HELP HERPDIGEST SURVIVE!!

Taken from a letter from “HerpDigest“, the Only Free Electronic Newsletter
Reporting On The Latest News on
Reptile and Amphibian Science and Conservation.

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“FOR EVERY $6.00 DONATION WE WILL SEND YOU A BEAUTIFUL MAGNET OF YOUR CHOICE.

BEAUTIFUL LIFELIKE ART MAGNETS. (Half of these were never offered before)

MINIMUM DONATION $24.00 -THREE MAGNETS

BUT DON’T STOP THERE ORDER 6 MAGNETS, 8 MAGNETS, 10 OR MORE.

BUY THREE OF ONE, OR 3 DIFFERENT ONES. BUT PLEASE AMOUNT IS LIMITED INCLUDE AT LEAST TWO ALTERNATIVES IN CASE WE RUN OUT.

If you would like to see how a specific one looks like, I will send a jpg directly to you.
All are reproductions of full color line drawings, rectangular, 2.5″ x 3.5″ with a metal shell, mylar/UV protecting cover and flat magnetic back. Brand New.

REMEMBER FREE SHIPPING, DON’T STOP AT 3, AND ALWAYS SUPPLY TWO ALTERNATIVES.

ORDER NOW

THE MAGNETS

TURTLES:
Blanding’s Turtle
Eastern Box Turtle
Ornate Box Turtle
Three-toed Box Turtle
Ornate Diamondback Terrapin
Eastern Painted Turtle
Western Painted Turtle
Southern Painted Turtle
Wood Turtle
Western Pond Turtle
Red-eared Slider
Chinese Box Turtle (Curoa flavomarginata)
Alligator Snapping Turtle
Florida Cooter
Matamata Turtle
Spotted Turtle

TORTOISES:
Galapagos Tortoise
Aldabra Tortoise
African Spurred Tortoise
Leopard Tortoise
Radiated Tortoise
Gopher Tortoise
Red-Footed Tortoise
Desert Tortoise
Indian Star Tortoise

SEA TURTLES:
Green Sea Turtle
Leatherback Sea Turtle
Hawksbill Sea Turtle

SNAKES:
Corn Snake
Emerald Boa
Western Diamondback Rattlesnake
Mountain Kingsnake
California Kingsnake
Burmese Python
Brazilian Rainbow Boa

AMERICAN ALLIGATOR

LIZARDS:
Texas Horned Lizard
Panther Chameleon
Jackson’s Chameleon
Green Iguana
Collared Lizard
Bearded Dragon
Coastal Horned Lizard
Gila Monster
Mexican Beaded Lizard

GECKOS:
Banded Knob-Tailed Gecko
Crested Gecko
Desert Banded Gecko
Flying Gecko
Giant Day Gecko Art
Leopard Gecko
Rough Knob-Tailed Gecko
Tokay Gecko

SALAMANDERS:
Tiger Salamander
California Newt
Fires Salamander

FROGS:
Red-eyed Tree Frog
Strawberry Poison Dart Frog
Red-Headed Poison Dart Frog
Phantasmal Poison Dart Frog
Granular Poison Dart Frog
Green & Black Poison Dart Frog
Wallace’s Flying Frog
Tiger Striped Leaf Frog
Painted Mantella
American Toad
Fire-Bellied Toad
Dyeing Poison Dart Frog
Blue Poison Dart Frog
Yellow Banded Poison Dart Frog
Panamanian Golden Frog
Borneo Red Flying Frog
California Red-Legged Frog
Norther Leopard Frog
Ornate Frog or Argentine Horn Frog or Known as Pac-Man Frog in Trade

SPIDERS:
Black Widow Spider
Mexican Red Kneed Tarantula
Rose Haired Tarantula

INSECTS AND OTHER INVERTEBRATES:
Praying Mantis
Lady Bug Beetle
Goliath Bettle
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly
Blue Morpho Butterfly
Cardinal Meadowland Dragonfly

The above list is of all the magnets currently for sale by Herpdigest, the weekly e-zine reporting on the latest conservation and scientific news on reptiles and amphibians. All proceeds go HerpDigest, a non-profit publication, to keep it: alive, free, and independent, of any government’s, non-profit organization’s, or people working in the herp industry’s agendas.

