Smuggled orangutan seized at Bali airport

23 March 2019

A Russian man has been arrested in Bali on suspicion of trying to smuggle a young orangutan out of Indonesia.

The two-year-old male was found drugged inside a rattan basket when Andrei Zhestkov was stopped at security at Denpasar airport on Friday night.

Mr Zhestkov is said to have told officials he was given the primate by a friend who bought it for $3,000 .

Orangutans are a protected species and Mr Zhestkov could face up to five years in prison if convicted.

"The Russian also had injections and drugs in his bag. He said he planned to re-administer the drugs when they transited" in South Korea, Dewa Delanata, from the airport's quarantine office, told the Jakarta Post.

Two live geckos and five lizards were also found in the passenger's luggage.

According to the authorities, Mr Zhestkov, 27, said he was convinced by his friend, also Russian, that it would be okay to take the orangutan back to Russia to keep as a pet.

The animal is being looked after by the Bali Natural Resources Conservation Agency.

Orangutans face threats from poachers and farmers in Indonesia.

The Tapanuli orangutan, found in isolated forests in Sumatra, has been described by conservationists as the most endangered great ape species in the world.

Source

Geckos Can Run on Water - via Herp Digest

Faster than ducks can swim in it.

Atlas Obscura, by Matthew Taub, 12/7/18

GECKOS BATHE WITH TINY DROPS, use their tails as optional legs, and can alter the stickiness of their feet as needed. They come in brilliant colors, and make charismatic mascots. And now we know that they can run on water, Inside Science reports.

Ardian Jusufi, a biophysicist at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, was observing flat-tailed house geckos in a Singapore rainforest when he noticed their ability to evade predators by scampering over puddles. Not through them, he observed, but “on the water’s surface,” as Jusufi and his coauthors write in a Current Biology study published yesterday. It was an impressive sight, but it wasn’t until they conducted lab experiments that the true extent of the lizards’ aquatic dexterity was revealed. 

The researchers found that the geckos could run at the speed of nearly three feet per second. That’s faster than ducks, mink, muskrats, marine iguanas, and juvenile alligators can swim, the researchers write. Predators, in other words, can eat their wakes. 

But just how do the geckos do it? They’re not the only species that can walk on water—the basilisk lizard is famous for it, the insects called water striders, too—but the geckos don’t do it in quite the same way. They’re not heavy enough to create enough force just by slapping the water like the larger lizards, and they’re too heavy to sit on water’s surface tension like a bug. 

Experiments revealed that the geckos combine four distinct techniques. First, they actually do utilize surface tension. When the team added surfactant to the water, the geckos’ velocity was cut in half. Second, the geckos also slap the water with all four legs, which creates air cavities like basilisks do. Third, they benefit from their water-repellent skin. And finally, the geckos undulate their bodies—even their submerged trunks and tails—to propel themselves forward, a little like a butterfly stroke. 

There’s more at stake in these findings than geckos’ ability to outrun predators. Coauthor Robert J. Full, of the University of California, Berkeley, tells Inside Science that the geckos may provide a model for robots that could gracefully “run and climb and race across the water” to conduct rescue missions.

Cells driving gecko's ability to re-grow its tail identified

Discovery of which cells are behind the gecko's ability to re-grow its tail has implications for spinal cord treatment in humans

Date:  November 2, 2017

Source:  University of Guelph

Summary:

A researcher has discovered the spinal cord of the gecko's tail houses a special type of stem cell known as the radial glia. When the tail detaches, these cells jump into action by proliferating and making different proteins in response to the injury. The result is a brand new spinal cord. This finding has implications for developing a way to treat humans with spinal cord injuries.

Read more  

Myanmar caves yield up 19 new gecko species - via Herp Digest

Mongabay, by Shreya Dasgupta, October 11, 2017

            •          Scientists have discovered 19 new species of strikingly patterned geckos within a small area of 90 kilometers by 50 kilometers in Myanmar.

            •          These geckos are most likely restricted to the limestone hills and towers within which they were found.

