Vol. 24 (2004), No. 6

JJU N EU N E 2004 V2004 VO L U M EO L U M E 24 N24 NU M B E RU M B E R 66

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE

June’s Guest Speaker:

Barney Oldfield:

New Mexico's Rattlesnakes:Protection & Persecution

SpecialMHS MemberMHS MemberShows Some Skin!Shows Some Skin!

Plus.....Rattlesnakes Rich Social Livesby Paul Rincon

Snake Mites!by Michael Kraft

Iguanas Overrun Island :Boca Grande To Cut Population’s Growthby Wendy Fullerton

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Bell Museum of Natural History, 10 Church Street Southeast, Minneapolis Minnesota 55455

The Minnesota HerpetologicalS o c i e t yMHS Webpage: http://www.mnherpsoc.orgMHS Group Email: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/mnherpsocMHS Voice Mail: 612.624.7065

Board of DirectorsPresidentRandy Blasus

Vice PresidentTony Gamble

Recording SecretaryBarb Buzicky

Membership SecretaryNancy Haig

TreasurerLiz Bosman

Newsletter EditorBill Moss

Members at LargeHeather ClaytonNancy HakomakiMike Bush Jodi L. Aherns

CommitteesAdoptionSarah Richard

EducationJan Larson

LibraryBeth Girard

WebmasterAnke Reinders

[email protected]

The Purpose of the Minnesota Herpetological Society is to:• Further the education of the membership and the general public in

care and captive propagation of reptiles and amphibians;• Educate the members and the general public in the ecological role

of reptiles and amphibians;• Promote the study and conservation of reptiles and amphibians.

The Minnesota Herpetological Society is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization.Membership is open to all individuals with an interest in amphibians and reptiles. TheMinnesota Herpetological Society Newsletter is published monthly to provide its memberswith information concerning the society’s activities and a media for exchanging informa-tion, opinions and resources.

General Meetings are held at Borlaug Hall, Room 335 on the St. Paul Campus of theUniversity of Minnesota, on the first Friday of each month (unless there is a holidayconflict). The meeting starts at 7:00pm and lasts about three hours. Please check theMHS Voice mail for changes in schedules or cancellations.

Submissions to the NewsletterAds or Notices must be submitted no later than the night of the General Meeting to beincluded in the next issue. Longer articles will be printed as time and space allows andshould be in electronic file format if possible. See inside back cover for ad rates.Submissions may be sent to:

-or-The Minnesota Herpetological Society Bill MossAttn: Newsletter Editor 75 Geranium Ave EastBell museum of Natural History Saint Paul, MN 5511710 Church St. SE. -or-Minneapolis, MN 55455.0104 [email protected]

Copyright 2004, Minnesota Herpetological Society. Except where noted, contents may be reproduced for non-profit, non-commercial use only. All material must be reproduced without change. Proper credit will be given

including the author/photographer and the MHS Newsletter citing: volume, number and date.

The Newsletter of the Minnesota Herpetological Society June 2004 Volume 24 Number 6

The Vice-presidentsreport

By Tony Gamble

June General Meeting

Friday, June 4th, 2004, 7:00 PM

Program:

New Mexico's Rattlesnakes -Protection & Persecution

Guest Speaker:

Barney Oldfield

There are 8 (possibly 9)species of rattlesnakes foundin New Mexico ranging fromsmall montane species to largeDiamondbacks. Some areendangered and protected bylaw while others are roundedup each spring to become pub-l ic spectacle. Rattlesnakeroundups are held in 7 statesand thousands of snakes arekil led annually. TheSweetwater roundup in Texas,

billed as the worlds largest,claims to have processed 123tons of Western DiamondbackRattlesnakes since 1958!Barney's talk will allow us anopportunity to learn moreabout these disturbing publicspectacles.

Along with information andphotographs of rattlesnakes,there will be an assortment ofphotos of other New Mexicoreptiles. Barney Oldfield is alongtime MHS member and co-author of Amphibians andReptiles Native to Minnesotapublished by the University ofMinnesota Press in 1994. Thisis a good opportunity to visitwith an old fr iend and seesome extraordinary photo-graphs of ratt lesnakes andother desert reptiles.

Upcoming Meetings:

Friday, July 9th, 2004 - TBA

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The MHS Newsletter isnow On-line

We have begun putting the MHSnewsletter on our website(www.mnherpsoc.org). This will notonly provide an additonal service toour members, but will also givepeople outside of our organizationthe opportunity to see what we areabout.

