World’s largest rattlesnakes are dying off, but Columbia’s zoo is trying to save them – via Herp Digest

By Noah Feit, 12/30/19, The State, South Carolina

Go to https://bit.ly/2SIWKMG, home page for various videos and photos.

Such as a video of a rattlesnake swimming in the Florida Keys.

Ted Wilson, a captain with the Islamorada Fishing Guide, came across a five-foot Eastern diamondback rattlesnake swimming in the waters near the Florida Keys. The Eastern diamondback is the heaviest though not the longest venomous snake in the Ame by McClatchy

Ted Wilson, a captain with the Islamorada Fishing Guide, came across a five-foot Eastern diamondback rattlesnake swimming in the waters near the Florida Keys. The Eastern diamondback is the heaviest though not the longest venomous snake in the Ame by McClatchy

The world’s largest rattlesnakes can be found in South Carolina, but the eastern diamondback’s population is declining

While this might seem like good news to people afraid of snakes, officials at Riverbanks Zoo disagree.

In fact the Columbia zoo is teaming up with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to help stave off the trend and better support remaining eastern diamondback rattlesnakes.

The zoo said it is collaborating with DNR to conduct research on diamondback rattlesnake populations in South Carolina.

Once fairly common, populations of eastern diamondback rattlesnakes have declined dramatically. 

Riverbanks is helping the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources conduct research on diamondback populations in this state. The goal is to attempt to learn enough about the biology and natural history of these snakes to allow us to manage the remaining populations, and prevent us from losing a part of our natural heritage, and a potentially important component of the long-leaf pine ecosystem.

The goal of the study is to learn about the biology and natural history of the snakes, according to the zoo. That would allow researchers to better manage the remaining populations, and prevent eastern diamondbacks from dwindling to the point of extinction, zoo officials said.

While the population is dwindling, the rattlesnakes are in the category of “Least Concern,” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List for threatened species.

Still, the zoo contends the declining population is a threat to “our natural heritage, and a potentially important component of the long-leaf pine ecosystem.”

The snakes are valuable to humans because they are natural exterminators that preys on household pests, the Florida Museum reported. Their prey includes rats, mice, rabbits, squirrels and birds, according to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute.

The snakes are threatened by indiscriminate killing in rattlesnake roundups, widespread loss of habitat from development, and hunting,” according to National Geographic. Agriculture and changes in forestry practices have also been a factor in the population decline, according to the zoo.

The eastern diamondback is found in the Southeast, from North Carolina to south Florida, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In South Carolina, the rattlesnakes are most commonly located from the eastern Midlands to the coast, including the Lowcountry and Grand Strand regions, the organization said.

The snake’s average length is between 3 to 6 feet, but some grow as large as 8 feet, according to the Smithsonian.

The rattlesnake can strike as far as two-thirds of its body length, and it “tends to release a lot of venom with each bite, making it a very deadly snake,” the Smithsonian said.

The bites are “extremely painful and can be fatal to humans,” according to National Geographic.

According to the University of Florida’s Department of Wildlife Ecology & Conservation, the odds of dying from a snake bite in the U.S. are 1-in-50 million, which is about five or six deaths a year. More people die on an average annual basis from spider bites; dog attacks; hornet, wasp or bee stings; and lightning strikes than snake bites, the university said.

In spite of those statistics, at least two Southerners died after snake bites in May this year.

Oliver “Chum” Baker was an Alabama man who died days after he was bitten by a snake over Memorial Day weekend, The State reported. The 52-year-old was unconscious minutes after he was bitten by a copperhead, according to The State.

Georgia resident Priscilla Meridith died in June, weeks after a Timber rattlesnake bit the 62-year-old as she attempted to sit down in a garden, The State reported.

In 2016, Columbia-area conservationist Wayne M. Grooms died after suffering a rattlesnake bite at a Clarendon County wildlife preserve, according to The State. Grooms died within 15 minutes of the snake bite at Santee National Wildlife Refuge.

While there is mixed reaction to the snakes, feedback on Riverbanks’ posts have been supportive of the effort.

“Keep up the great work, Riverbanks! Despite not being a fan of snakes, I completely understand their importance to the environment and appreciate what you are doing to help them,” one comment said.

Another person said “Thanks, Riverbanks, for all you do to keep these handsome guys in our lives!”