            •          Conservationists hope that these newly discovered animals can serve as "ambassadors" for the limestone hills, especially since many of these hills are being mined by cement companies.

In a tiny, remote region of Myanmar, scientists have discovered 19 new species of strikingly patterned geckos.

These lizards were found in isolated limestone hills and towers (known as karst) within a small area of 90 kilometers by 50 kilometers (56 miles by 31 miles), and are most likely restricted to these limestone blocks, the researchers say.

“I was quite surprised both by the numbers but even more so by the close proximity of the species to one another,” Lee Grismer of La Sierra University in California, who led the surveys, told Mongabay. “Nothing like this has ever been discovered in this group. The published official count now is 15 and I will submit a paper soon describing another four.”

The 15 officially described species include three new dwarf geckos from the genus Hemiphyllodactylus, reported in the Journal of Natural History. The list also includes 12 new species of bent-toed geckos from the genus Cyrtodactylus, described in a study that will soon be published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

A new species of Cyrtodactylus, a bent-toed gecko discovered in Myanmar. Photo by L. Lee Grismer.

Finding these geckos wasn’t easy.

Guided by people from local villages, forest officials and Buddhist monks, Grismer and his team spent several nights searching for geckos in thick, remote karst forests and dark limestone caves.

Not all the newly described geckos were unknown. The monks who occupied monasteries associated with some of the caves might have seen some of the lizards now and then, Grismer said. “But some of the other caves were unoccupied and we had to hike quite a distance to get to them,” he added.

Sometimes their hikes took them through treacherous regions held by armed insurgents.

The research team walking toward Chaunghanakwa, a limestone karst. Photo by L. Lee Grismer.

The team has named one of the newly discovered dwarf geckos Hemiphyllodactylus tonywhitteni after Tony Whitten of Fauna & Flora International, a UK-based conservation nonprofit that supported Grismer’s surveys. H. tonywhitteni is known only from Phapant Cave, a complex of three caves along a narrow river in Shan State.

Whitten “championed a broad range of conservation efforts in Indonesia and the Asia Pacific for well over a quarter of a century,” the authors write in the Journal of Natural History paper. “His tireless efforts to conserve and help manage karst ecosystems have been a great inspiration to the senior author [Lee Grismer].”

“It is always terribly flattering to learn that there is a species with your name attached,” Whitten told Mongabay. “I would add my hope that this amazing discovery, and more to come, will increase people’s understanding of, and concern for, karst systems and their biodiversity which until recently had little or no profile.”

Hemiphyllodactylus montawaensis, a new species of a dwarf gecko, discovered in Myanmar. Photo by L. Lee Grismer.

The discovery of the new geckos also shows that these limestone blocks harbor an “unprecedented degree of biodiversity” of not just invertebrates like snails or insects, but of backboned animals as well, according to Grismer. The isolated limestone hills act as islands within a sea of rice paddies, he said, making them the only places left for forest-adapted species to survive.

Whitten hopes that these newly discovered animals can serve as “ambassadors” for the limestone hills, especially since many of these hills are being mined. In fact, some of the limestone blocks within the team’s research were being mined by cement companies and smaller village operations at the time of the surveys.

“When assessments are made of these areas for development projects it’s simply not enough to look at mammals and birds which can walk, jump or fly away from danger, and may not be that dependent on the hills anyway,” Whitten said. “One rather has to give attention to the geckos and cave fauna whose ranges are limited to these hills and caves. To not do so can lead to extinctions.”

Grismer’s team will soon start surveying Kayah State in eastern Myanmar, an area bordering Thailand that has never been explored for its reptiles,  according to a press release by La Sierra University.

Another new species of Cyrtodactylus discovered in Myanmar. Photo by L. Lee Grismer.

