Fish and Amphibians

There are many ways to step into a new year. You can decide to make small but meaningful changes , or commit to a whole life thesis . Or, if you’re a poisonous and libidinous cane toad , you could jump onto a huge python and snake away from 2018 in style. After torrential rainfall in Kununurra, a town in northern Australia, resident Andrew Mock captured an image of 10 cane toads aboard a 3.5 meter (11.5 feet) python named Monty as it moved toward higher ground. As the Guardian put it , the photo has prompted “horror, amazement, and jokes about the outback Uber.” Jodi Rowley , curator of Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology at the Australian Museum, pointed out on Twitter that the toads weren’t just trying to hitch a ride; they were also attempting to mate with the python. And serpents aren’t the only unusual objects of desire for cane toads—Rowley has seen one trying to procreate with a rotting mango before. It’s a good thing that Monty didn’t try and attack his excited p...

Thirty-eight species of frogs have been recorded in Dibang basin of Arunachal Pradesh where big hydel projects are being planned. The study, done by researchers Jayanta K. Roy, Ramie H. Begum and M. Firoz Ahmed from 2014-17 across the river basin, recorded 38 species of amphibians belonging to 17 genera in six families. Of 38, six species have been recorded in new areas across the river basin. The study has been published in the current issue of Journal of Threatened Taxa. The frog species include Nanorana chayuensis, Odorrana chloronota, Hydrophylax leptoglossa, Minervarya pierrei, Minervarya syhadrensis, Theloderma moloch and Rhacophorus tuberculatus among others. A single individual of genus Oreolalax was recorded from Ikindi at 3,235 metres in Dibang. It was observed in the night on an elevated tree trunk covered with moss in a rhododendron forest. Ahmed, an expert of herpetofauna research and conservation division, Aaranyak, a wildlife NGO, said the study also observed that ...

When you want to make a statement by officially naming a newly discovered species , what do you do? Well, if you’re naming a worm-like amphibian that is blind, limbless and likes to bury its head in the sand, it’s a no-brainer. You name the species after Donald Trump . That’s exactly what EnviroBuild paid $25,000 to do. The London-based sustainable building materials company secured the winning bid in a species naming auction as part of a Rainforest Trust fundraiser. On December 8, 2018, Rainforest Trust auctioned off the naming rights to 12 newly discovered species — four frogs, four orchids, a forest mouse, a trap-jaw ant, a salamander and a caecilian. And, surprisingly, it’s the caecilian that’s got the internet in a frenzy. Caecilians — Latin for “blind ones” — are tropical amphibians that look like large worms . They have no limbs, but instead have two small tentacles on their heads. They live underground, preferring to burrow into soft dirt. Inside their...

FILE - In this Jan. 12, 2017, file photo, water flows from five of the gates on Shasta Dam for the first time in six years. (Greg Barnette/Record Searchlight via AP, File) SHASTA LAKE, Calif. (AP) — A trio of salamander species in Northern California could complicate a controversial $1.4 billion public works project to heighten the Shasta Dam, the state's largest reservoir. The Los Angeles Times reports Wednesday that two environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit last month asking a judge to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine if Shasta salamanders should be protected under the Endangered Species Act. One of the groups, the Center for Biological Diversity, asked the wildlife service in 2012 to declare the salamanders endangered or threatened, but the agency has not made a decision, said Jenny Loda, an attorney for the group. Environmentalists say the project would destroy the amphibians' habitat and put them at risk of extinction. The lawsuit ...

Winter arrived Friday and Monday is Christmas Eve. While we’ll be snug in our beds, anxiously waiting for Santa to arrive, the season of ice and snow can be quite different for wild animals, especially our region’s reptiles and amphibians. I had not really thought about hibernating reptiles until I received an email from my friend Dick Waterman. He has a large pond adjacent to his property, created decades ago by the industrious work of a resident beaver family. When the ice forms solid enough on the pond for him to walk on, he’ll venture out on the ice to check several wood duck boxes he maintains for the colorful resident waterfowl. "It was wood duck box inspection time today. Even for someone with a lot of experience, an inch or so of black ice that is so clear one gets the sense of walking on water, can be unnerving, particularly when the ice makes cracking sounds under your weight. But it is work that needs to be done, and who knows when the next safe ice will occur? Walkin...

Complain about seasonal chills all you want, but at the end of the day, you're basically a walking furnace. Humans are endotherms , meaning that our bodies produce heat internally. We're also able to maintain a body temperature that stays more or less constant. So count your blessings; not all animals have these physiological advantages. Apart from a handful of species like the monstrously big leatherback sea turtle , very few reptiles or amphibians are able to keep their bodies at a constant temperature. And since they can't warm themselves up, these creatures must extract heat from their environment. But what happens when that environment gets colder? How do frogs, snakes and turtles make it through the winter months in places that see blankets of snow, iced-over lakes and sub-freezing temperatures year after year? Cellar Dwellers A lot of reptiles and amphibians undergo periods of extreme seasonal inactivity. When the weather gets colder, they may experience decrea...