The web version will be from theprevious month (we don’t want togive everything away now do we)and will be edited to remove per-sonal information such as emailaddresses and telephone num-bers.

If you have not been to our webpage in a while (a couple years), ithas been completely rebuilt and isdefinately worth the effort to look inon again. Webmaster AnkeReiders is always looking for sug-gestions and content to put up onthe site to increase it’s value toeveryone who might pass through.

As always, MHS is run by it’s mem-bers and is only as good as themembership wants it to be. Pleasedon’t be shy about helping out.§

© 2002, Jeff Miller Cover: Blandings turtlePhoto by Bill Moss


News, Notes & Announcements

Volunteer OpportunityTo Assist the BellMuseum

The Bell Museum of NaturalHistory's amphibian and reptile col-lection needs volunteers to helpenter data into its new computerizeddatabase. The information in theold handwritten catalog needs to betyped into an Excel spreadsheetand converted into our database for-mat. We are looking for volunteersto take 5-6 photocopied pages fromour handwritten catalog and enterthe information into an Excelspreadsheet. This means that vol-unteers can enter data at home.The Excel spreadsheets can beemailed to museum staff when fin-ished. Photocopied catalog pagesand more detailed instructions canbe picked up at the May and JuneMHS meetings and all volunteerwork needs to be finished by midJuly, 2004. Please contact TonyGamble ([email protected]) formore information or to volunteer.

Adoption Report - Mayby Sarah Richard

Following is the list of animals thatwe have available for adoption atthis month's meeting.As always, they must be appliedfor and picked up at the meeting.With the exception of Iguanas, youmust be a member to adopt. As Ihave only had them on site for aday I cannot answer questions asto temperament. Boa (3)Fox snakeBall Python(4)Cal KingLeopard Gecko (2)Iguana CaimanEgyptian Uromastix MaleThere are also numerous Redeared sliders and Iguanas in fos-ter, should anyone be interested inthem.If you are interested it helps tohave a place prepared for themand to have something to transportthem in.

MHS Field Survey - 2004

The field survey this year will be atUpper Sioux Agency Sate Park onthe weekend of June 19 & 20 2004.The park is near the town ofGranite Falls in Yellow MedicineCounty. Similar to other yearscamping spots will be provided forthose who wish to stay over nightand access to the park will be cov-ered by MHS. The survey will startSaturday and continue intoSunday. Participants can arriveFriday night and stay until Sundayor just come for one day and notcamp out (note: Sunday is usuallynot a full day). Members interestedor with questions should contactthe Coordinator if they wish toattend to insure a spot for campingand to receive more details on thesurvey, where we meet and whatwe will be doing. Also see theinsert in this newsletter. ContactRandy at 952-925-4237.

MHS NEEDS YOUR HELP

One of the services that the society provides for members is a monthly newsletter. This item is compiledand produced by the Newsletter Editor who sends it to a printer. It is then passed to a volunteer, theNewsletter Mailing Chair. This person is in charge of obtaining labels from the Membership Secretary,preparing the newsletters for mailing and sorting and dropping the mail in bulk form at a specific post officeacceptance unit. This is a very important job, critical in its timing to insure that the membership receivesthe newsletter before the monthly meeting. However, this job can be flexible in other ways as it can bedone solo or people can be recruited to help, it can be done at your home or anywhere and while timing ofevents are critical, there is still a window of a few days under normal circumstances. Our current volun-teers are looking for relief and would appreciate that someone step up and replace them. Training will beprovided. Interested parties should contact the President at 952-925-4237 or Brian and Heather at 763-572-0487. Thanks

RATTLESNAKES' RICH SOCIALLIVESBy Paul Rincon BBC News Online science staff

Supposedly fearsome rattlesnakesare much more social, caring ani-mals than their detractors wouldhave us believe, according to newresearch. A US biologist has shown that tim-ber rattlesnakes lead rich sociallives and may even form familygroups. Females form birthing rookerieswith other snakes when pregnant,care for their young and associatemore with their sisters than unrelat-ed snakes. Details are published in the RoyalSociety journal Biology Letters. Mr Clark claims the study is the firstto demonstrate an ability to distin-guish relatives from unrelated indi-viduals - kin recognition - in a snakespecies.

"They seem to have a real, strongsocial aspect to their lives that hasbeen ignored," Rulon Clark, a biolo-gist at Cornell University in Ithaca,US, told BBC News Online. "Maybe it's the body form, or the lid-less eyes, but they seem like veryalien creatures. Because of that, wedon't ascribe social-type feelings to

them."