The magnets are shipped First Class USPS.

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Interested in Bird (Raptors to Penguins), Land and Marine Mammal, Octopus, Fish, Sharks, Rays, Dinosaur, Extinct or Endangered Animals from all over the world (Australia, Rainforest, the Arctic). Email us for a list of one or two of these categories. Supply of these are very low.

AND DON’T FORGET YOUR TURTLE OR FROG CALENDARS FOR 2011.
$13.99 each plus $6.00 for S&H for first one add $2.00 for each additional calendar.

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Happy Holidays to All.

And In Advance I Would Like to Thank You For Your Help In Keeping HerpDigest Alive These Past Ten plus Years.

Allen Salzberg
Publisher/Editor

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Symposium 2010 13-14 november, Norrköping Sweden

Årets Symposium i Norrköping, som är det 19:e i ordningen kommer arrangeras i lokalen Borgen  i Norrköping.
Det blir 10 stycken föredrag under symposiumet, ett kvällsarrangemang på lördagskvällen och ett Expo under lördagen. 
Vi har i år ett mycket bra startfält av föreläsare. Vi har Stephen Spawls, Andreas Gumprecht och Daniel Bennett.

Stephen Spawls, England. Stephen kommer prata om Afrikas reptiler under tre föredrag:

1.   Afrikanska herpetologiska äventyr.
2.   Afrikas reptilfauna; en överblick.
3.   Nordöstra Afrikas herpetofauna. 

Andreas Gumprecht, Tyskland. Andreas kommer prata om Asiatiska ormar under tre föredrag:

1.  Varan-ön. En resa till Ko Rak, i södra Thailand med information om Ko Lanta’s herpetologi.
2.  Fältherpetologi i Sydostasien.
3.  Den vanliga paddan, Bufo melanostictus, nästa stora område inom terrarie-rörelsen?

Daniel Bennett, England. Daniel kommer prata om varaner under tre föredrag:

1. De fruktätande varanerna i Filippinerna.

2. Ett decennium med bevarande-arbete i den dipterocarpa skogen på Polillo-ön; Var det värt det?
3. Sanningen runt stäppvaranen, Varanus exanthematicus. 

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This years symposium in Norrköping is the 19:th in a row and will be arranged in Borgen in Norrköping. 10 lectures will be held during the symposium, one eveningarrangement on saturdays evening and ond fair during the saturday.

This years startingfield of lectureholders are just as good as it allways is. We will be guested by Stephen Spawls, Andreas Gumprecht and Daniel Bennett.

Stephen Spawls, England.

1.  Adventures in African herpetology.
2.  The reptile fauna of Africa; an overview.
3.  The herpetofauna of northeastern Africa

Andreas Gumprecht, Germany.

1.  The monitor Island. A journey to Ko Rok, South Thailand with addtional notes to the herpetology of Ko Lanta.
2.  Field herpetology in Southeast Asia.
3.  The common Toad Bufo melanostictus to be the next big thing in the terraristic movement?

 Daniel Bennett, England.

1. The fruit-eating monitor lizards of the Philippine Islands.

2. A decade of conservation efforts in the lowland dipterocarp forest of Polillo Island; was it worth it?

3. The truth about the savannah monitior lizard, Varanus exanthematicus.

Want to read more?? Here is a link to Tropikföreningen Alba

Antibody dependent enhancement of frog virus 3 infection

Viruses included in the family Iridoviridae are large, icosahedral, dsDNA viruses that are subdivided into 5 genera. Frog virus 3 (FV3) is the type species of the genus Ranavirus and the best studied iridovirus at the molecular level.