In December 2018, reports emerged online that a newly discovered species of limbless, worm-like amphibian which is “blind and buries its head in the sand” had been named after U.S. President Donald Trump. In what might have been mistaken for no more than an anti-Trump joke, the English building products company EnviroBuild published the following Facebook post on 18 December, complete with an edited photograph of the creature with Trump’s distinctive hairstyle digitally added to it: BREAKING: New species of legless amphibian named after Donald Trump The slimy little worm has limited vision and a skull adapted for burying its head in the ground at a moment’s notice. Named in honour of Mr Trump’s short-sighted and sluggish approach to environmental issues, it’s hoped Dermophis donaldtrumpi will ensure Mr Trump’s presidency is rightfully remembered long after he leaves office. The post was authentic, as were news reports that followed. On 8 December, EnviroBuild’s co-founder Aida...

A London-based sustainable building company added a mop of blond hair to an image of an amphibian in the same family as the Dermophis donaldtrumpi, which it named after Donald Trump. (Matthijs Kuijpers/EnviroBuild and Al Drago/Bloomberg News) December 19 at 6:57 AM When President Trump announced his plan to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement last year, he said he was benching the United States in the global fight against climate change because he wanted the rest of the world to stop “laughing at us.” “We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore, and they won’t be,” Trump vowed from a podium in the White House Rose Garden in June 2017. “They won’t be.” But the name of a newly discovered amphibian species reveals just how hearty a laugh critics of the president abroad are having at his expense — and on the very issue he cited as he promised to protect American dignity. EnviroBuild, a London-based sustainable building materials company, saw a resem...

In a recent study , researchers have reported the discovery of yet another species of frog in the Western Ghats of Kerala. This species, named Microhyla darreli belongs to the genus Microhyla , commonly known as narrow-mouthed frogs because of their triangular-shaped body and pointed snout. The frogs of this genus are widely distributed through Japan, China, India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. The new frog species was unearthed when the researchers were doing a comprehensive taxonomic revision of frogs of the genus Microhyla from South Asia. The team consisted of researchers from India, Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia and USA. The Indian institutes included the University of Delhi, Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Mangalore University and the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). This study was published as a monograph in the journal Vertebrate Zoology . It was partly funded by the University of Delhi, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)...

Sometimes you go into a Florida swamp to study turtles and end up encountering a two-foot-long salamander previously undescribed by science. That’s what happened to biologist David Steen back in 2009 when he pulled up one of his turtle traps from the swampy waters around Elgin Air Force Base. The trap didn’t contain turtles, but he did find a giant, eel-like salamander resting comfortably inside. “It was just kind of sitting on the bottom of the trap, waiting patiently,” Steen says. Steen was a lot more excited than the animal in front of him. He knew he was looking at an amphibian few people had ever seen before. Steen says he first started hearing rumors of a massive undiscovered salamander species ever since his graduate-student days at Alabama’s Auburn University in early 2007. “My advisor, Craig Guyer, was showing me around their Museum of Natural History and he kind of tapped his knuckles on this big specimen jar,” Steen recounts. The contents were labeled as another larg...

Donations to fire-hit Chester Zoo have more than doubled the target after it was confirmed not all animals could be saved from the blaze that ripped through its rainforest attraction. Over £100,000 was raised as public generosity saw the JustGiving appeal surpass the £50,000 target on Sunday to help fund the Monsoon Forest recovery from Saturday's fire. The rush of financial support came as the the zoo's chief operating officer confirmed insects, frogs, fish and small birds died on what he described as "one of the toughest days in Chester Zoo’s long history". Jamie Christon also said the cause of the fire, which forced the zoo to close after a mass evacuation, is still not known. The zoo had initially said all animals had been "accounted for" in the aftermath of the blaze, but brought sad confirmation of fatalities in its online Sunday statement. In the message, posted on the zoo's website, Mr Christon said: "Keepers were able to encourag...

The Supreme Court delivered a unanimous win to property owners contesting government designation of their land as a critical habitat for endangered species, and dealt a setback to the shy and homely dusky gopher frog. The court remanded the case, saying a lower court had been too deferential to the government’s designation of more than 1,500 acres of Louisiana land as a potential future home for the frog, which is known to live only in parts of a national forest in neighboring Mississippi. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit should have examined more closely whether the land in question could actually support what is one of the world’s most endangered amphibians, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote for the court. It also should have considered whether the government agency’s balancing of the benefits and costs of the designation — estimates ranged from nothing to a $33 million loss for the property owners — was flawed, Roberts and the court held. The Poitevent family...