Overlooked abilities Mr Clark tested the associationsformed between 10 female timberrattlesnakes ( Crotalus horridus ),reared in a laboratory from birth. The position of each individual wasrecorded four times a day, at threehour intervals for three days. Theentire study was carried out over aperiod of two months.

He found that females from thesame litter of snakes associatedwith each other more closely thanfemales from different litters - evi-dence they could identify kin. Rattlesnakes exhibit other charac-teristics in the wild that are consis-tent with animals that form familygroups, such as group defensebehaviour and maternal defense ofyoung. Reptiles and amphibians areexothermic which means theirmetabolism and body temperatureis dependent on the temperature oftheir environment. "They have adapted to live in such away that they do things more slowlythan we do," Mr Clark explains. "We're too quick for them in someways, we don't recognize importantthings that could be going on. "You really have to either be verypatient or set up your experiments insuch a way that you see resultsregardless of your timescale."

Harsh environment Environmental factors could predis-pose the rattlesnakes to social

behaviour. "They live in a northern environmentwhere they're required to find somesafe place during winter. "Once they find some rocky outcropwith good basking areas, a south-facing slope and crevices deepenough for them to get beneath thefrost line in winter, they'll be faithfulto it for most of their lives. "The young are born near thesesites and follow the adults there. Sothere may have been a selection forthis social behaviour at the begin-ning." Timber rattlesnakes have a widegeographical distribution in the US,from New Hampshire in the north toTexas in the south. They are ven-

omous, but do not generally attackunless aggravated.

Mr Clark said male rattlesnakesmay also exhibit social behaviour atcertain times of the year. But theybecome aggressive when placedtogether in a lab environment.

Story from BBC NEWS:h t tp : / / news .bbc .co .uk /go /p r / f r / -/1/hi/sci/tech/3476971.stm


A large group of gravid (pregnant)female rattlesnakes

Baby Timber Rattlesnake

“They seem to have a real,strong social aspect to theirlives that has been ignored“Rulon Clark, Cornell University


Snake Mites!by Michael KraftUgh! What are those little blackdots on my snake? Look, that one’smoving! Sorry to tell you, butyou’ve got snake mites. In a grouplike PNHS, where members takegood care of their animals, youmight think we would never seesnake mites. But lets face it, we area rescue organization, and mitesare going to be a part of our lives.I’ve done a quick survey of a fewmembers, and lots of people havehad bouts with mites, mostly fromsnakes they obtained via the res-cue and adoption program. Thehead of our rescue committee,Sasquatch, is famous for his recur-rent battles with mites. So what arethese little creatures and howshould you react? The snake miteis a parasite, meaning that it livesby sucking the blood out of yoursnake. It has a life cycle of severalstages, from egg to mature adult.Depending on temperature, fromthe time an egg is laid until the miteis able to lay its own egg could befrom 7 to 21 days. The adults livefrom 10 to perhaps as long as 40days, and a typical female can lay60-80 eggs in her life. During a fewof those stages, the mites hideaway in dark crevices. In otherstages, the mites are extremelymobile, and able to travel 11 inchesper minute, or potentially 55 feetper hour! While they are feeding,the mite finds a suitable spot on thesnake and sucks some blood for ameal. In particular, they seem tolike the grooves around eyes, butthey can be found anywherebetween the scales. After a fullmeal, they drop off and wanderaway until they are hungry again.During its wanderings, the mite hasa peculiar characteristic: it travelsin a straight line. If there is an

obstacle in its path, such as a tankwall, the mite just crawls straightup. In short order, that mite is out-side your tank, and crawlingstraight down. Hopefully, you onlyhave a single tank in that room,and the mite will never find its wayback. Ha! - as if that’s likely.Instead, if you are like me, the mitealmost immediately runs intoanother tank wall, and climbsstraight up again. This time, themite ends up inside the neighbor-ing tank, and by this time it feelsready to lay eggs. That’s why mitesare not a problem with individualsnakes: they are a problem withyour whole collection.The best advice is that if you eversee a single mite in any tank, youshould assume that every tank inthe room is infected, and take nochances. The good news is thatmites drown. So if their straight lineof travel takes them up and into thewater dish, it’s good-bye mite.Often, the first clue you’ll see whenyou get mites is black specks in thewater dish. They look like flakes ofpepper, except that if you lookclosely, they have legs.A good strategy at that point is toreplace any substrate with whitepaper towels. That way, you caneasily see any mites crawlingaround, and remove all doubts inyour mind. If you put the snake’senclosure on legs standing in a trayfull of water (a protective ‘castlemoat”), the mites could neverspread to another tank. That mightbe OK for a single quarantine tank,but who can make that work for abig collection? In the wild, mitesaren’t such a bad problem. Thesnake does pick up a few mitesover time, but each shed lets thesnake crawl away from all its exter-nal parasites for a fresh start.However, trapped in a small enclo-sure, the snake can’t get away.

