers, Peepers & Snappers.

Rattlers, Peepers & Snappers is for anyone interested in the biology, natural history, or the 52 fascinating amphibians & reptiles in New England.

Vince Franke teamed up with Jim Andrews, of the VT Reptile and Amphibian Atlas, to create individual segments on all the species that breed in New England as well as reptile and amphibian field adventures hosted by a variety of New England experts. The DVD was designed and laid out for a variety of audiences and ages. We’ve received great feedback from professionals, teachers, naturalists and their kids!

PLAY excerpt from field adventure

• 3 hours of programs
• Frog calls of every species
• Quizzes, facts sheets, resource pages and much more

The two educational programs incorporate a series of field trips with local experts from across New England as well as highlighting current research projects with University graduate students from the University of Maine, the University of Massachusetts, Berkshire Community College, and the University of Connecticut. Topics include the identification, natural history, and conservation of all the snakes, turtles, lizards, frogs, and salamanders of New England.

From Peregrine Productions

Pictures on how snakeskin is collected for the trade. WARNING! GRAPHIC PICTURES!

 WARNING! GRAPHIC PICTURES!

The following message is made of an well known herpetologist, I am in this post just quoting it. / Miqe

“I was sent the images by a concerned Sri Lankan herpetologist but I would imagine the images originate from Indonesia (Sumatra and/or Kalimantan, Borneo), possibly Malaysia, (Peninsula or Sarawak, Borneo, but less likely)
I have not examined them closely, and have no wish to do so, but an IUCN report for 1989 shows that Indonesia exported 556,000 retic python skins, and 71,000 blood and short-tail python skins.
Most of these snakes pass through specialised snake slaughter houses in Sumatra and Borneo. See O’Shea 2007 Pythons and Boas of the World New Holland pp.30-31.

The snakes are killed primarily for skins but also harvested for meat and gall bladders to supply the ethnic Chinese populations.
Despite possible claims, these are not captive bred for the market, who could economically raise a python to adult size and then slaughter it for its skin, meat and bile, and expect to improve on their investment.

Pythons are often skinned alive, the same for crocodiles, apparently the skin is easier to remove.

Also of interest would be:
Erdelen, W. 1998 Conservation, Trade and Sustainable Use of Lizards and Snakes in Indonesia. Mertensiella (supplement 9) : xxiii+144pp.
Groombridge, B. & R.Luxmoore 1991 Pythons in South-East Asia: A review of distribution, status and trade in three selected species. CITES, Cambridge, UK. 127pp.”

This slaughter is just for us humans to get this:

STOP THIS NOW!!

Lizard she-males survive longer

Augrabies Flat Lizard ’she-males’ can

The Augrabies Flat Lizard (Platysaurus broadleyi), a star of Sir David Attenborough’s recent series Life in Cold Blood, adds another twist to its tale. A team of South African and Australian researchers have discovered that some males of this dramatically coloured lizard mimic females during early maturity and thereby avoid the costs of broadcasting their masculinity.

As juveniles, all males look like females before gradually developing extravagant adult male coloration at the onset of sexual maturity. These young males are most vulnerable to aggressive adult male rivals when these first tell-tale signs of masculinity begin to develop and adults are quick to capitalise on a soft target by chasing and sometimes biting these young males.

Assoc. Prof. Whiting pointed out that “by delaying the onset of colour to a more convenient period, these males (termed she-males) are making the best of a bad situation”. An immediate advantage is freedom of movement in the normally treacherous zones which make up the territories of highly aggressive males that already have extensive fighting experience. At the same time, these female mimics are able to court the myriad of females that share the territorial male’s residence.

The authors of this study (Assoc. Prof. Martin Whiting of the University of the Witwatersrand; Dr. Jonathan Webb of the University of Sydney; and Assoc. Prof. Scott Keogh of the Australian National University) also tested whether she-males are able to mimic the chemical ‘signature’ of females.

In a clever experiment performed in the wild, they removed all pheromones and skin lipids that might signal gender and relabelled a group of females and she-males with either male or female scent, before presenting them to typical adult males. Males use their tongues to sample chemical scent and responded by courting she-males labeled as females, but not she-males labeled as males. “Males are fooled by looks, but not by scent” said Dr. Webb.

She-males are able to maintain this deception by staying one step ahead of a prying male, and thereby avoiding a nosey tongue that might give the game away.  Assoc. Prof. Keogh said that “young transvestite males appear to have a dual advantage: the avoidance of potentially dangerous bouts with dominant males and access to normally inaccessible females”.

