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HerpDigest.org Newsletter
HerpDigest Volume # 23 Issue #24 5/19/20
FREE NEWSLETTER COVERING THE LATEST NEWS ON REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS
_________________________________________
HERPDIGEST IS A NON-PROFIT 501 C 3 CORPORATION- Is supported by your donations. Publication in HerpDigest does not reflect an endorsement of what is said or implied in said article. HD’s mission is to try to supply the herp community with relevant, interesting information on the conservation, science and different cultural attitudes toward herps around the world.
______________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. The Carnegie Museum of Natural History's (CMNH) Section of Amphibians and Reptiles invites proposals for a post-doctoral researcher.

2) Twenty-Three rare Royal Turtles hatch in natural habitat in SW Cambodia

3) These Large Carnivorous Lizards Are Right Where They Belong
Monitor lizards, believed to be invasive species on some Pacific islands, got there long before humans, a new study says.

4) With the World on Pause, Salamanders Own the Road—Traffic is down, thanks to the pandemic. That’s good news for amphibians looking to migrate safely.

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1) The Carnegie Museum of Natural History's (CMNH) Section of Amphibians and Reptiles invites proposals for a post-doctoral researcher. The successful applicant will work with the Curator on a combination of collections-based research and field work, with some potential for molecular work.

Carnegie Museums of Natural History, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, is among the top natural history museums in the country. It maintains, preserves, and interprets an extraordinary collection of artifacts, objects, and scientific specimens used to broaden understanding of evolution, conservation, and biodiversity. Carnegie Museum of Natural History generates new scientific knowledge, advances science literacy, and inspires visitors of all ages to become passionate about science, nature, and world cultures. Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh is interested in candidates who, through their experience and collaborations, will contribute to diversity and excellence of the Carnegie Museums community.

The successful applicant will both contribute to existing projects and work together with the curator (Jennifer A Sheridan) to develop additional research projects. Research funds will support local (Pennsylvania) field work, but funding for molecular work is limited, so applicants should focus on field projects and collections-based research. Two existing projects that the applicant will lead are detailed below. In addition, the successful applicant should include in their cover letter ideas for using the museum collections to address questions of climate change or land use change (impacts of climate on morphology, distribution, or diet, for example).

EXISTING FIELD PROJECTS
1. Pitfall trapping amphibians and reptiles at CMNHâÃÂÃÂs Powdermill Research Station. This project aims to compare current abundance and diversity with similar data from the mid-1980s, to assess the impact of fine-scale land use change and forest cover, using complementary GIS data. Applicants should have experience with pitfall trapping or similar methods, as well as handling, identifying, and preserving amphibians and reptiles. Experience using GIS to assess changes in land use and forest cover would be advantageous.

2. Physiology and microbiome of amphibians and reptiles in urban and rural areas. This project aims to determine intra-specific differences in thermal tolerance of amphibians and reptiles that occur in both urban and rural areas in Pennsylvania, and will include collecting of microbiome samples for later analyses. Ideal candidates will have some knowledge of testing thermal tolerance of herps, but a keen interest and ability to learn relevant techniques independently will also be considered.

The section of amphibians and reptiles currently has a diverse array of student volunteers from three area universities, and the post-doc is expected to be a constructive member of the team and mentor students as appropriate. As this is a museum-based post-doc, involvement in citizen science programs or other outreach related to the chosen project is encouraged.

Appointment is available for 16 to 17 months, depending on exact start date. If desired, candidate and curator can work together to secure additional funding to extend the tenure of this position. Salary is commensurate with experience and includes benefits and employee health insurance. Start date is expected to be mid-June 2020, pending successful background check of the selected candidate. Pittsburgh is a vibrant city with numerous unique and affordable neighborhoods, an excellent fine arts scene, and a burgeoning international food scene.

Please provide a CV with contact information for three academic references, and a cover letter (up to 2 pages) addressing your interest in this position and detailing potential additional research project ideas based on CMNH's collections.

Application materials should be compiled into a single document (word or pdf) and uploaded to the museum's website (the portal does not allow for multiple documents to be uploaded). Applications may be uploaded here: https://usr57.dayforcehcm.com/CandidatePortal/en-US/car/Posting/View/2392

Review of applications will begin 18 May and short-listed candidates will be contacted for a skype or zoom interview shortly thereafter.


EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE
-PhD in Ecology, Conservation Biology, Evolutionary Biology, or related field
-Demonstrable knowledge of amphibian and reptile ecology
-Record of peer-reviewed publications, including lead-author papers in research relevant to the position

KNOWLEDGE SKILLS AND ABILITIES
-Demonstrable knowledge of amphibian and reptile ecology

-Applicants should have experience with pitfall trapping or similar methods, as well as handling, identifying, and preserving amphibians & reptiles. Experience using GIS to assess changes in land use and forest cover would be advantageous.