Those mites can multiply manytimes over what could happen innature, and the snake can be mis-erable. In worst cases, the mitescan transmit disease from snake tosnake, and can actually be thecause of death.We caused the problem by shuttingup our animals in small cages, soit’s up to us to fix things. Time to rollup your sleeves. Herpers have hadto deal with mites for many years.They have discovered many differ-ent methods to get rid of the littlebeasties. Many of the oldestrecipes depend on the fact thatmites drown. The snake gets abath in soapy water, or diluteListerine mouthwash, or even iscovered with mineral oil. Of course,the mites try to crawl towards thehead, and you can’t just drownyour snake, so that area takessome special work with a Q-tip.Other remedies rely on special vet-erinarian medicines, such asIvermectin, which can be sprayedon or injected. Ultimately, you’vegot a clean snake.Are we done now? I wish it werethat simple. Remember, the prob-lem started because the enclosureis magnifying the mite problem.Now that you’ve got a clean snake,you need to face the reality thatyour tank is full of mite eggs andimmature mites, and all of them aregoing to be hungry pretty soon.See my point? You’re not done yet.So, next you pull everything out ofthe tank, and sterilize it. Heat alsokills mites, so one remedy is to putthe tank in the sun on a hot daywith saran wrap for a lid, so thatinternal temperatures are above131 degrees for several hours. Butwho gets hot sunny days ondemand, eh? More likely, the oldtimers would wash the tank withdilute bleach, or dilute Listerine, oreven soapy water. Think you’re


done? Think again! I hate to tellyou, but those rugs and drapesnear the tank are crawling withmites, just ready to strike out in astraight line. If even one of thoselines intersects a tank, the problembegins all over again. For the room,some people used to use No-Peststrips (or cat flea collars), and theyeven put them into the tank withsnakes, but today they are increas-ingly considered too dangerous tothe animals. Mothballs kill mites,but they also kill snakes. Don’t everuse them in the tank, but you canput a mothball into the vacuumcleaner bag. What a hassle!Thankfully, today’s herper has twoother options, aerosol spray canscontaining Black Knight RoachSpray or Provent-a-Mite. Both canbe sprayed directly on the snake,into the tank, and around the tanks.Both are powerful. Black Knighthas been around for years. In fact,one of the most respected sourcesof information about snake miteson the Internet, Vida PreciosaInternational, has this to say:“If there is a silver bullet for snakemites, this is it.” The people behindVPI have been involved with trad-ing and breeding snakes for manyyears, and have never had a miteproblem. Their strategy is to takeEVERY new snake, spray it lightlywith Black Knight, mist some intoan open grocery bag, and place thesnake in the bag for 30 minutes.Any mite on the snake will be his-tory. Deal with the rest of the gear(tank, snake bag, old cage furnish-ings) outside of your home, andyou’ll never have a mite infestation.Don’t stop yet. Use Black Knight inthe car where the snake was trans-ported and any other place themites might have left the snake.Lots of people think that mite eggscan stick around for a very longtime, and suddenly start up a newinfestation. There is no proof of

that. Mostly what happens is thatmites are not completely eradicat-ed by tools such as the Listerinemethod, or they hitchhike back intoyour collection after you have han-dled a friend’s infested snake. Byusing an aerosol spray around theoutside of the cages after an infes-tation, you go after the lingeringpockets of mites that can causeyou so much grief, and you put upa protective bather against hitch-hikers. Black Knight is so effectivethat there are many stories ofsomeone using just a quick puff ona tank at one side of a pet store,only to find every cockroach andcricket dead in tanks on the far sideof the room. Clearly, it is a powerfulway to end the life of mites. In fact,if you’ve got tarantulas, hissingcockroaches, or millipedes athome, you should exerciseextreme caution with either aerosolproduct.The newer product, Provent-a-Mite, is supposed to linger longer,and be equally effective againstmites. Some people think it’s muchbetter than Black Knight, but thereis at least one story of a snake thatdied after Provent-a Mite was used.Black Knight isn’t perfect either. Intruth, it’s the same decontamina-tion spray that the airlines for manyyears routinely sprayed on humanpassengers inside arriving jetliners.Personally, I have sprayed a year-ling comsnake and a hatchlingmilksnake with no apparent harm,but a 10 gram comsnake hatchling,which had shed its skin only twohours earlier, had a 24 hour bout oftwitching following it welcomehome decontamination spray.Thankfully, it recovered just fine,but there are some rare stories ofsnakes dying from Black Knight.But don’t think that the other meth-ods are without danger. TheListerine method has also report-edly killed snakes, as has the plain