Citation:  Grismer LL et al (2017) Phylogenetic taxonomy of Hemiphyllodactylus Bleeker, 1860 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) with descriptions of three new species from Myanmar. Journal of Natural History. DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2017.1367045

            •          Grismer LL et al (2017). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. DOI: in press

An evolving sticky situation- While many animals try to avoid sticky situations, lizards evolved to seek them out. An evolutionary biologist shows how different groups of lizards -- geckos and anoles -- took two completely different evolutionary paths to developing the beneficial trait of sticky toe pads. – via Herp Digest

Source: Michigan State University, 10/12/17

Travis Hagey, Michigan State University evolutionary biologist, shows how different groups of lizards - geckos and anoles - took two completely different evolutionary paths to developing the beneficial trait of sticky toe pads.

Credit: Luke Mahler

While many animals try to avoid sticky situations, lizards evolved to seek them out.

Travis Hagey, Michigan State University evolutionary biologist, shows how different groups of lizards -- geckos and anoles -- took two completely different evolutionary paths to developing the beneficial trait of sticky toe pads.

In a paper published in the journal Evolution, Hagey showed that anoles seemed to commit to a single type of toe pad, one that generates lots of friction. As a group, they were able to develop sticky toe pads early. Geckos, meanwhile, opted for an evolutionary "drunken stumble," and seemingly didn't commit to a single approach, instead evolving toe pads that generate plenty of friction in some species and others that excel at sticking directly to a surface.

The stumbling theory, formally known as the Brownian motion model, best explains gecko evolution. Different groups of geckos sought various approaches and jumped at adaptive solutions. They achieved the beneficial traits by pursuing different ways, moving forward some eras and backward during others, Hagey said.

Did anoles have but one option? Is there merely one evolutionary path to become the best tree-climbing lizard? Were geckos more laissez faire with evolution?

"We're trying to explain how evolution works and how predictable it is," said Hagey, who's part of MSU's BEACON Center for Evolution in Action. "Good science answers one question while producing more questions. Anoles and geckos are two different large groups of lizards. They live on different continents, and evolutionarily, they're separated by 250 million years of time. So even though they have some of the same traits, you can't assume that they were developed the same way.”

Evolution is a tinkerer, he added. Hagey likens it to a person who lives on a dirt road and decides to build a bicycle.

"But they can use only the parts they can get their hands on and make modifications and repairs until they get a bike they like," Hagey said. "Two different people might build two different bikes that both work well on dirt roads, but the process and steps they went though will probably be different. The same is true for geckos and anoles. They both evolved sticky toes but got there different ways.”

Hagey's research team included scientists from the University of Idaho, Cambridge, the University of London, and Lewis and Clark College.

In a related paper in PLOS ONE, Hagey chose to focus on limb length. Geckos and anoles live on trees and climb vertical surfaces. They have to deal with the same mechanical aspects, but did they take different paths to gain those advantages? Did they evolve traits that emphasized sprint speed over balance or vice versa?

"Studying sticky toe pads and limb length help scientists understand how and why animals are shaped the way they're shaped and the mechanics of their movement," Hagey said. "You'd think there would be only one good way to climb a tree or one good way to swim, but there are many."

For both studies, Hagey traveled to exotic locales in the Dominican Republic, Australia and Thailand. Visiting a breeder in Oklahoma allowed him to observe 15 lizard species from five continents. Overall, his research reviewed 30 species of geckos and 20 species of anoles.

The study showed that geckos generally have shorter legs than anoles. The scientists are unsure why this is the case, but once they factored in the length difference they made an interesting observation.

Lizards living on bushes, regardless of geckos or anoles, have long tails, striped backs and long legs. Those living on small branches in the canopy of a forest tend to be brown, with short tails, long snouts and short legs. These traits were consistent despite being separated by oceans or hemispheres.

"Even though we were able to find some cool similarities, we really don't know why, yet," Hagey said. "Maybe they're all adapting to be the best bush lizards or the best tree-climbing lizards and all heading toward the same evolutionary solutions."