• Ideal candidates will have some knowledge of testing thermal tolerance of herps, but a keen interest and ability to learn relevant techniques independently will also be considered.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:
This position requires significant amounts of field work during the herp season (March-October), with extended periods of time spent camping or at field stations, often in isolation. Successful candidate must be willing and able to meet the physical demands of the projects outlined above, including digging, hauling equipment, equipment maintenance and repair, hiking, and other activities traditionally associated with field work.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS AND ACCOUNTABILITIES
The principal responsibilities of the postdoctoral researcher include executing the field projects outlined above, applying for relevant research permits, managing field data, maintaining effective communication on progress with the curator, mentoring students as appropriate, and producing peer-reviewed publications in collaboration with the curator.

The following PA Act 153 clearances, or proof of application of clearances, are required beginning employment and as a condition of continued employment:

Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Clearance
Pennsylvania State Police Criminal Record Check
FBI Fingerprint Criminal Background Check
Obtaining the required clearances is completed as part of the new hire process.

TO APPLY PLEASE SEE HERE: https://usr57.dayforcehcm.com/CandidatePortal/en-US/car/Posting/View/2392 />


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2) Twenty-Three rare Royal Turtles hatch in natural habitat in SW Cambodia
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-19 18:15:16|Editor: huaxia




Photo released by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) on May 19, 2020 shows a conservationist measuring the length of a newly-hatched Royal Turtle in Koh Kong province, Cambodia. Twenty-three Cambodia's nearly-extinct Royal Turtles have hatched from their nests in the Sre Ambel River in southwest Koh Kong province this year, a conservationist group said on Tuesday. (Wildlife Conservation Society/Handout via Xinhua)

PHNOM PENH, May 19 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-three Cambodia's nearly-extinct Royal Turtles have hatched from their nests in the Sre Ambel River in southwest Koh Kong province this year, a conservationist group said on Tuesday.

The number of the species hatchlings this year was more than the total number hatched in the previous three years combined, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Cambodia said in a press statement.
The 23 hatchlings were from three Royal Turtle nests, found and protected by a community nest protection team on two sand beaches along the river, the statement said, adding that among the total of 51 eggs, 23 eggs hatched and it is not known why the other eggs failed.

WCS attributed this success to conservation efforts by the local community, the ban on sand dredging along the river and the inclusion of the river as a fisheries management and conservation area for Royal Turtle and Siamese Crocodile, it said.

"This increase in the number of hatchlings shows that conservationists, working with local communities and government partners, can achieve measurable conservation successes," Ken Sereyrotha, WCS country program director said.

"With ongoing support and cooperation, we are hopeful that the number of Royal Turtles will continue to increase in the coming years," he added.

The Royal Turtle, also known as Southern River Terrapin (Batagur affinis), is one of the world's 25 most threatened freshwater turtles and tortoises, the statement said, adding that it is listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List as critically endangered and was designated as Cambodia's National Reptile by a Royal Decree issued in 2005.

Ouk Vibol, director of Fisheries Conservation Department of the Fisheries Administration, said he was really happy that the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries issued an edict last year to ban all fishing and sand dredging activities along the river.

"The Fisheries Administration actively worked with WCS to conserve Royal Turtles through habitat and beach protection, research and monitoring, nest protection program, establishment of fishery communities, and improvement of community's livelihood," he said.

The Royal Turtle was believed extinct in Cambodia until 2000 when a small population was rediscovered by the Fisheries Administration and WCS in the Sre Ambel River, the statement said, adding that after the discovery, WCS initiated a community-based nest protection program which employed former egg collectors to search for and protect nests, instead of harvesting them.
________________________________________________________
3) These Large Carnivorous Lizards Are Right Where They Belong
Monitor lizards, believed to be invasive species on some Pacific islands, got there long before humans, a new study says.



A young specimen of Varanus bennetti, a newly described species of monitor lizard on Losiep Island, Micronesia.
Photos Credit.-James Reardon
By Marion Renault
5/15/20 New York Times

You can’t accuse a monitor lizard of being a picky eater.

The carnivorous, fork-tongued reptiles feed on insects, spiders, bird eggs, mollusks, crabs, fish, amphibians and rodents — dead or alive. Deer represent a large portion of the diets of the Komodo dragon, the largest monitor lizard species, which is native to eastern Indonesia.

“They’ll feed at garbage piles and eat chicken bones. Whatever’s available,” said Fred Kraus, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Michigan. “They probably would take puppies too, if they get them.”

Monitor lizards have been found living on the most far-flung islands of Micronesia in the Pacific Ocean. For decades, people assumed humans dropped off these unfussy carnivores, turning them into especially threatening ecological invaders. But a study published Wednesday in Royal Society Open Science refutes this presumption, demonstrating that the monitor lizards of Palau, the Western Caroline Islands and the Mariana Islands are previously undescribed species native to those islands.

The team of scientists argues that the lizards likely rode ocean currents up to 1,500 miles in some cases, from Indonesia northeastward, where they naturally colonized these Pacific islands hundreds of thousands of years ago.