water soaking method, Of course,we don’t know how much spraythose people used on the snakesthat died, or what was the temper-ature of the water the snakesoaked in- Use common sense!You don’t have to drench yoursnake with the aerosols, and usethe right temperature water if yougive your snake a bath. No matterwhat method you decide to use,research it and follow the directionscarefully.The latest weapon against snakemites is only just being tried, butwith some success, and it might bethe best thing yet. People have dis-covered that predatory mites willeat snake mites, and when thesnake mites are all gone, thepredatory mites just disappear. Thebest recipe for using predatorymites is still evolving, but one per-son reported that the predatorymites did not work when thesnakes were on paper towel sub-strate, but worked perfectly whenthe snakes were kept on a thin bedof soil to keep the predatory miteshappy. Maybe we’ll all learn thisnew technique and won’t have toexpose our animals to even a tinyrisk of harm. I haven’t mentionedeverything in this article, but I’ve atleast touched the major themes togive you some idea about what’sout there. In our mission of rescu-ing animals, we ARE going to facemites, but they don’t have to win.Good luck.(For more information, visitwww.vpicom “The War AgainstSnake Mites” where you can find alot more details about the life cycleand the battle plan against theselittle bugs.)Reprinted from the newsletter of thePacific Northwest HerpetologicalSociety, Vol.18, No.11, November2003.

May Speaker Reviewby Barbara Buzicky, MHS RecordingSecretary

Guest Speaker:Dr. Adam SummersProgram: CaeciliansIf they are not eels, nor worms, noreven Italians, what are they? Theylook like earthworms, and themajority live underground. Dr.Summers talked about understand-ing the form and function in the limb-less amphibians. Yes, these worm-like creatures are amphibians, notsnakes. Caecilians belong to theclass of Amphibia and the orderGymnophiona (Apoda). They areclassified in the middle of salaman-ders and newts, and frogs andtoads. They are described as gen-erally having no distinct tail andhave a diverse morphology.Included in this species are bothegg-laying and ovoviviparous ani-mals. Some examples have anaquatic larval stage both tropicaland subtropical worldwide. The ter-restrial types burrow and pushthrough the dirt with their heads.In South America, Typhlonectinae,in the family of Caeciliidae, liveentirely in streams, rivers, andponds. The family of Ichthyophiidaeare found in the Asian tropics andsubtropics. They are egg laying andterrestrial. Further, a distinct tail ispresent. This type enters the wateronly to breed by internal fertilization.There is also a caecilian that hasprotrudable eyes. This species iscalled Scoloecomorphus Kirkii orMalawi-Caecilian. They are found inEastern-Africa from Tanzania downto Zambia. It is true that mostAfrican caecilians are truly blind andthe eyes are invisible, yet, for theScolecomorphus the eyes are nearthe skin layer. When they are mov-ing their tentacles, the eyes becomevisible and move to the surface.

The caecilian tentacle is part of theeye organs, yet, it is an olfactoryorgan. This is truly amazing. Thereis a species found off the coast ofWest-Africa on the island of SaoTome that give off a highly effectiveskin poison like toxic poison-arrowfrogs that can kill other animals ifthey eat them. It can also causereactions in humans if the toxin pen-etrates the skin. These caeciliansgive birth to live young and are spot-ted and striped animals. They canbe easily recognized as they arebright yellow in color which is a def-inite warning sign. In general,Caecilians can grow up to 40 cm. inlength. Dr. Summers is an assistant profes-sor in Ecology and EvolutionaryBiology and Biomedical Engineeringat the University of California atIrvine. His undergraduate work wasin mathematics and engineering.So his interest in Caecilians was intheir biomechanics, how they eatand how they move. There arethree classified general types ofmotion in snake-like animals, lateralundulation, concertina, and internalconcertina. Lateral undulation isnormally used by snakes that pushoff at discreet points and move for-ward not slipping side to side.Concertina is how an inch wormmoves part of their body forward(arboreal snakes) and pulls the restof the body up. Some Caeciliansmove by internal concertina wherethe animal contracts its vertebrae upinto the body, then the skin is pulledup or slides up to match it. Dr.Summers showed a short radi-ograph video (DermophisMexicanus) of this process.Dr. Summers did some experimentsto compare internal concertinamotion to lateral undulation. He didone using a pegboard to track themovements, and also, used a chan-nel method. He did a quantitativecomparison of Typhlonectes Natans