Eastern diamondbacks are on display at the zoo’s Aquarium Reptile Complex. Other snakes housed there include king cobras and green mambas.

Video- Venomous or harmless? How to tell the difference between Carolina snakes

The snakes are coming out for the spring season in the Carolinas. Watch how to tell the difference between a deadly cottonmouth snake and a nonvenomous rat snake in this video.

Scientists unexpectedly witness wolf puppies play fetch

Date: January 16, 2020

Source: Cell Press 

When it comes to playing a game of fetch, many dogs are naturals. But now, researchers report that the remarkable ability to interpret human social communicative cues that enables a dog to go for a ball and then bring it back also exists in wolves. The study appears January 16 in the journal iScience.

The findings were made serendipitously when researchers tested 13 wolf puppies from three different litters in a behavioral test battery designed to assess various behaviors in young dog puppies. During this series of tests, three 8-week-old wolf puppies spontaneously showed interest in a ball and returned it to a perfect stranger upon encouragement. The discovery comes as a surprise because it had been hypothesized that the cognitive abilities necessary to understand cues given by a human, such as those required for a game of fetch, arose in dogs only after humans domesticated them at least 15,000 years ago.

"When I saw the first wolf puppy retrieving the ball I literally got goose bumps," says Christina Hansen Wheat of Stockholm University, Sweden. "It was so unexpected, and I immediately knew that this meant that if variation in human-directed play behavior exists in wolves, this behavior could have been a potential target for early selective pressures exerted during dog domestication."

Read on

Polar bears in Baffin Bay skinnier, having fewer cubs due to less sea ice

Date: February 12, 2020

Source: University of Washington

Polar bears are spending more time on land than they did in the 1990s due to reduced sea ice, new University of Washington-led research shows. Bears in Baffin Bay are getting thinner and adult females are having fewer cubs than when sea ice was more available.

The new study, recently published in Ecological Applications, includes satellite tracking and visual monitoring of polar bears in the 1990s compared with more recent years.

"Climate-induced changes in the Arctic are clearly affecting polar bears," said lead author Kristin Laidre, a UW associate professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. "They are an icon of climate change, but they're also an early indicator of climate change because they are so dependent on sea ice."

The international research team focused on a subpopulation of polar bears around Baffin Bay, the large expanse of ocean between northeastern Canada and Greenland. The team tracked adult female polar bears' movements and assessed litter sizes and the general health of this subpopulation between the 1990s and the period from 2009 to 2015.

Polar bears' movements generally follow the annual growth and retreat of sea ice. In early fall, when sea ice is at its minimum, these bears end up on Baffin Island, on the west side of the bay. They wait on land until winter when they can venture out again onto the sea ice.

Continued

The Orange Cave Crocodiles Of Gabon Are Evolving Into A Completely New Species – via Herp Digest

December 31, 2019 by Nancy Youm, Gentside

Crocodiles are evolving into a new species right in front of our eyes. These huge orange beasts that live in the caves of Gabon have developed DNA that is different from that of their surface-dwelling peers.

The Abanda cave is not a place you want to live unless you enjoy total obscurity, high temperatures, foul-smelling vapours and soil that is covered with a thick layer of guano (bat faeces). An environment that speleologists had to explore to uncover a treasure: a new species of crocodiles, hard proof of nature's adaptability.

An inhospitable environment

"It looks like liquid mud," scientist Olivier Testa told National Geographic of the substance that covers the surface of the cave, "... but it's not mud." This pasty substance is guano. Tons and tons of guano mixed with the cave's water, forming a pool of bats faeces.

"It's a particularly demanding environment," says herpetologist Matthew Shirley. But the crocodiles that live there - a bright orange species that is almost blind and resembles the Osteolaemus tetraspis, their surface-dwelling cousins - don't seem to mind. According to the scientists, these crocodiles get their colour from guano, which they bathe in throughout their underground life.

"Bat guano is largely comprised of urea," says Shirley. "When they're sitting in this bat guano slushie, we think the highly basic pH water is tanning their skin." The cave crocodiles' diet is also different from other species': in the cave, they mainly feed on bats, whereas other crocodiles eat fish and shellfish.

Two different species?

But there's an even more striking difference between these two types of crocodiles that were originally the same species. According to Shirley, the cave population has developed its own genetic signature, which is different from that of Osteolaemus tetraspis. To confirm this hypothesis, the team collected blood samples from about 40 underground crocodiles and 200 from those living in broad daylight.