From Science Alert

Researcher Finds Tailless Lizards Lose Agility

When in a predator’s grips, many lizards drop their tails to escape. But what price do they pay for freedom? A team led by biology professor Gary Gillis of Mount Holyoke College found the lizards were compromised: They could no longer jump without tumbling backwards, making it difficult to land safely when jumping between branches.

Among nature’s more interesting wonders is the ability of many lizard species to escape their predators. When caught in a vulnerable position, they simply drop their tails, leaving the twitching body part to distract the predator as they scamper to safety.

But, says Gary Gillis, a biology professor at Mount Holyoke College, the lizards lose significant mobility and agility in return for this life-saving natural escape mechanism.

Up to 50 percent of some lizard populations seem to have traded part of their tails in exchange for escape, according to Gillis. While the tails typically grow back in three to six months, Gillis wondered how the loss might impact a branch-hopping, tree-dwelling lizard’s mobility and ability to survive in the interim. Teaming up with undergraduate student Lauren Bonvini, he began recording lizard leaps to observe how well the reptiles coped without their tails. The results are being published February 13 in The Journal of Experimental Biology (http://jeb.biologists.org/). Constructing a jumping arena from boxes and fine sandpaper, Gillis and Bonvini gently encouraged arboreal Anolis carolinensis (anole) lizards to launch themselves from an 11-centimeter-high platform while filming the animals’ jumps. The lizards performed well, launching themselves by pushing off with their back feet and landing gracefully, covering distances ranging from 14.9 to 29.9 centimeters. But how well would the animals perform without their tails? After holding the lizards’ tails to encourage them to drop them, just as they would with a predator, Bonvini then persuaded the tailless reptiles to jump while Gillis filmed them. As soon as the first animal took to the air, Gillis knew something was different. “It looked weird,” he said. “The animals became blurred as they jumped.” Replaying the animal’s jump in slow motion, the team could see that it was tumbling backwards, out of control, as its tail stump flailed. Filming other tailless anoles, four backflipped out of control, although two others seemed to manage their trajectories better. Teaming up with Duncan Irschick of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, to analyze the reptiles’ leaps, Gillis could see that everything about the tailless lizards’ take-off was exactly the same as it had been before they lost the appendage – until they left the jump stage. The lizards then began flipping backwards by more than 30 degrees; some tumbled so far that they landed on their backs. The team also realized that when the lizards with whole tails took off, they raised the base of their tails as the rest of the appendage trailed along the ground, as if it was somehow stabilizing the take-off. “If jumping and landing are important for lizards, they are clearly compromised after losing their tails. Coordinated landing on a branch is out of the question when spinning backwards,” said Gillis. Escaping lizards pay a significant ecological cost for their life-saving quick-release system, he concluded. So how do the lizards use their tails to ensure a safe touchdown? Gillis isn’t sure whether they push down with their tails at take-off to prevent themselves from spinning, or whether the trailing tail passively stabilizes the animal’s departure. He is continuing his research to determine how lizards adjust to life without their tails, with differential degrees of tail loss, and after the tails have grown back.

Related Links:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/misc/profile/ggillis.shtml
http://jeb.biologists.org

Research video is available.

IF REPORTING ON THIS STORY, PLEASE MENTION THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY AS THE SOURCE AND, IF REPORTING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A LINK TO: http://jeb.biologists.org

Full text of the article is available ON REQUEST. To obtain a copy contact Kathryn Knight, The Journal Of Experimental Biology, Cambridge, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1223 425525, or email kathryn@biologists.com

From innovations report

What Is The World’s Rarest Animal? Herp?

By Whit Gibbons,(Eco-Views) Aiken Standard, SC, 1/09/09

This question needs to be qualified if you expect to get anything like consensus from scientists. For example, you might restrict the question to types of animals (such as bird, fish or frog) or to a location (such as within the United States, within Alabama or in the desert). Even then, you are unlikely to get a single answer on which all scientists would agree.
   
Part of the difficulty lies in establishing what is meant by “rare.” Marble salamanders, which 99.44 percent of the people in the Southeastern United States have never heard of and even fewer have seen, are not rare in the sense of being scarce. Amphibian biologists know that marble salamanders spend most of their lives in the woods under logs, leaves, rocks or even underground. They come onto the surface when they breed in the fall, almost always at night when it is raining. To anyone other than an amphibian biologist, they would be perceived as rare because the average person has never observed them in their natural habitat. By that definition, most animals, as well as plants, are rare.