(aquatic) versus DermophisMexicanus [fossorial (terrestrial)].His conclusions were that lateralundulation is faster than concertina,and internal concertina is as fast asconcertina despite the differences ofstride length. The speciesBoulengerula Taitanus andTyphlonectes Natans do not moveby internal concertina motion. Since Dr. Summers works in bio-medical engineering, he was inter-ested on how these animals eat.For this, he had to study the headalong with its muscles. The angle ofthe jaw comes into play since theangle is involved with the force inwhich the animal can eat its prey.As the quadrate angle of the jawgets higher, the more force is exhib-ited. If they have different jawangles and muscles, they will beeating a different diet. SomeCaecilians have double rows ofupper jaw teeth, and others have asmall muscle area which producesno mechanical advantage for foodproducts. Caecilians are said to bestreptostylic as they have a mobilejoint between the skull and thequadrate. They also have very con-solidated skulls fused together com-prised of nine pieces that makes itwell reinforced. Another animal thatbenefits from being streptostylic isthe woodpecker. These birds do notpeck with their beaks closed, butthey are slightly open for a greaterimpact on the pecking material. If you want to read more about thisstudy of locomotion, please see thefollowing reference:Summers, AP & JC O'Reilly (1997),A comparative study of locomotionin the caeciliansDermophis mexicanus andTyphlonectes natans (Amphibia:Gymnophiona). Zool. J. LinneanSoc. 121-65-76. H.§


MHS Board MeetingReview - May 8, 2004by Barb Buzicky, Recording Secretary

The Board Meeting was called toorder at 6:15 PM CDT at the St.Paul Student Center,Room 202.

All Board Members were present.Non-Board Members present wereJeff LeClere, Marilyn Blasus, andKrsna.

Minutes from the February, 2003,were approved.Minutes from the April 3, 2004,meeting were approved withchanges.Treasurer's Report April, 2004, isoutstanding.Membership Report for April, 2004,was approved.Membership Report for May, 2004,was approved with changes.

General Meeting Attendance forMay 7, 2004 was 120 .

President's Report: Randy contin-ued his series on BoardDevelopment asking if there wereany questions from the last segmenton Understanding Board Reports.The segment in the series is on theOrganization's Mission andPurpose. Randy handed out theinformation for the Board to review.

Vice-President's Report: June---Barney Oldfield, AZ,Rattlesnakes in General.July---TBAAugust---TBA

Committee Reports: There were nocommittee reports.

Old Business: There have been alot of returned newsletters lately.Nancy says that she is not receivingaddress changes from the member-ship. MHS Audit was completedlast month. The GeneralMembership wants to see thenewsletter on the website per theshow of hands. The June FieldSurvey will be at the Upper SiouxMN State Park the 3rd weekend ofJune. Randy is the contact.

New Business: The Bell MuseumCollection needs volunteers to helpinput data. A new chair is neededfor the Newsletter MailingCommittee. The Upper MidwestCommittee is starting to plan for the2005 event. There will be no BoardMeeting in June. The White Pagesare ready to go to the printer.Motion was approved for up to $500for printing costs.Board approved $140 for reim-bursement of Vet Bills for Barb Alt.

Meeting adjourned at 7:47 PMCDT.


MHS member Heather Clayton won1st Place in the best tattoo contestrun by Reptiles Magazine.

The tattoo, a frog with eight individ-ual frogs within it, took three 1-1/2hour sessions to produce. Done in1999 by Sammy at Tats by Zapp, itis featured in the magazine’s Julyedition.

Although the black and white ver-sion doesn’t do the artwork justice,the attention to detail is evident.“The eight frogs are each a differentcolor”, Heather explains, “and eachcolor represents a important personin my life”.

The photograph was taken by thetattoo artist, Sammy.