Ranavirus

Typically, antibodies directed against a virus act to neutralize the virus and limit infection. Antibody dependent enhancement occurs when viral antibodies enhance infectivity of the virus rather than neutralize it.

Results: Here we show that anti-FV3 serum present at the time of FV3 infection enhances infectivity of the virus in two non-immune teleost cell lines.

We found that antibody dependent enhancement of FV3 was dependent on the Fc portion of anti-FV3 antibodies but not related to complement. Furthermore, the presence of anti-FV3 serum during an FV3 infection in a non-immune mammalian cell line resulted in neutralization of the virus.

Our results suggest that a cell surface receptor specific to teleost cell lines is responsible for the enhancement.

Conclusions: This report represents the first evidence of antibody dependent enhancement in iridoviruses. The data suggests that anti-FV3 serum can either neutralize or enhance viral infection and that enhancement is related to a novel antibody dependent enhancement pathway found in teleosts that is Fc dependent.

Author: Heather EatonEmily PennyCraig Brunetti
Credits/Source: Virology Journal 2010, 7:41

From 7:th space, available via BioMedCentral (Open Access).

18:th Norrköping Symposium 2009, Sweden

Hi all!!

I would like to invite you to this event. Have a look on what you´ll get in one weekend!

This is the 18:th symposium in Norrköping, Sweden.

Bernard Devaux, France. Is working with tortoises and will hold two talks:

1.   The status of the French populations and conservation projects.
2.  Spurred Tortoise, Centrochelys sulcata, status in Senegal and conservation projects.

Presentation of Mr. Devaux:
Bernard Devaux, 65 years old, formerly film-maker on reptilians. In 1986, he created the SOPTOM (tortoises protection association) and the “Tortoise Village” with David Stubbs, english environmentalist.-Since 1988, he has developed the “Tortoise Village” in Gonfaron followed by 2 others villages, in Senegal and Madagascar-Organisation of many International Congress on tortoises and turtles (main topics; pathology, biology, conservation).-Author of many books and encyclopedies on tortoises and turtles. Editor of the international tortoise journal LA TORTUE.-International protection actions around the world, including struggle against traffics and animals busdiness; Seychelles (Aldabra), Galapagos, Australia, Costa-Rica, Senegal, Indian Ocean.

Link to website: villagetortues.com

Johan De Smedt, Germany. Johans intrest is vipers. He will hold three talks:

1.   The genus Vipera, and it´s systematics, history and present.
2.   The different subgenuses whithin the Vipera-genus.
3.   Keeping and breeding of European vipers.

Presentation of Mr. De Smedt:
Johan De Smedt was born and raised in Belgium, but has been living in the south of Germany since 1996. He is married and has a son. His interest in keeping amphibians and reptiles dates back more than 29 years. He kept his first venomous snake at the tender age of 14 in the form of a European nose-horned viper, after which followed a range of other venomous snakes, mainly bamboo pitvipers and bushvipers. His main field of interest were, however, the vipers of Europe, and it was these that he specialized in.
In the year 1985 he was one of the founders of the Belgium snake-society called at that time “Medusa”, a couple of years ago this society changed the name in B.O.A (Belgian Ophidian Association). This association is now well known and the biggest group for people interested in snake in Belgium. For this association he wrote many articles, mainly on Vipers.
Johan De Smedt’s profession has nothing whatsoever to do with snakes: he is employed as a technical engineering manager in a mechanical engineering company where he teaches clients from all over the world in matters of automated control technology. He is fluent in four languages. He speaks Dutch, German, French and English.
In November 2001, his first book, “Die europäischen Vipern, Artbestimmung, Systematik, Haltung und Zucht” was been published. This book was written in the German language. He has had many requests for an English edition. Even a second edition was not planed at that time. But within a few years after publishing the first edition numerous systematic changes have become effective. New species and subspecies have been defined, several subspecies have been elevated to species rank, and various taxa have been transferred to other genera. This made him revise, and expand where necessary, the original German edition. Finally 2006 he published a second edition of his book in the English language.
Only a few photographs of the first edition have been reused, but many are new ones that have never been published before. Most photographs were, taken in the natural habitats of the respective specimens. For this reason he has travelled many different countries of Europe. These herpetological excursions were always undertaken with the aim of taking snapshots of vipers in their natural environment.

