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

——————————————————————————————————————————–
The fair/expo:

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

———————————————————————————————————————————-

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.

————————————————————————————————————————-

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 = 180×60cm)

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

Morse Toad: When amphibians tap their toes

Toe wiggling creates motions, vibrations that get potential prey moving.

Fowler's toads vibrate their hind toes when food shows up. Frogs and toads in at least seven families waggle their toes, though researchers are still figuring out what's going on. J. SloggettWhen some toad toes tap, maybe it’s the beat, not the motion, that matters.The resulting vibrations could agitate insects and other little morsels, setting them wriggling and scuttling in a flurry of activity that triggers a toad’s known tendency to strike at moving prey, says entomologist John Sloggett of Groningen, the Netherlands.Details of how a toad’s brain processes information about when and where to strike will require deep amphibian neuroscience. But Sloggett and Groningen ecologist Ilja Zeilstra propose that vibration deserves attention in the study of what’s up with all the toe wiggling among frogs and toads.An adult Cane toad wiggles it´s hind toes when little toads show up, am intriguing motion that draws bite-sized juveniles close enough to be a cannibal´s lunch. Video shown in real time, then slowed down.

That study of toe motion surged in 2008, with two papers: a study in January’s Animal Behaviour on cane toads’ habit of “pedal luring,” and a paper by Sloggett and Zeilstra in the online version of the November Animal Behaviour.

Cane toads flutter their toes when small prey appear, and the intriguing pedal lure draws little cane toads closer to bigger cannibalistic ones, reported Mattias Hagman, now at Stockholm University in Sweden, and Rick Shine of the University of Sydney in Australia, in January.

Hagman and Shine studied a colony of captive cane toads for research on how to minimize damage to Australia’s native landscape as these big, poisonous toads invade. Hagman noticed that the arrival of crickets or a nearby aquarium full of bite-sized juveniles set the long middle toes of the adults’ hind feet waving.

A Mozambique rain frog waggles its feet when offered a mealworm, and the sound recording (from both toes) indicates that the motion taps out strong vibrations, which could play a role in nabbing prey.Sloggett & Zeilstra. 2008 Animal Behaviour

To test the effects of toe waving, Hagman and Shine built a mechanical toe that could wiggle at various rates and affixed it to a taxidermy mount of a deceased toad. Waving the toe didn’t much interest the crickets. But the motion did entice clusters of the juvenile toads to move closer to the stuffed mount, Hagman and Shine reported.

Older cane toads near water could easily encounter youngsters clustering there during the dry season, Shine says. Dissecting more than two dozen adults from the wild, Hagman and Shine found that 64 percent of the adults’ meals had been even smaller toads of their own species.

“By understanding these interactions, we might be able to work out ways to turn cannibalism to our advantage,” Shine says.

Waving toes to create an alluring motion makes sense with visually responsive prey, says Sloggett. But for frogs and toads eating mainly invertebrates, which don’t respond much to gestures, maybe it’s the vibrations and subsequent frenzy of motion that matter, he and ecologist Zeilstra suggest in their new paper.

The two researchers keep frogs and toads as a matter of personal interest, and Sloggett even brought North American amphibians with him to Europe after he recently finished a project at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Observation of some of those companions brings the total number documented to at least 13 species across seven frog and toad families, the team reports.

Getting information about an animal’s diet in the wild isn’t perfect, but several species are known to eat a lot of invertebrates. One such toe-wiggler, the Mozambique rain frog, Breviceps mossambicus, probably doesn’t prey on vertebrates because it has such a small mouth. This frog flexes its long middle toe when it catches sight of food, and by feeding a rain frog on a sheet of plastic, the researchers recorded strong vibrations from the toe tapping.

Toe flexing for useful vibrations “sounds plausible to me,” Shine says. “But the data are yet to be gathered.” And vibrations and motion can work together, Hagman says.

From Science News

Amphibians’ Ability To Predict Changes In Biodiversity Confirmed By New Study

Biologists have long suspected that amphibians, whose moist permeable skins make them susceptible to slight changes in the environment, might be good bellwethers for impending alterations in biodiversity during rapid climate change.