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MHS Member WinsTattoo Contest

By Wendy Fullerton, [email protected] Published by news-press.comon April 26, 2004

Iguanas are causing such a ruckuson Boca Grande that island resi-dents want to have them knockedoff. “They are crawl-ing everywhere,’’said planning con-sultant DaveDepew, who ishelping residentsdraft a communityplan to guidegrowth and devel-opment on theisland. Iguanapopulation controlis part of thatplan. “It’s gotten to apoint where theyare quite a pest,’’he said. Nestled betweenthe Gulf of Mexicoon the west andCharlotte Harboron the east, theisland’s non-native reptilesoutnumber peopleby more than 2 to1. There are about 1,000 year-round residents. As temperatures start to rise, theirpresence becomes more noticeablealong the 7-mile resort island. The invasive critters sunbathe onrocks, climb trees and lay eggsthroughout the island. They munchon flowers, especially hibiscus, andvegetable gardens. Some residentsfear they’re harming native vegeta-tion and species such as the endan-gered gopher tortoise by getting intotheir giant nesting burrows. To the dismay of homeowners, thefearless climbers with sharp toe-nails find their way into the attics, air

conditioning ducts and dryer vents. They’re even known to plod throughthe plumbing and come straight outthrough the toilet. Mark Spurgeon, 46, owner of BocaGrande Real Estate Co., said he’s

known a couple of real estateagents who’ve found an iguanadraped across the back of a couchthey’re showing. “That doesn’t do good for a sale ofthat property,’’ he said. “It’s oneexotic we could do without.’’Boca Grande is home to mostly theMexican spinytail iguana with a fewgreen iguanas mixed in. Now islanders are plotting theirattack. A few have armed them-selves with pellet guns for protec-tion. Depew said the idea is to have aniguana catcher much the same asanimal control officers round up

stray cats and dogs. Lee Countyofficials have been asked to comeup with a specific plan for doing so. Boca Grande isn’t the only tropicalisland paradise under siege fromthe exotic critters. The Keys are fac-ing similar problems.

And the cold-blooded iguanasare branchingout. They’ve swumthe pass south toCayo Costa StatePark. There arealso colonies onKeywaydin Islandand in the con-fines of theRookery BayN a t i o n a lE s t u a r i n eR e s e a r c hReserve inCollier County.Spurgeon saidhe’s spotted acouple on themainland side ofthe Boca GrandeCauseway. Joe Wasilewski,board presidentof the

International Iguana Society, agreedsomething needs to be done. The group is dedicated to thepreservation of iguanas and the nat-ural habitats in which they live. “I have a hard time with theeuthanasia because I love igua-nas,’’ said Wasilewski, aHomestead resident. “But whenreality sets in, there has to be somekind of final line. “I hate to say it,’’ he said. “I cancatch them but I couldn’t kill them.’’HerpDigest V4#5

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Iguanas Overrun Island :Boca Grande To Cut Population’s Growth

' Bill Moss. 2001

Rare frog survives epicboat tripContributed by Becky Helgesen

One of the world's rarestfrogs has survived a 4,000-mile journey in the refrigerat-ed hull of a banana ship -eventually finding safety at aUK port.

The 1.5-inch Caribbean frogturned up in Portsmouth after itsvoyage from Jamaica on the MVPrince of Tides.

The amphibian's species is sorare it does not even have acommon name.

Rescuers at Portsmouth's BlueReef Aquarium named the fin-ger-sized West Indian tree frogLara after West Indies Cricketteam captain Brian Lara.

Lucky find

Portsmouth port health officerDavid Jones said it was the first

time such a rare specimen hadbeen discovered at the port.

"We handle about 470,000tonnes of bananas each yearand this is the first time any-thing like this has been found,"he said.

"Apparently a random pallet waschosen to check the quality ofthe consignment and, during thechecking process, someonefound the little frog clinging to ahand of bananas."

The frog, used to tropical condi-tions, got loaded into the cargoship's temperature-controlledhold.

Blue Reef aquarist Mat Clarkesaid the constant temperaturewas central to the frog's sur-vival.

"The hold was kept at a con-stant temperature of 14 degreesfor the entire 11-day voyage,"he said.

"When it arrived it was in a poorcondition but it has graduallybeen improving and is now eat-ing on its own."

Lara's species was discoveredin 1843. It is was given the Latinname of "Osteopilus Fitzinger".

Story from BBC NEWS:h t tp : / / news .bbc .co .uk /go /p r / f r / -/ 2 / h i / u k _ n e w s / e n g l a n d / h a m p -shire/dorset/3649625.stm

§

Horned Lizards, Shrikesand Evolution6/6/04 by Greg Lavine, The Salt LakeTribune.