Mr. Johan De Smedt

Link to website: viperidae.de

Mirko Barts, Germany. Mirko will hold two talks:.

1.   Jewels of Namibia. Fieldobservations, and keeping/breeding.
2.   Secret, only for attenders to the evening-arrangement.

Presentation of Mr. Barts:
Mirko Barts lives near Berlin and has been working with reptiles for more than 20 years. It was his grandfather who raised him nature-orientated. He also helped him to understand nature and the special relationship between plants, animals and mankind. Furthermore, he simply showed him the beauty of the flora and fauna. Born in the former GDR, Mirko mainly travelled to Bulgaria and Georgia, where his family has its roots in. Jouneys to Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Morocco and the USA followed after the German reunification. Mirko already dreamed of visiting Africa during childhood and now he was able to live this dream.Since 15 years, he works with reptiles and amphibians of southern Africa. During more than 10 journeys, he did research in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia. His main focus always were the geckos of this regions, especially the genus Pachydactylus, the thick-toed geckos.
Mirko shared his observations in many publications. Most of his articles deal with husbandry and breeding of Pachydactylus species and include extraordinary observations. These and other species will be presented in his speech on the gecko fauna of Namibia, an African hotspot in terms of  diversity in gecko species. The speech will include some information on husbandry of selected gecko species, but its main focus will be on nature observation.

Mirko Barts

Links to websites: sauria.de and pachydactylus.com

Freek Nuyt, Netherlands. Mr. Freek will talk about various morphs in the boa and python species, as well as keeping and breeding of them. He will hold three talks:

1.   New morphs of boa´s.
2.   Breedingtechniques.
3    Royal/Ballpythons.

Link to website: fnreptiles.com

ALL talks are being held at:
Borgen, Folkborgsvägen 1, Norrköping, Sweden

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The fair/expo:

Saturday november 8, at 12,00-16,00 o´clock.
Adress: Pronova Center, S:t Persgatan 19, Norrköping, Sweden

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The eveningarrangement:

Talk by Mirko Barts:

A new geckospecies from southern Angola; keeping and breeding the feather-tailed gecko.

Saturday november 14
19,00-23,00 o´clock
Location: Strömvillan, S:t Persgatan 7 Norrköping, Sweden
Price: 200 SeK/person.

Food and coffee will be served after the talk.

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Prices:

Symposium:
Both days, including lunch and coffee:                   600 SeK
Specialprce at booking latest at the 12/11             450 SeK
One day:                                                                               350 SeK/day.

Eveningarrangement:
Eveningarrangement with talk, dinner and coffee.   200 SeK

Packages:
Talks both days, eveningarrangement, entrance to the fair/expo, symposium T-shirt and compendia (Latest bookingday, 12/11).                                                                       698:-

Fair/Expo:

Tableprices (1 table = 180x60cm)

1-2 tables                                                              250 SeK /table ( including 1 person )
3-5 tables                                                             200 SeK /table ( including 2 persons )
6-9 tables                                                             175 SeK /table ( including 3 persons )
10 tables or more                                             160 SeK /table ( including 3 persons )
Extra person                                                           40 SeK /each.
Electricity                                                               50 SeK

Misc.:
Symposium2009  T-shirt                                           89 SeK /each.
Compendia (ordinarie pris 49 SeK /each.)         39 SeK /each.

Floor Accommodation:
Friday and lördag, including mattress               100 SeK / night

Notification:

Notification is made via the form on the page “Kontakta oss” ( Translated: Contact us ).

