Free database shows where to find some of the world's most toxic snakes

Date:March 16, 2016

Source:Case Western Reserve University

Snakes known to produce some of the most toxic venoms swim the shallows of the western Pacific and eastern Indian oceans and sun themselves on island coasts from southwestern Japan to Indonesia, the Andaman Islands to Fiji.

But to find banded sea kraits, ask a guy in Cleveland. Or at least look up his work.

Iulian Gherghel, who is earning a PhD in biology at Case Western Reserve University, teamed with researchers in Oklahoma and Europe to create a database of the snakes' distribution. They published a description of their work and analyses in the current issue of the journal ZooKeys.

The database is designed to help conservation efforts and guide medical researchers who want to study the venom of sea kraits, environmental researchers who want to study their ecology and tourists who want to see the animals, the authors said.

"These snakes harbor potential for research in biomedicine," Gherghel said. "The venom has proteins that may be useful in the future development of drugs for treating cancer, neurological disorders and heart disease."

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Crocodile attack database ‘will aid conservation efforts and save lives’

Australian-founded database CrocBITE, with records of 2,700 worldwide crocodile attacks, an attempt to understand ‘human-crocodile conflict’

Oliver Milman

Tuesday 25 November 2014 01.59 GMT

An Australian-founded database that lists worldwide crocodile attacks will be used to help conservation efforts for the species and save people’s lives after securing funding.

The database, called CrocBITE, was started in 2013 by Dr Adam Britton, a researcher at Charles Darwin University, and his student Brandon Sideleau.

CrocBITE has now received $30,000 in funding through an Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration award so that the database can be expanded with the help of Imperial College London.

Britton told Guardian Australia that when CrocBITE launched “on a shoestring budget” last year, it had 1,800 registered incidents logged, including fatal and non-fatal crocodile attacks. There are now around 2,700 crocodile attack records, taken from around the world.

“We realised there was no way to gather information on crocodile attacks in one place, even though these attacks are becoming more of a problem,” Britton said. “Human-crocodile conflict is a serious conservation problem and we need basic information on when and why people are being attacked.”

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Uganda sets up an online database to monitor arrests and identification of repeat poachers

The new database will help Ugandan authorities to give appropriate sentences to repeat offenders

February 2014: The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) have announced a collaboration to produce an online tool that will allow law enforcement officials to access a database that tracks offenders of wildlife crime in real-time and across the country. The announcement was made as conservationists gathered from around the world for the United for Wildlife symposium last week in London.

The database, which can be updated online at all Uganda parks and headquarters, will enable better monitoring of arrests and identification of repeat offenders and their associates. It will allow park managers to better track prosecutions while enabling the export of data for further analyses.

In addition, the database allows UWA staff to assess which wildlife crimes are on the increase by providing summary statistics by park and also to profile those involved in wildlife crime in the country. The results will be used to identify where and when people are undertaking illegal activities and who is involved.

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Researchers creating database of bones from every known arctic bird, mammal, fish

FAIRBANKS — Fitting that it should end in Fairbanks, since that’s where it all began for Herb Maschner.

For the past five years, he and a team of researchers have been on a mission to create an online database of bones from every known arctic bird, mammal and fish.

Maschner grew up in Fairbanks. He was a member of West Valley High School’s first graduating class in 1977. He returned later to earn his master’s degree from University of Alaska Fairbanks, and he is returning once more to the UA Museum of the North to gather the last bit of information for the database.

Known as the Virtual Zooarchaeology of the Arctic Project, or VZAP, the database pulls together data from universities and museums around the world. The Burke Museum, Smithsonian Institution and Canadian Museum of Civilization have partnered with Maschner to offer their considerable collections.

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Scientific Who's Who of Bolivian Mammals

July 23, 2013 — The Wildlife Conservation Society announced today the publication of a massive database of mammals occurring in Bolivia, shedding light on the poorly known yet vast wildlife diversity of this South American country.

The database details 31,380 distributional records for 116 species of medium and large-sized mammals ranging from the curious pacarana -- a 30-plus pound nocturnal rodent also known as Count Branickii's terrible mouse -- to better known species such as the jaguar and lowland tapir. Other species include bush dog, black spider monkey, vicuna, giant anteater, water opossum, and the mysterious Chacoan fairy armadillo. The number of records for the featured species range from just one for the newly registered red-nosed bearded saki monkey to 2,370 for the white-lipped peccary. The list does not include bats, rats, mice and smaller opossums.

The database was gathered over the past five years through existing published records, as well as trawling through "grey literature" or unpublished reports along with vast institutional databases from WCS and a number of Bolivian institutions including Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado, Armonia, BIOTA, FaunAgua, Alianza Gato Andino, Amazon Conservation Association, Museo de Historia Natural Alcide d'Orbigny and Centro de Biodiversidad y Genetica.

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One million UK dragonfly records!

The British Dragonfly Society (BDS) started work on the new Atlas in 2008 when the database held 530,000 records.

Dragonfly atlas reaches 1,000,000 records

March 2013. The British Dragonfly Society (BDS) now has more than one million records of dragonflies in the UK! This stunning and remarkable achievement has been reached after a co-ordinated recording effort fuelled by the society's atlas project. The project started in 2008 with the aim of mapping the complete distribution of dragonflies in Britain.

1 millionth record

During the five year survey period the total number of observations of dragonflies has almost doubled and the target of one million records has been achieved. This milestone was marked this week by a special award to Ingrid Twissell. Her record of a Ruddy Darter from Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire on 9th August 2012 was the one millionth entry to the BDS database. She was presented with a signed Richard Lewington print of a Ruddy Darter at the British Dragonfly Society's annual Recorders' Conference. This milestone in recording also coincides with the 30th anniversary of the BDS.

Scotland and Wales

Even more impressive than reaching the target of one million records has been the extent of coverage for the new atlas, particularly in Scotland and Wales. Here potential dragonfly habitat in virtually all under-recorded areas has been surveyed for records. This has only been possible through the dedicated efforts of a small team of volunteers coordinated by the British Dragonfly Society's Dragonfly Recorder Network. Coverage has also been aided by recorders arranging dragonfly recording holidays to more remote parts of the British Isles. As a result, the atlas to be published later this year will provide a comprehensive picture of the current status of these fascinating insects and allow future changes to be monitored.

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