Amphibian Walk Sugarloaf State Park Saturday December 29th 2018 - 10:00am to 10 a.m.-noon More than a dozen species of amphibians find refuge in the Mayacamas Mountains. Join biologist Dan Levitis on a moderate hike with lots of stops to find these critters. Bring your camera, and good shoes for rocky, wet, or uneven trails. Tickets $10 each; members/volunteers $5. Parking fees apply. https://ift.tt/2S0Dp6b

Teeny tiny creatures Just because something is small doesn't mean it isn't a big deal. Take the Brookesia micra, a leaf chameleon found only on a tiny islet located near Madagascar. Described for the first time in 2012 , a male B. micra is about 0.6 inches (15 to 16 millimeters) long. That's barely larger than a tablet of aspirin. The species may represent an extreme case of dwarfism, and a few of its immediate relatives on the islet are roughly the same size. As minuscule as B. micra is, there are even tinier examples of amphibians and reptiles in the wild, facing down the big world. https://ift.tt/2Ev0bQG

Educators from Sulphur Creek Nature Center in Hayward will introduce some of their resident reptiles and amphibians at the Belle Haven branch of the Menlo Park Library on Dec. 16 from 1:00 to 2:00 pm. You’ll learn about their natural history and ecology, as well as life cycles, predators and prey, habitats, locomotion, and defense mechanisms. This program is great for kids in grades K-6, but space is limited. Please register in advance by visiting, phoning, or emailing the library (jrquinonez@menlopark.org). Due to high demand, preregistered spaces not claimed before 1:00 p.m. will be given to standby visitors. This free event is funded by the Friends of the Menlo Park Library. About Sulphur Creek Nature Center Sulphur Creek Nature Center is a wildlife rehabilitation and education facility situated in a serene 10-acre canyon near downtown Hayward. Each year, the center focuses on preserving the wildlife of today by caring for over 900 injured and orphaned wild animals while workin...

City-living frogs in Central and South America sing a different tune than their croaking countryside counterparts. Their new-and-improved sweet serenades even attract more mates, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution . The ways in which species adapt to urbanized landscapes intrigue researchers studying all kinds of organisms. “Just as we change our social relationships in cities, animals are changing their relationships and their behavior in the radically-altered biological communities we are creating across the globe,” says study co-author Rachel Page, an ecologist at STRI. The new amphibious discovery was led by ecologist Wouter Halfwerk of Vrije University Amsterdam, who studies túngara frogs, or Engystomops pustulosus, in Gamboa, Panama, an urban area full of the inch-long, super-loud amphibians. After the Colombian government and the country's largest rebel group, FARC, negotiated a ceasefire in 2016, Halfwerk and his team jump...

by CHRISTINA LARSON, AP Science Writer In this undated photo provided by researchers in December 2018, a male tungara frog in Panama uses his vocal sac to call out in Gamboa, Panama. A study released on Monday, Dec. 10, 2018, examines why these amphibians adapt their mating calls in urban areas _ an unexpected example of how animals change communication strategies when cities encroach on forests. (Adam Dunn via AP) WASHINGTON (AP) — City frogs and rainforest frogs don't sing the same tune, researchers have found. A study released Monday examined why Panama's tiny tungara frogs adapt their mating calls in urban areas — an unexpected example of how animals change communication strategies when cities encroach on forests. These frogs take advantage of the relative absence of eavesdropping predators in cities to belt out longer love songs, which are more alluring to female frogs. Tungara frogs don't croak like American bullfrogs. To human ears, their distinctive c...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- Mounds of invasive aquatic weeds were pulled from Fountain City Lake as city maintenance crews worked to remove the species covering large portions of the water's surface. In a blog post on the City of Knoxville website, authorities believe the source of these weeds were residents dumping the contents of their personal aquariums into Fountain City Lake. The lake is not City-owned, but the City works collaboratively with the Lion’s Club and other community stakeholders to maintain the lake. When the water was recently drained down to address the algae problem, a rainbow of aquarium gravel and non-native aquatic plants like parrot's feather grass was discovered. “People may have the intent of giving their aquarium inhabitants a chance at life, but the reality is the fish and amphibians have almost no chance of survival, while the exotic plants are going to overtake native vegetation that serve a vital purpose in our waterways’ ecosystems,” said ...

Seabirds are at risk due to the competition they face from the fishing industry for food, a new study has claimed. There has been a 70 per cent decline in seabird populations over seven decades due to a combination of the fishing industry, pollution and habitat destruction. Scientists from the University of Aberdeen looked at two timeframes - 1970 to 1989 and 1990 to 2010. They assessed the degree of competition seabirds faced for their favourite foods - species such as anchovy, sardines, mackerel, squid, krill and crustaceans. The team then estimated the annual consumption of these species for 276 different types of seabird species. They based this on population counts and models, which they compared to annual catches by fishing boats recorded in the Sea Around Us world database. Scroll down for video  Loss: Experts said there has been a 70 per cent decline in seabird populations over seven decades due to a combination of the fishing industry, pollution and habitat de...

Evening grosbeaks are arriving in numbers as predicted. 50 is the largest group reported so far at one island feeder. It is an impressive sight to see them as they land with confidence and an already assumed authority. They are bold, brash and beautiful. Welcome them with lots of sunflower seeds! There has been an interesting-looking cardinal in northern Maine in recent weeks. It is described as being a “bilateral Gynandromorph asymmetry.” The reason it especially caught my attention is that this bird, seen here in Maine recently, was exactly half male and half female in its coloring. From what the experts say, this condition appears irregularly in a variety of species and especially in cardinals and evening grosbeaks. Others of the same species do not seem to be bothered very much by its strangeness. Since we are seeing more and more evening grosbeaks on this island now, you might keep a closer watch on the birds and perhaps see one. It is not a common occurrence. My daughter and...