To have the special Symposium2009 price 450 SeK, or the packageprice 698 SeK, the notification has to be made at the latest at 2/11 2009.

Notification IS binding!

Link to the webpage of the arranging society “Tropikföreningen ALBA”

Link to the “Contact”-page.

It’s a leap, but frogs find home in elephant dung.

Study of ‘ecosystem engineers’ sees cheap pachyderm shelters piling up.

One species of frog found in a pile of Asian elephant dung. Photo: Ahimsa Campos-arceiz / livescience.com

They may not be the best-smelling homes, but Asian elephant dung piles provide certain frog species with shelter, one researcher has found.

Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz of the University of Tokyo found the dung-dwelling frogs in Sri Lanka’s Bundala National Park, while searching for signs that Asian elephants acted as ecosystem engineers in their environments.

Ecosystem engineers are “organisms capable of controlling the availability of resources for other organisms by modifying the physical environment,” Campos-Arceiz said. The beaver is probably the most well-known example of an ecosystem engineer, Campos-Arceiz said. “The construction of their dams modifies the landscape, creating a new type of ecosystem.”

Big animals, such as elephants, are particularly good at ecosystem engineering, because they can have such a proportionately large impact on their environment, Campos-Arceiz said.

Previous studies have shown that African savanna elephants (Loxodonta Africana) impacted their ecosystem by creating refuges for tree-dwelling lizards — when the elephants broke off twigs and branches while feeding, they left behind crevices in the trees. The research showed that lizard communities were more diverse in places where elephants also lived.

Campos-Arceiz wondered if Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) might have a similar impact on their ecosystems.

During August 2008, Campos-Arceiz was in Bundala National Park inspecting Asian elephant dung piles looking for seeds (the feces can act as a nutrient source for plants and fungi, which will germinate and grow there). Instead, he found an amphibious surprise: six frogs representing three different species (Microhyla ornata, Microhyla rubra and Spaerotheca sp.) in five dung piles.

“I was looking for seeds in the dung — and was ready for some insects and other invertebrates. But I never thought about a vertebrate like a frog staying inside of the dung,” Campos-Arceiz told LiveScience.

An alternative habitat
Accompanying the frogs in the dung piles were beetles, termites, ants, spiders, scorpions, centipedes and crickets, “suggesting that a dung pile can become a small ecosystem of its own,” Campos-Arceiz wrote in the study, titled “S*** Happens (to be Useful)! Use of Elephant Dung as Habitat by Amphibians,” detailed in the journal Biotropica.

“I don’t really remember how it came up, but it happened as soon as I decided to write a paper. I created a folder in my computer called ‘S*** Happens!’ and this project name made the work funnier for me,” Campos-Arceiz said.

The frogs Campos-Arceiz found live among the leaf litter on the ground. But that litter can be scarce in the dry season (when Campos-Arceiz was visiting), so he suspects the dung may provide an alternative habitat for the frogs.

Campos-Arceiz suspects that Asian elephants may act as ecosystem engineers in their environment in other ways as well.

From msnbc

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

Photos of new frogs discovered in Colombia

Ten undescribed species of amphibians — including nine frog and one salamander — have been discovered in the mountains of Colombia, report scientists from Conservation International (CI).

The amphibians were discovered during a recent Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) expedition in the Tacarcuna area of the Darien, near the border with Panama. Also sighted were 50 other species of amphibians, 20 species of reptiles, and almost 120 species of birds. The survey also documented the presence of large mammals including Baird’s tapir (Tapirus bairdii), listed on the IUCN Red List as Endangered in Colombia; white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari); and four species of monkeys, including Geoffroy’s spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi), Geoffroy’s tamarin (Saguinus geoffroyi), white-throated capuchin (Cebus capucinus) and the mantled howler monkey (Alouatta palliata).

