A stunning new species of pit-viper has been discovered in the cloud forest of Honduras. The venomous snake is described in the journal ZooKeys. The species is named Bothriechis guifarroi in honor of Mario Guifarro of Olancho, a conservationist who was gunned down in 2007 as he was working to set up a reserve for […]
Tag: reptiles
Baby Birds and Cave Arms
Why hello there friends, hello. Not to be one of those talk-about-the-weather-all-the-time types, but crapballs! May 2nd and I was decked out in long underwear, gloves and hat again today. So confusing.(Above: Black-and-white Warbler with a caterpillar), below: Painted Bunting hunkering down in some thistle) Black-capped nestlings-they’ve hatched. Golden-cheeked Warblers have fledgies. This season is […]
Market figures out that geckos don’t cure AIDS, but killing continues
Millions of tokay geckos continue to be traded for traditional medicine, despite waning belief that the colorful lizards are a cure for AIDS, reports a new study from TRAFFIC. The study found that a spike in tokay gecko demand due to rumors that it could cure HIV/AIDS was relatively short-lived, lasting from 2009 and early […]
Madagascar’s chameleons came from African mainland
Madagascar’s color-changing chameleons originated in Africa and crossed over to the island some 65 million years ago, concludes a study published this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The research, which is based on genetic analysis of 174 chameleon species, found that the ancestors of today’s chameleons crossed channel between the African […]
Scientists discover two new remarkably-colored lizards in the Peruvian Amazon (photos)
Scientists have discovered two new species of woodlizards from the Peruvian Amazon. Woodlizards, in the genus Enyalioides, are little-known reptiles with only 10 described species found in South and Central America. Described in a new paper in ZooKeys, both new woodlizards were found in Cordillera Azul National Park, the nations third-largest. “These species were discovered […]
Endangered or Not, but at Least No Longer Waiting
Perhaps it does not seem cause for celebration that the Oregon spotted frog, a four-inch-long amphibian that prefers the Pacific Northwest’s dwindling marshy spots, is to be considered this year for federal protection as an endangered species. Tell that to the frog. It has been languishing for 22 years — since 1991 — awaiting its […]
Tracking lizard habitat
For the majority of wild species trying to make it in the city (or even in the suburbs), human travel corridors pose an enormous existential threat. This is particularly true for reptiles and amphibians. I suspect nearly everyone, at some point in their driving career, has come face-to-face with this fact while watching and often […]