Daily Reptile News

Wildlife officers can’t get shot of crocodile

Wildlife officers have tried to shoot a crocodile that keeps returning to Broome’s Cable Beach after failing to scare it away or capture it.

The 2.5m croc has forced the closure of the popular tourist beach on and off over the past five days as it kept returning to an area near the surf club.

On Thursday, West Australian Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) officers attempted to shoot the reptile but failed due to deteriorating sea conditions.

DEC officer Sharon Ferguson said attempts to harass the croc away using a DEC vessel had failed and attempts to catch it on Wednesday for relocation were also unsuccessful.

“Because it’s such a high risk to public safety we need to remove the crocodile from the area,” she said.

“It’s not huge but certainly big enough to do some significant damage.”

During any further attempts to shoot the croc, police officers would be on board to assess the risks, Ms Ferguson said.

“We need the conditions to be right so we don’t wound the crocodile.

“We need it to be a clear shot.”

Ms Ferguson said if the croc returned on Friday, DEC officers would again try to remove it.

She said it was not too unusual to have crocodiles pass by Cable Beach but it was very unusual to have one returning day after day.

Film on Python”s laying, hatching eggs to be screened in IFFI

Panaji, Oct 28 (PTI) This movie does not has Mallika Sherawat playing a role of ‘itchadhari nagin’ (a snake woman) in it. But for an average film lover, this flick is nothing less than bollywood hit movie ‘Hiss’. Assam’s reputed wildlife filmmaker, Gautam Saikia, is participating in this year’s edition of International Film Festival of India (IFFI) with a flick that would give hair-raising experience for the audience; a 25-feet-long Burmese rock python and its process of laying and hatching 87 eggs spread over 55 days. Saikia has captured every moment of the reptiles’ reproduction running into hundreds and thousands of tapes and later framed it into 23 minute long short film. Saikia, who in past has made it to Indian Panorama section of IFFI, is now competing in the Short Film Centre’s Environment award with his film ‘Unseen Beauty, Unhidden Truth’. “The film is shot in Manas region of Western Assam, which is veritably heaven of lush green forests that sustains an impressive variety of flora and fauna. Manas has everything. Mammals, birds and reptiles,” Saikia said. The filmmaker had raised a make-shift shed next to the place where the python had laid the eggs. “I shot every moment of the process. And later sat for editing,” the filmmaker said. .

Two-year-old kid riding Snake Piton




RAMMALAH: A two-year-old daughter, the son of a snake collector, was photographed riding a giant Burmese python in Rammalah, Palestine.

Her father, Jamal Amwasi, a Palestinian civil servants aged 35 years. Amwasi have a dozen more snakes, including several large pythons, all of whom live in the barn measuring several meters in his home in the occupied West Bank.

“The snakes have become part of the family. Every morning and evening I check and give them something to eat,” the Telegraph quoted him as saying.

When masik children, Amwasi birds and deer hunting in the hills around Rammalah. Hobby that eventually led him to a snake. In addition to collecting local snakes, he also has to import Burmese python from a dealer in Israel. He knows, in the Hebrew names, all different species of snakes.

About 40 species of snakes live in Israel and the West Bank and about 10 of them venomous, including the Sahara horned viper snake, viper snake Palestine. Amwasi previously had about 20 venomous snakes, but then get rid of the snakes out of fear the animals will bite one of her children or the neighbors. He said he was let go back to the snakes are in remote areas far from the city.

He has taught himself how to treat a variety of bite, and once help doctors manage antivenom (anti-poison) for a child 10 years who was bitten by a snake in a village near Ramallah. “I got a call from a friend who visited the patient at the hospital, and he says there is one critical case, a young doctor said to have been bitten by a snake.”

He then ran to the hospital and asked the boy, he’s where he came from. “I know where it snakes in this area, so I know what kind of venomous snake in the village, and his antivenom,” he said. Within three days, the boy was fully recovered.

Now he regularly gets calls from people who asked him to get rid of a troublesome snake. If a venomous snake he killed him, if not, he would had it.

In her home, her children enjoy the python as a pet. Ibrahim, 13 years, is responsible for feeding the three-meter long snake was when his father left. “I do not fear them,” he said proudly.

Two-year-old Natalie used to be scared, but now she kissed the snakes and ride on their backs when the snakes that glide down the street in front of his house. “I’m thinking of making a saddle,” said Amwasi.

He raised chicken, ducks and rabbits as food supplies for pets it. He last week he fed a lamb to one of the snake. Lamb, he said, almost amounting to Natalie.

Fluffy, World’s Longest Snake, Dies At Columbus Zoo




POWELL, Ohio — The world’s longest snake died unexpectedly on Tuesday night at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.

Fluffy, a gigantic reticulated python who had called the zoo home since March 2007, died of an apparent tumor, zoo officials announced on Wednesday.

Fluffy, 18, was 24 feet long and 300 pounds. The snake was named the worlds longest by the Guinness Book of World Records, 10TV’s Danielle Elias reported.

Fluffy was originally brought to the zoo on loan, but drew such large crowds as part of the zoo’s Asia Quest exhibit, that it became her permanent home.