Now two University of California biologists have verified the predictive power of this sensitive group of animals in a global study of species turnover among amphibians and birds. The study appears this week in the advance online version of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Our study supports the role of amphibians as ‘canaries in the coal mine’,” said Lauren Buckley, a postdoctoral fellow at UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and the first author of the study. “Amphibians are likely to be the first to respond to environmental changes and their responses can forecast how other species will respond.”

“Amphibians are much more tuned in to the changes in their specific environments,” said Walter Jetz, an associate professor of biology at UC San Diego and the other author of the study. “They are much more sensitive to differences in environmental conditions as you move geographically from one location to another.”

The two scientists used maps of the environment and amphibian and bird distributions to answer the question of how the environment—as well as the distribution of birds and amphibians—changes as one moves from one place to another around the globe.

The researchers found that if the environment changes rapidly as one travels from one location to another, the amphibian and bird communities also change rapidly.  However, the species of amphibians would change more quickly than species of birds.  This confirms that amphibians are particularly sensitive to changes in the environment, the researchers conclude, and that this sensitivity is particularly acute given their narrow distributions.

Whether one is traveling through a tropical or temperature region also influences how quickly the types of animals change.  Given a mountain of a certain size, the researchers found, the amphibian and bird communities change more quickly if one is climbing a mountain in the tropics than in a temperate region.

“There are more species in the tropics and the species are generally more specially adapted to particular environmental conditions,” said Jetz. “This suggests that tropical species may be more severely impacted by a given temperature increase as a result of climate change.”

For the study, he and Buckley produced a series of global maps of environmental turnover and the associated changes in amphibian and bird communities that reveal that the identities of birds and amphibians change particularly quickly in mountainous regions such as the Andes and Himalayas.

“Understanding how environmental changes over space influence biodiversity patterns provides important background for forecasting how biodiversity will respond to environmental changes over time such as ongoing temperature increases,” said Buckley.

The study was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, UC Santa Barbara and the State of California.
Adapted from materials provided by University of California – San Diego.

From Herpdigest.org

Popular agrochemical linked to frog disease

Atrazine, one of the world’s most widely-used herbicides, makes frogs more susceptible to disease by compromising their immune system, US scientists suggest. The study provides further evidence linking the herbicide to a global decline in amphibian populations over the last three decades.

‘Amphibians are perhaps the most threatened vertebrates on the globe,’ says Jason Rohr, who led the work at the University of South Florida. Since the 1980s, he explains, amphibian populations have been declining at a startling rate. 

Local chemical pollution has been blamed along with global climate change. But links between pollution and amphibian diseases are not clear, says Rohr.

Rohr and colleagues studied parasitic infection of the leopard frog (Rana pipiens) – a declining species – in wetlands across Minnesota. Of 240 possible factors, the researchers found that atrazine and phosphate, a common component of fertiliser, were the best predictors of the abundance of parasitic flatworm infection in the frogs – which can lead to malformed limbs, kidney damage, and death.

The leopard frog, a species in decline

Back in the laboratory, the team found that frogs of various species exposed to atrazine were more likely to have a suppressed immune system, judging by measurements of immune cells. Atrazine also appeared to increase concentrations of the snails that harbour flatworm parasites. 

Banning chances

Atrazine has already been suspected of causing a variety of ill-effects in frogs, such as growth defects and reduced sex hormone production. The chemical was banned on fears of groundwater contamination by the European Union in 2004. But it is still commonly used in the US; in 2006, the country’s Environmental Protection Agency concluded there was not enough evidence to suggest the chemical was harmful to humans.

‘I doubt that further documentation of atrazine’s harmful effects on frogs will prompt a ban in the US anytime soon,’ says Pieter Johnson, an expert on amphibians at the University of Colorado at Boulder, US.  

‘In some respects amphibian development mirrors human development very closely and could therefore be used as a bioindicator. But in other regards, amphibians and humans are very different both ecologically and physiologically,’ Johnson adds. ‘Work such as this, in combination with more findings that atrazine could pose a threat to humans may push towards a ban in the US.’ 

A falling population of amphibians is itself a cause for concern, let alone any effect on humans, notes Rohr. Though bullfrogs and cane toads have been castigated for being invasive predators, most native amphibians are important for controlling insect pests that attack crops, and, as prey for birds and mammals, provide a link between freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. 

Lewis Brindley

From RSC Cemistry World