Story Source:

Materials provided by Michigan State University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

            1          Travis J. Hagey, Josef C. Uyeda, Kristen E. Crandell, Jorn A. Cheney, Kellar Autumn, Luke J. Harmon. Tempo and mode of performance evolution across multiple independent origins of adhesive toe pads in lizards. Evolution, 2017; 71 (10): 2344 DOI: 10.1111/evo.13318

Invading giant geckos get stuck on a single building

27 October 2016, updated 27 October 2016

By Emily Benson

An unlikely foe has kept a marauding band of non-native geckos from taking over a tiny Mediterranean island: dust on their feet.

The stowaways to an island near Corsica are trapped on a single concrete building and are unable to leave, as dust elsewhere on the island makes them slip or stop in their tracks as they try to shake off the grime.

Most geckos can scamper up rocks and stroll across ceilings thanks to adhesive pads on their toes. But whereas some sport sticky rows that cover the bottom of each digit, others have just two adhesive spots at the tip of each toe, says Anthony Russell at the University of Calgary in Canada.

 “We really didn’t know before why you’ve got these two fundamentally different designs,” Russell says. But now, a study by Russell and Michel-Jean Delaugerre at the Conservatoire du Littoral in Bastia, France, hints at an answer.

The pair examined two gecko species on Giraglia, a 10-hectare island off the northern coast of Corsica.

Euleptes europaea has toe-tip pads and is native to the island, roaming freely across the dusty landscape. Conversely, Tarentola mauritanica is a larger gecko with full-toe pads, and is native to other parts of the Mediterranean. The authors found that the invader was confined to a single concrete structure.

Continued 

The scaled king and his knight: Two new giant bent-toed gecko species from New Guinea

Date:February 11, 2016

Source:Pensoft Publishers

The extremely complex geological history of New Guinea has allowed many of its animals and plants the chance to grow different enough to make a name for themselves. In the case of two newly described and unusually large gecko species -- only a noble name would do. The two new species whose names respectively mean 'knight' and 'king' were discovered by a team led by Dr. Paul Oliver, The Australian National University and University of Melbourne, are described in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Both new species belong to the world's most diverse gecko genus Cyrtodactylus which comprises more than 200 species known to date. These reptiles are commonly called bent-toed or bow-fingered geckos due to their distinctive slender curved toes. They occur through Asia and Australia.

These 200 species vary greatly in size, build and colouration. However, one of the newly described species, called C. rex, meaning "king" in Latin, is the largest species in the genus, and among the biggest of all geckos in the world.

Read on ...

Why some geckos lose their ability to stick to surfaces

Date:

January 7, 2015

Source:

University of California - Riverside

Summary:

Biologists have found that evolution can downgrade or entirely remove adaptations a species has previously acquired, giving the species new survival advantages. The researchers focused their attention on geckos, specifically the adhesive system that allows geckos to cling to surfaces. They found that gecko species in which the adhesive system was either lost or simplified saw elevated rates of evolution related to morphology and locomotion.

Continued ...

For Geckos – Even Dead Ones – Being Sticky Doesn’t Require Any Effort

December 6, 2014

April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Mankind has been fascinated with geckos for centuries. We have studied everything from how they reproduce in space to how they are able to climb any surface. We have even tried to replicate their ability to climb with a DARPA program called Z-Man. Although we have been successful in copying their ability, we still don’t understand how the gecko achieves the adhesive strength with which they climb and cling to nearly any surface.

A new study from the University of California, Riverside (UCR), published online in Biology Letters, investigates the question: Is the strength of this adhesion determined by the gecko or is it somehow intrinsic to the adhesive system? In other words, is this adhesion an “active” action initiated by the animal, or a “passive” action resulting from the way the toe pads work?

The researchers, led by associate professor of biology Timothy E. Higham, conducted laboratory experiments on live and dead geckos to determine the answer to whether this ability is active or passive. They were surprised to find that dead geckos have the exact same strength of adhesion as live geckos.

“With regards to geckos, being sticky doesn’t require effort,” said Higham, who conducted the research alongside William J. Stewart, a postdoctoral researcher in Higham’s lab. “We found that dead geckos maintain the ability to adhere with the same force as living animals, eliminating the idea that strong adhesion requires active control. Death affects neither the motion nor the posture of clinging gecko feet. We found no difference in the adhesive force or the motion of clinging digits between our before- and after-death experiments.”