The more common perception of what makes something rare is that not many of them are known to exist. The Grand Cayman blue iguana indisputably qualifies as one of, if not the, rarest lizard in the world. These turquoise or pale blue lizards, which are restricted to Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands south of Cuba, can get more than five feet long and live more than half a century. The record longevity in captivity is 67 years. Blue iguanas qualify for the rarity category because so few are left on the island. And their odds of survival look grim. Some lizard biologists have predicted that the species will be extinct by the year 2020, except for a few animals in captivity.

Like the blue iguana, one of the rarest turtles in the world also reaches an enormous size and probably lives for decades. The Yangtze (also called Shanghai) softshell turtle is considered to be the rarest turtle in the world by most turtle biologists. Two of these turtles, a male and a female, that are in zoos in China are purported to be more than 80 years old each. One giant softshell turtle is known to inhabit a large lake in Hanoi, Vietnam, and one was found in another Vietnamese lake, but sightings in the wild over recent decades have been few. Females, which get larger than the males, can reach lengths of more than four feet and are estimated to weigh more than 400 pounds. Attempts have been made to breed the remaining pair in captivity, but so far no fertile eggs have survived.

Many ornithologists consider the rarest bird in the world to be a small honeycreeper known as the po’ouli, which is native to rainforests on Maui. According to recent reports, only three surviving individuals are known to exist. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers the species endangered (if it didn’t, we should certainly wonder why not) and is attempting to protect the habitat. Efforts are also being made to get a pair to mate (assuming that both sexes are represented among the remaining individuals).

Rarity among animals, as well as plants, is not a new development. Of the millions of species that have gone extinct through the ages, a point was reached when only two or three were left. Then there were none. To that extent, rarity, even extinction, is a natural biological phenomenon. What is not natural is when we human beings are responsible for the rarity of a species, including the three mentioned above, because we have destroyed their habitat.

Perhaps we have reached a turning point in our stewardship of Earth. If, as I believe, most people value Earth’s biodiversity, then maybe we are ready to recognize the right of other species to inhabit this planet and to set ourselves a goal for the second decade of this millennium: Let us strive to ensure that being a victim of habitat destruction is itself a rarity.

From HerpDigest newsletter.

More Than 1000 New Species Discovered in Rivers, Jungles…and Restaurants of the Greater Mekong in Past Decade, WWF Reports

Fish, Plants, Amphibians and Mammals — Including an “Extinct” Rock Rat — Are Under Threat from Dams, Roads and Development

WASHINGTON, Dec 15, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — A rat thought extinct for 11 million years and a hot-pink, cyanide-producing dragon millipede are among a thousand new species discovered in the Greater Mekong Region of Southeast Asia in the last decade, according to a new report launched by World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

First Contact in the Greater Mekong reports that 1068 species were discovered or newly identified by science between 1997 and 2007 – which averages two new species a week. This includes the world’s largest huntsman spider, with a foot-long leg span and the Annamite Striped Rabbit, one of several new mammal species found here. New mammal discoveries are a rarity in modern science.

While most species were discovered in the largely unexplored jungles and wetlands, some were first found in the most surprising places. The Laotian rock rat, for example, thought to be extinct 11 million years ago, was first encountered by scientists in a local food market, while the Siamese Peninsula pit viper was found slithering through the rafters of a restaurant in Khao Yai National Park in Thailand.

“This report cements the Greater Mekong’s reputation as a biological treasure trove — one of the world’s most important storehouses of rare and exotic species,” said Dekila Chungyalpa, Director of the WWF-US Greater Mekong Program. “Scientists keep peeling back the layers and uncovering more and more wildlife wonders.”

The findings, highlighted in this report, include 519 plants, 279 fish, 88 frogs, 88 spiders, 46 lizards, 22 snakes, 15 mammals, 4 birds, 4 turtles, 2 salamanders and a toad. The region comprises the six countries through which the Mekong River flows including Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. It is estimated thousands of new invertebrate species were also discovered during this period, further highlighting the region’s immense biodiversity.

“This region is like what I read about as a child in the stories of Charles Darwin,” said Dr Thomas Ziegler, Curator at the Cologne Zoo. “It is a great feeling being in an unexplored area and to document its biodiversity for the first time… both enigmatic and beautiful,” he said.

The report stresses that economic development and environmental protection must go hand-in-hand to provide for livelihoods and alleviate poverty, but also to ensure the survival of the Greater Mekong’s astonishing array of species and natural habitats.