The results of the genetic analysis revealed that orange crocodiles were endowed with a unique haplotype, a group of genes that are close to each other on the same chromosome and are passed down together. These genetically linked alleles suggest that cave crocodiles are progressively becoming genetically distinct from surface-dwelling crocodiles.

The team's article is still under review. "As a result of that isolation and the fact that few individuals come in or go out, they're in the process of [becoming] a new species," says Shirley."Whether that happens soon or not is anyone's guess." It remains to be seen how these animals reproduce.

Too big to get out

The smaller crocodiles can easily venture outside of the caves. But it looks like the larger ones are actually unable to get out. So, they have two options: they can either stop reproducing altogether or nest inside the caves - a case that, so far, has never been documented. Crocodiles generally need vegetation for their eggs, a resource that is unavailable in the depths of the underground habitat.

Why a turtle's shell is so important-It's delicate and beautiful, and it's not a suit of armor. - via Herp Digest

by Christian Cotroneo 2/4/20, mnn.com

For a turtle, home isn't just where the heart is. It's where the brain, limbs, organs and the spinal cord reside, too.

In fact, one of the biggest myths still somehow circulating about a turtle's shell is that it's a mobile home — one that can be swapped out for another.

As wildlife technician Samantha Kennett writes in a blog for the Chattahoochee Nature Center, "A turtle's shell is as much a part of its body as our skeleton is to ours."

Think of it as a modified rib cage that a turtle can fully retreat inside of in case of trouble. (Unless, unfortunately, it's a sea turtle, which has long lost the ability to retract its limbs.)

That means turtles, like others members of the Testudines order — including tortoises and terrapins — have to take special care of those shells. It's the only home they've got.

And, of course, in spring — starting in May especially — humans have to be especially mindful of the slow stampede of turtles crossing roads as they head to their nesting grounds.

That's not to say a turtle's shell doesn't make for an enviable suit of medieval armor. It comes in two main pieces: the top, called the carapace and the bottom, the plastron. And, like forged armor, these pieces are linked together around the middle parts by the aptly called bridge.

The sturdy parts on the carapace are individual plates known as scutes, made from the same hardened protein as fingernails: keratin.

Yes, Mother Nature knows a thing or two about forging quality armor. The trouble is, no suit of armor is designed to withstand the 4,000-or-so pounds of pressure a modern automobile exerts. Nor is it a fortress against the sheer foolishness humans are capable — like, as Kennett points out, chaining two turtles together by piercing their shells.

The organization treated a couple of turtles in just such a predicament recently — turtles that are lucky to be alive thanks to a vigilant passerby who found them in a river.

Indeed, while a turtle's armor may seem like the ultimate in full-body protection, it's deceptively fragile. Predators may be rebuffed But the tiniest crack in that armor opens the door for infection.

"Because the shell is living bone, any puncture can lead to systemic bacterial, viral, and/or fungal infections," Kathryn Dudeck, wildlife director at the Chattahoochee Nature Center, explains in the blog. "Additionally, since the organs are not in a fixed position, but instead housed in a thin membrane called the coelom, the organs themselves can be damaged.”

Even a dab of paint could disrupt essential processes that occur on the surface of that shell. That's because the shell, like the leaf of a plant, does some pretty incredible things with sunlight. Specifically, it absorbs UV light and synthesizes the vitamin D needed to make bones grow big and strong. Paint, or anything that obscures the shell, throws a wrench into that process, resulting in stunted and misshapen shells.

In fact, the number of painted turtles showing up in Florida in recent years even prompted the state's wildlife authority to issue a plea to potential Picassos on its Facebook page.

"While to you it may seem harmless, painting the shells of turtles and tortoises can severely compromise their health — the paint can hinder their ability to absorb vitamins they need from the sun (and) cause respiratory problems," the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission noted.

So, from an evolutionary perspective, a turtle's shell is a many splendored thing — from a lineage that harks back more than 200 million years. But in the modern age, it's too easily a many-splintered thing — vulnerable to everything from cars to errant paintbrushes to misguided pet owners.

Which is why it's even more essential to stop looking at a shell as armor that can be mended or swapped out entirely if it gets damaged.

For the turtle, this is no shell game. But a matter of life and death.