Scientific literature has, in the past, suggested that gecko adhesion at the organismal, or whole-animal, level would require active initiation by the animal. For example, does the gecko need to initiate a muscle activity to push the foot and toes onto the surface to enhance their adhesion? Despite years of speculation, this has never been tested.

Read more at

Geckos inspire 'Spider-Man' gloves

9 November 2014 Last updated at 16:39

The way geckos climb has inspired a device that allowed a 70kg man to scale a glass wall like Spider-Man.

Much research has gone into trying to unlock the clever way that little geckos climb.

But trying to use gecko adhesion to work at larger scales - such as on a human hand - without any loss of performance has proven difficult.

The hand-sized silicone pads created by a team at Stanford University keep their adhesive strength at all sizes.

They employ the same attractive and repulsive forces between molecules - known as van der Waals forces - that geckos use.

Although the forces are very weak, the effect is multiplied across the many tiny hairs that cover the toes of a gecko, allowing them to stick firmly to surfaces.

Along the same lines, the Stanford team created tiny tiles called microwedges to harness van der Waals forces. They were able to produce a dry adhesive even more efficient than that of the gecko.

In tests, the 70kg (11 stone) climber successfully scaled a 3.6m-high vertical glass wall using 140 sq cm silicone pads in each hand.

The climber tested the adhesive hundreds of times on the wall without failure.

Continued ...

Gecko Locomotion: What Goes Up Must Come Down

October 19, 2014

Provided by Iqbal Pittalwala, University of California – Riverside

Biologists at UC Riverside show that geckos alter foot orientation during downhill locomotion

Found in warm regions of the world, geckos are extremely capable of climbing up steep, smooth surfaces. To do so, they employ an adhesive system — a key evolutionary innovation that facilitates climbing vertically, and even in inverted positions. On the underside of their toes are “setae,” millions of very fine hair-like structures, which provide increased surface area and close contact between the foot and the surface on which it rests.

This adhesive system works best when loading — the application of the gecko’s weight — occurs along the long-axis of the toe, and when this loading is along the natural curvature of the setae. But can geckos employ this adhesive system when moving downhill? If the setae are positioned so that loading might be against their natural curvature, would the gecko not slip as it moved downhill?

Biologists at the University of California, Riverside have now conducted experiments on geckos in the lab to find the answer. They found that when moving on steep downhill surfaces geckos reverse the position of their hind feet to potentially use the adhesive system as a brake and/or stabilizer, resulting in the digits of the hind feet facing backwards and the setae in the hind feet aligned along the natural curvature of the setae to counteract gravity. Specifically, on a 45 degree downhill slope, the geckos were found to rotate their hind limbs up to 70 degrees more posteriorly (toward the tail).

“This multi-functionality of the gecko adhesive system permits effective locomotion on both uphill and downhill slopes,” said Timothy Higham, an assistant professor of biology, in whose lab the research was done. “Without this ability, geckos would be effective at going up, but they would not be able to descend as easily. Indeed, they could plummet downhill.”

Read more at 

Geckos Lose Sticking Power With Wet Feet

Geckos are famously adept at sticking to vertical surfaces. Their toes are packed with hundreds of microscopic hairs that get close enough to the nooks and crannies of a wall to bring the forces of attraction between atoms into play. With these specialized feet, a gecko's traction is so strong it can hold more than 100 times its weight and even scurry upside-down across a ceiling.

But despite their sticking superpowers, researchers observed that geckos slide down a vertical piece of wet glass after just a few steps. To test the limits of geckos' ability to cling, biology doctoral student Alyssa Stark and her team at the University of Akron in Ohio watched how the lizards' feet reacted under various conditions of moisture.

"We know they are in tropical environments that probably have a lot of rain, and it's not like the geckos fall out of the trees when it's wet," Stark said in a statement from the Journal of Experimental Biology, which published the study.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/22224-geckos-lose-sticking-power-with-wet-feet.html