“This poorly understood biodiversity is facing unprecedented pressure….for scientists, this means that almost every field survey yields new diversity, but documenting it is a race against time,” said Raoul Bain, Biodiversity Specialist from the American Museum of Natural History.

The report’s authors recommend a formal, cross-border agreement between the governments of the Greater Mekong to address the threats to biodiversity in the region.

The WWF network is working throughout the Greater Mekong region to promote this agreement and address the threats to biodiversity from its base in Vientiane, Laos. Stuart Chapman, who heads the WWF network’s Greater Mekong Programme, says that protecting habitat while partnering with governments, businesses and local communities to address threats from development and agriculture is essential. “Who knows what else is out there waiting to be discovered, but what is clear is that there is plenty more where this came from,” he said. “The scientific world is only just realizing what people here have known for centuries.”

Notes to the Editor

– Information related to this press release, including high resolution photographs, audio interviews, species footage, and First Contact in the Greater Mekong report, can be downloaded from http://www.divshare.com/folder/443367-922

– WWF is collaborating with many research institutions in the region to discover new species. One WWF scientist, Dr. Chavalit Vidthayanon, discovered eight new fish species which are included in this report.

– WWF is working with governments and industry of the six Greater Mekong nations to conserve and sustainably manage 232,000 square miles of transboundary forest and freshwater habitats in this unique and rapidly changing land.

– The Greater Mekong countries, with the help of the Asian Development Bank, are increasingly cooperating to accelerate economic development. Economic activity and associated investments in infrastructure development are concentrated along three “economic corridors” that crisscross the region and have the potential to lift the region’s rural populations out of poverty but also to increase existing threats to natural resources. WWF believes that these natural resources are essential to the region’s long-term development and that the Greater Mekong nations can achieve economic development while ensuring the integrity of wildlife and habitats.

– Sixteen of WWF’s Global 200 ecoregions, critical landscapes of international biological importance, are found in the Greater Mekong. These landscapes are home to an estimated 20,000 plant species, 1,200 bird species, 800 species of reptiles and amphibians, and 430 mammal species, including Asian elephants, tigers and one of only two populations of the critically endangered Javan rhino in the world. In addition to rare Irrawaddy dolphins, the Mekong River basin is estimated to house at least 1,300 species of fish, including the Mekong giant catfish, one of the world’s largest freshwater fish. By length, the Mekong is the richest waterway for biodiversity on the planet, fostering more species per unit area than the Amazon. Many of the species occur nowhere else on Earth.

ABOUT WORLD WILDLIFE FUND

WWF is the world’s largest conservation organization, working in 100 countries for nearly half a century. With the support of almost 5 million members worldwide, WWF is dedicated to delivering science-based solutions to preserve the diversity and abundance of life on Earth, stop the degradation of the environment and combat climate change. Visit www.worldwildlife.org to learn more.

Video/Photos Available

SOURCE: World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
Lee Poston, 202-299-6442
lee.poston@wwfus.org

From Marketwatch

New species of lizard and pit viper discovered

Two species of lizard and one species of pit viper were recently discovered on mountains in the provinces of Binh Thuan, Dong Nai and Kien Giang.

A Ta Kou lizard.

 

 

 

 

The two new species of lizard belong to gekkonidae family. The first species, called Ta Kou lizard (Cyrtodactylus takouensis sp. nov. Ngô & Bauer, 2008), is 171.4mm long. Its back has 5 lines in light chocolate and five lines in yellow. Its tail has 3 lines. This lizard was found in a cave in the Ta Kou Nature Reserve in Binh Thuan province.

The other species of lizard, named Huynh lizard (Cyrtodactylus huynhi sp. nov Ngô & Bauer, 2008 ) was discovered in a cave on Chua Chan mountain in Dong Nai province. It is 147.5mm long, with 5-6 lines in dark brown on its back and 10 lines in light and dark brown on its tail.

This lizard species is named after Professor Dang Huy Huynh, the first Rector of the Ecological and Fauna Resources Institute.

The Hon Son pit viper (Cryptelytrops honsonensis sp. nov. Grismer, Ngô & Grismer, 2008 ) belongs to Viperidae family and it was discovered on Hon Son Island, Kien Giang province. It is around 626-648mm long.

These discoveries are the result of cooperation between researcher Ngo Van Tri from the HCM City Tropical Biology Institute and Professor Aaron M. Bauer, Jesse .L. Grismer from Villanova University (US) and Professor L. Lee Grismer from La Sierra University (US).

From vietnamnet.vn