Harlequin frog of the Atelopus genus potentially new to science discovered in a Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) suvey conducted in Colombia during which 10 species of amphibians believed to be new to science were found. Credit: © Conservation International Colombia, photo by: Marco Rada

 

A glass frog of the Nymphargus genus potentially new to science discovered in the mountains of the Darien in Colombia. Darien is a mountainous system isolated from the Andes Mountain range and is a recognized endemism center, valuable for its high biological diversity. Credit: © Conservation International Colombia, photo by: Marco Rada

 

Full story, and more pictures on Mongabay.

12 new species of frogs discovered in India

 dozen previously unknown species of frogs have been discovered in the forests of Western Ghats according to a paper published in latest issue of Zoological Journal of Linnean Society, London.

The 12 species have been identified following a revision of the Philautus genus and are the result of ten years of field study in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka. Goa, Maharashtra, and part of Gujarat, in the Western Ghats. The Western Ghats are considered a global biodiversity hotspot for their species richness and the threats the mountain range faces.

Philautus akroparallagi. Photo copyright S D Biju, (frogindia.org)

 

Full story on Mongabay.

Amphibian Conservation Training Course at Nordens Ark 2009

A research school at Nordens Ark in Sweden is planned for 22-29 March, 2009 aimed at advanced training in topics of amphibian biology and conservation, breeding and rearing in captivity, and linking husbandry to practical conservation in the field.

The training course is centred around the Foundation Nordens Ark at the Åby fiord in mid Bohuslän on the Swedish west coast. The school will combine seminar series of both theoretical and practical character. These will be carried out by teachers, both with a more traditional academic status, and persons with the genuine knowledge of animal husbandry, rearing in captivity, and re-introduction in the field.

The course is being jointly organised by Nordens Ark (lead partner), Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and Chester Zoo.

The course will be in English and will support 20-24 amphibian curators or keepers, veterinarians and educators. We very much hope that the speakers are prepared to stay overnight on the day they give their talks, allowing the course members to discuss their subjects under more relaxed forms in the evening. Free wireless free internet is available in lecture rooms and in the hotel.

Topics covered during the course will include:

• Biology and conservation
• Breeding and rearing in captivity
• Diet and nutritional requirements, production of food items
• Managing animal health in captivity
• Amphibian disease (infectious – non infectious diseases, assessing amphibian health, chytrid fungus,
• Quarantine procedures and disease control (Biosecurity and AArk)
• Linking husbandry to conservation
• Amphibian conservation and the role of zoos
• Marking methods
• Re-introduction in the wild
• Conservation work in the field

For more information or to register for the course, please contact Claes Andrén at claes.andren@nordensark.se phone +46 (0) 523 79782 or fax + 46 (0) 523 5208.

New species of frog found in Karnataka

Kozhikode (PTI): A new species of wrinkled frog found active during night has been recently traced in the hilly ranges of Chikmagalur in Western Ghats, Zoological Survey of India sources here said.

‘Nyctibatrachus dattatreyaensis’ is a 40-mm-sized frog which differs from the other species in having high degree of small corrugations on the body with prominent discontinuous lateral folds, the sources said.

The new found species have golden yellow eyes with black rhomboidal pupil and the upper surface of its body is reddish black to stone black with two yellow lateral bands, they said.

“The dorsal colour of the species camouflages with the ferruginous substratum of its habitat which is essential for its survival from predators,” the sources added.

The finding has been published in the October edition of ‘Zootaxa’ journal of New Zealand.

The discovery assumes significance as it has come in the ‘Year of the Frog’ as declared by the Amphibian Ark – a joint effort of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA).

As per the current studies, the species is limited to the hilly ranges surrounding the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary in India and is not found anywhere else in the world.

The genus ‘Nyctibatrachus’ is endemic to Western Ghats and the species, named after Lord Dattatreya worshipped in Chikmagalur, is one among the 16 nominal species known in the world.

From The Hindu