“She was greatly loved here by the staff, mainly because she was a gentle snake,” said zoo spokeswoman Carrie Pratt.

Preliminary findings of a necropsy performed by The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine revealed the presence of a mass on her ovary.

Reticulated pythons are found in tropical forests in Southeast Asia, the zoo said.

They are the world’s longest snakes, averaging 10 to 20 feet in length.

The reticulated python skin has a geometric pattern that camouflages the snake protecting it from predators and allowing it to ambush prey, the zoo said. Reticulated pythons are widespread but they are killed for their skin and numbers are dwindling.

Study: Lizard favours offspring gender based on climate

Oxford University zoologists have discovered that a single species of Tasmanian lizard has evolved to give precedence to a certain gender of offspring, dependant on the current climate.

The animal is the snow skink, a small lizard that lives throughout Tasmania and gives birth to live young.

Dr Tobias Uller et al, of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology, discovered that at high altitude, the skinks gave birth to an equal ratio of boys and girls. But at lower altitudes, in the lowlands of Tasmania and close to sea level, the skinks have been shown to produce mainly sons during times of cool temperatures and cloudy skies, but favour daughters when its sunny and warm.

It’s thought to be because female skinks rely on a large body size to survive, so by being born in the warmer, early seasons they’ll get a “head start”. Male skinks are less dependant on building up a large body, so they can be born in colder temperatures and develop more slowly.

“‘What we have found is that this single species of lizard has evolved two different ways of determining the sex of its offspring — one based on genetics, the other controlled by temperature,” Uller said. “Our results suggest that temperature-dependent sex determination can evolve in cold-blooded animals, whenever there is an advantage in offspring of a particular sex being born or hatched earlier.”

The results of the research help clarify just how important climate is on certain species, and how elements such as temperature can have a huge impact on the fundamental biology of animals.

Another animal that gets picky about gender is the Gouldian finch. Mismatched birds (determined by the colours of their head feathers) produce less healthy female chicks, so bird in genetically troubled relationships compensate by having more male babies in their brood.

Lizard Entombed With Dragonfly Head in Mouth

Researchers have found what they are calling a “Halloween horror story” involving a headless dragonfly, a dead lizard and a battle frozen in time.

Dinosaurs may have witnessed it all.

According to a report in Paleodiversity, around 100 million years ago a lizard lunged at a dragonfly, bit its head off, turned and ran away. The lizard, however, never lived to savor its lunch because both the dragonfly and the lizard were at that point encased in a tomb of dripping tree resin.

The resin fossilized into amber, preserving the telltale evidence for perpetuity.

The Headless Dragonfly

According to the paper, the headless insect represents a new dragonfly subfamily, called Paleodisparoneurinae, and it is the oldest specimen of this insect ever to have been found in amber.

The findings also demonstrate that, even in this ever-changing world, some things stay somewhat the same. In this case, the predator-prey scenario is like the ongoing roadrunner and Wile E Coyote cartoon chase.

“Dragonflies are still eaten by small lizards every day, it’s a routine predator/prey interaction,” said George Poinar, a professor emeritus at Oregon State University. “This shows once again how behaviors of various life forms are retained over vast amounts of time, and continues to give us insights into the ecology of ancient ecosystems.”

Poinar added that dragonflies are one of the world’s more colorful, interesting and successful insects. This latest discovery is the oldest dragonfly ever found in amber, but other stone fossil specimens of dragonflies date back as much as 300 million years, including some that were huge, with wingspans up to three feet.

“Dragonflies are now, and probably were then, very quick, evasive, and greedy predators,” Poinar said. “They feed on other larvae and insects, mosquitoes, gnats, lots of things. Some are quite beautiful, very popular with insect collectors. And some modern populations like to migrate regionally, going south to mate.”

Dragonflies are also good eats, then and now, for many animals. Poinar thinks young and hatchling dinosaurs probably dined on them.

The quick and merciless battle preserved in the amber took place in the jungles of the Hukawng Valley of Burma, now known as Myanmar. The dragonfly — with one notably missing part — is preserved almost perfectly. Only the foot and tail of a small lizard remains in the stone, presumably as the animal was trying to flee.

“It’s unfortunate we don’t have the entire specimen of the lizard, because it probably had the dragonfly’s head in its mouth,” Poinar said. “Both died when they were trapped in the tree sap in the middle of this duel.”

As a side note, I encourage you to examine amber when you come across it, as you too can find all sorts of Dinosaur Era inclusions. (A lot of fake amber exists, so buyer beware.) But you may even find non-avian dinosaur feathers.

South Jersey woman fights charges for releasing trapped, drowning turtles

FAIRFIELD — A South Jersey woman is heading to municipal court to fight a summons issued when she pulled several turtle traps from a pond next to her home, according to a report on CourierPostOnline.com.

While the traps were apparently put in place to capture snapping turtles, Audra Capps contends they were poorly assembled and instead were trapping and drowning another species of the aquatic reptiles — painted turtles, the report said.

A conservation officer with the New Jersey’s Division of Fish and Wildlife caught Capps and a friend pulling out the traps, the report said. Both were issued four summonses each but Capps hopes to convince the judge she was just acting as a Good Samaritan looking out for helpless wildlife.

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