Over a period of recent summers, tosee if Arizona’s horned lizard was athreatened species, Utah StateUniversity’s Kevin Young and hisfield team were tracking one with atransmitter on a Marine Corpsbombing range in Arizona. Theyhad followed the signal to a bush.After a futile search beneath theplant, a field worker finally found thelizard. "There was a lizard hangingright in front of her face," Young saidof the searcher. "She shouted 'It'sbeen shriked.' “ A predatory bird,known as a shrike, had impaled it ona twig. Young's team decided tostart collecting such skeletons astrophies. These tiny mementoseventually produced a study on nat-ural selection that appeared in lastweek's edition of Nature. Researchers long believed that thelength of a lizard's horns appears toplay a role in how well the reptiledefends itself against the robin-sized shrikes. But the paper inNature was the first to show withconcrete evidence that not only wasthis true, but how as a result shrikeswere helping determine the evolu-tion of this lizard species. "It not only reveals selection butalso pinpoints the mechanism," saidKelly Zamudio, a biologist at CornellUniversity who was not part of thestudy. Despite the excitement about thisdiscovery, to Young and his teams’ itwas only a side project. The originalstudy, to see if the horned lizard isthreatened continues.

HerpDigest V4#34§



newsletter. Since this ran, the photog-rapher contacted me to let me know hehad written a poem that goes alongwith the photograph, so here it is foryour enjoyment.For some excellent photographs ofherps of Western Australia, do yourselfa favor and visit his photo hosting siteat www.pbase.com/gehyra

The Ta-ta Lizard

The Ta-ta lizard waves her arm,and thus accentuates her charm.She moves her forelimb slowly'round,and brings it gently to the ground.Can this Ta-ta lizard besaying good-bye to you or me?Or is it just to hypnotise,beetles, termites. ants and flies?Is it ‘cause her foot’s too hot?I’ve watched awhile and I think not.For when it’s hot ground that shefeels,She simply stands up on her heels,and if it’s too hot on the ground,She climbs a tree to look around.Perhaps the lizard moves her fingers,so the predators’ eye still lingers,while the lizard has long gonethe vision, focused, tarries on.What is the sense behind this habit?I really wish I knew, dagnabit!photo and text ©Alexander Dudley

Some of you may recognize this photofrom the cover of the March, 2004

Broken Arrow Man BittenBy Rattler At HomeImprovement Store

BROKEN ARROW, Okla. APA Broken Arrow man is recoveringafter being bitten by a rattlesnakeat a home improvement store.

The man's name hasn't beenreleased.

The 35-year-old man was shoppingfor shrubs at a Lowe's in BrokenArrow when an EasternDiamondback rattlesnake bit him.The snake was caught and killed.

The Eastern Diamondback is con-sidered one of the largest and mostpoisonous snakes in NorthAmerica, and it isn't native toOklahoma.

Reptile keeper Betsy Olsen at theTulsa Zoo says the snake likelywas brought to Oklahoma in a ship-ment of plants to the store.

Lowe's officials say employeesimmediately helped the man getmedical attention and searched thearea and found no other snakes.§

Young golfer reportsgator abuse

The State (Columbia, S Carolina)05 May 04 Mount Pleasant, S.C.

A teen participating in a golf tour-nament put aside his clubs andalerted authorities when he sawother players striking alligators withgolf clubs. "There was no way I was going tokeep my mind on golf," said JordanKruse, 15. "It was so sick. No oneshould ever do that to an animal." Kruse was competing last week forTrident Academy in the SouthCarolina Independent SchoolAssociation state tournament atFripp Island resort's Ocean Pointcourse. The teen saw two players fromother schools approach a 6-footalligator lounging on the bank of apond. Kruse said one grabbed itstail and the other grabbed a 3-iron,smacking the reptile in the head sohard that it bent the club. The alli-gator fled into the water. The players also approached agroup of the reptiles and smackedthe head of a small alligator in thewater. Kruse left the course and went forhelp. The state Department ofNatural Resources sent an officerto investigate. Efforts to capture the 6-foot alliga-tor and check him for injuries wereunsuccessful. The smaller alligatorhasn't been found. Charges had not been filed as ofWednesday. The maximum penaltyfor harassing the protected speciesis $500 and six months in jail.§

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Vol. 24 (2004), No. 6

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Transcript of Vol. 24 (2004), No. 6