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+31 +1
Strange Places to Sit
A poison frog sits on top of an emerald tree boa in its enclosure at the Singapore Zoo's new Reptopia exhibit.
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+17 +1
Snake infrared detection unraveled :
The pit organ is part of the snake's somatosensory system — which detects touch, temperature and pain — and does not receive signals from the eyes, confirming that snakes 'see' infrared by detecting heat, not photons of light.
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Curious Kids: How do snakes make an 'sssssss' sound with their tongue poking out?
The way humans make an 'ssss' noise is different to the way a snake does it. We put our tongue behind our teeth when we hiss, but for a snake the tongue isn't involved at all in making sounds.
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New Purple Pig-Nose Frog Found in Remote Mountains
Scientists have discovered a new and unusual species of frog in the Western Ghats mountain range in India. The frog has shiny, purple skin, a light blue ring around its eyes, and a pointy pig-nose. The scientists have called the new species Bhupathy's purple frog (Nasikabatrachus bhupathi), in honor of their colleague, Dr. Subramaniam Bhupathy, a respected herpetologist who lost his life in the Western Ghats in 2014.
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+15 +1
A Few Bad Scientists Are Threatening to Topple Taxonomy
Naming species forms the foundation of biology—but these rogue researchers are exposing the flaws in the system
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+36 +1
How a Quarter of Cow DNA Came From Reptiles
By hopping between species, jumping genes have radically altered the course of animal evolution.
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+10 +1
Life, death and a sleepy lizard: One researcher's remarkable work
We know the sleepy lizard can love and grieve and is a special part of Australia's ecology.
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+22 +1
New study: Snake fungal disease may now be a global threat
A potentially fatal fungus infection found in more than two dozen snake species in Europe and the United States could be lethal to serpents across the globe, a new study finds.
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+15 +1
A four-eyed lizard walked the earth 49 million years ago
If you lived in what is now Wyoming 49 million years ago, you could have spotted a four-eyed lizard—the one and only known example of such a creature among jawed vertebrates. The species, an extinct monitor lizard called Saniwa ensidens (above), had two standard eyes and also sported so-called pineal and parapineal “eyes” on the top of its head (shown as white dots in the reconstructed image below).
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Green-haired turtle that breathes through its genitals added to endangered list
It sports a green mohican, fleshy finger-like growths under its chin and can breathe through its genitals. The Mary river turtle is one of the most striking creatures on the planet, and it is also one of the most endangered. The 40cm long turtle, which is only found on the Mary river in Queensland, features in a new list of the most vulnerable reptile species compiled by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
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+19 +1
Komodo Venom and its Effects
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+9 +1
Man celebrating birthday dies after timber rattlesnake bites him twice
While celebrating his 57th birthday with his wife on an outdoors adventure, Barry Lester did what he often warned others never to do but frequently did himself—he picked up a snake. Sadly, this time it was a fatal mistake for Lester as a timber rattlesnake, one of the most dangerous rattlesnakes in the eastern U.S., bit him twice, and he died before he could be treated, as reported by the Tulsa World.
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+23 +1
Frogs surface after 99 million years
Frogs trapped in amber for 99 million years give clues to lost world. The four fossils were found in Myanmar.
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+11 +1
Pesticides are turning frogs female - and it could wipe them out
A widely used pesticide could be placing frog populations in danger by diminishing their ability to reproduce properly. Not only does exposure to the chemical linuron – a potato herbicide – reduce male frog fertility, it skews the sex ratios of growing tadpoles significantly towards females. As frog populations are already under global threat of extinction, scientists are concerned that disrupting their natural reproduction could further hasten their decline.
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+21 +1
After Last Year's Hurricanes, Caribbean Lizards Are Better at Holding on for Dear Life
A stunning case of natural selection in action.
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+17 +1
First fossilized snake embryo ever discovered rewrites history of ancient snakes
The first-ever discovery of an ancient snake embryo, preserved in 105-million-year-old amber, provides important new information on the evolution of modern snakes, according to a new study led by University of Alberta paleontologists. “This snake is linked to ancient snakes from Argentina, Africa, India and Australia,” explained paleontologist Michael Caldwell, lead author and professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. “It is an important—and until now, missing—component of understanding snake evolution from southern continents, that is Gondwana, in the mid-Mesozoic.”
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+15 +1
Bite from exotic snake sparks multistate scramble for antivenom
A 26-year-old Pinconning Township man is still recovering from a cobra bite that sent doctors scrambling to hunt down antivenom. The man became nauseous and started vomiting about 20 minutes after his pet albino monocled cobra bit him the night of July 14. He was initially treated at a Bay City area hospital but then was airlifted to Detroit after he stopped breathing because his respiratory muscles became paralyzed, according to Detroit Medical Center officials.
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+29 +1
Galapagos fireworks ban to save wildlife
Authorities in Ecuador say animals suffered elevated heart rates and anxiety after pyrotechnic shows.
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+16 +1
These Alligators Have Gone Into Deep-Freeze Mode
As temperatures in North Carolina dropped this week, some residents appeared frozen in ice.
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+23 +1
Meet India's starry dwarf frog, lone member of newly discovered ancient lineage
The starry dwarf frog is an expert hider. Plunging into leaf litter at the slightest disturbance, it has successfully evaded attention for millions of years—until now.
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