“Some of those islands are so remote. It’s pretty difficult to explain how they got there,” said Valter Weijola, a biologist at Finland’s University of Turku and lead author of the study. But his team’s research shows they made this ocean crossing without help from humans. And since their disembarkment, they’ve evolved into two distinct species.

Researchers examined more than 50 Micronesian monitor lizard specimens from museums around the world. First, they compared physical characteristics, measuring and noting details like body proportions, scale pattern and tongue color.

Then they ran molecular tests on tissue samples. DNA sequencing and analysis revealed two Micronesian species were genetically distinct from other known monitor lizards in the Asia-Pacific region. It also suggested each evolved in geographic and genetic isolation long before any humans arrived in Micronesia.

Used this way, DNA analysis can be a bit like looking at an ecological question through a microscope and a telescope simultaneously.

“It takes you back in time and allows you to see things in greater detail,” said Julie Lockwood, a Rutgers University ecologist and invasive species biologist who was not involved in the study.
__________________________________________________________
4) With the World on Pause, Salamanders Own the Road—Traffic is down, thanks to the pandemic. That’s good news for amphibians looking to migrate safely.

By Brandon Keim
Photographs by Greta Rybus
May 18, 2020, New York Times

Greg LeClair, who coordinates the Maine Amphibian Migration Monitoring project, helping to move a spotted salamander across a roadway.

Out they come on warm, wet spring nights, from beneath leaves and under logs and inside burrows where they have hibernated since fall: a veritable army of amphibians embarking on one of nature’s great migrations, albeit largely hidden from human sight and all too often ending beneath automobile tires.

It is an ignominious fate for creatures with life histories that read like fairy tales. And although nobody knows exactly how many frogs and salamanders are killed while crossing roads, scientists say that even moderate traffic at the wrong time can wipe out entire populations in a few years.
This year, however, amphibian migrations in the northeastern United States coincide with the Covid-19 pandemic. Social distancing and shelter-in-place orders have caused vehicular traffic to decline, turning this spring into an unintended, large-scale experiment.


“It’s really exciting to see what might come of this year,” said Greg LeClair, a graduate herpetology student at the University of Maine. He is the founder of Big Night Maine, a statewide network of citizen scientists who help amphibians cross roads and count them in the process. “It’s not too often that we get this opportunity to explore the true impacts that human activity can have on road-crossing amphibians,” Mr. LeClair said.


A wood frog crossing a roadway between two vernal pools.
Image

Mr. LeClair, a herpetology graduate student, coordinates a network of citizen scientists.



So far this spring, Mr. LeClair’s network has rescued 1,487 amphibians across Maine and found another 335 dead. That is roughly four living amphibians for every one run over, double last year’s two-to-one ratio.

On a night in early May, Mr. LeClair and his girlfriend, Samantha Grimaldi, patrolled a stretch of wooded road in the central Maine town of Unity. (They took turns carrying their 10-month-old daughter, Audrey, who was clad in a dinosaur-print face mask and a “Future Herpetologist” onesie.) On each side of the road was a vernal pool. Unknowing eyes might dismiss these ephemeral springtime ponds as large puddles, but they are founts of woodland life.

The air resonated with the trilling of spring peepers seeking mates; a pool may contain thousands. Two of these fingertip-size frogs were the first amphibians spotted on the road. Frozen solid on a forest floor just months earlier, they were now headed to a bacchanal. Mr. LeClair and Ms. Grimaldi set them by the pool.

Farther along on his journey was a wood frog, evidently returning home after mating. His mottled brown skin helped him hide on the forest floor but offered little camouflage on the tarmac. The round trip could easily span a quarter-mile — not much to a human pedestrian, but an epic journey for a ground-level, three-inch-long frog.

“Large animals who migrate a lot and are highly visible doing so tend to get some attention,” Robert Baldwin, a conservation biologist at Clemson University, said in an email. “But when you consider what a wood frog has to negotiate, it’s kind of mind-boggling. Nighttime and rain, giant logs to get around, sticks and leaves, snakes.”

When the distance of the frogs’ migration is calculated as a function of weight, as Dr. Baldwin has done, it is comparable to the trek undertaken by caribou between Arctic tundra and boreal forest. The frogs make documentary-darling wildebeest migrations look like weekend hikes.

Many pool-breeding amphibians cover equally dramatic distances, Dr. Baldwin said. The next road-crosser that night was a juvenile eastern newt, the length of a finger and luminously orange under headlamps. After losing their larval gills, the newts crawl to upland forests a half-mile or more away, returning years later as adults to aquatic life. The outbound sojourn alone can take a year.


Mr. LeClair inspecting a vernal pool for signs of migrating and mating amphibians.


Eggs of a spotted salamander in a culvert area.



Mr. LeClair and Samantha Grimaldi tending to their 10-month-old daughter, Audrey.

One study of salamanders in Massachusetts found that cars killed 17 percent of those migrating just 100 meters and 37 percent of those traveling 500 meters. To Mr. LeClair, each death is tragic, but his mind also turns to population consequences and lost ecological interactions.

This eastern newt, like many salamanders, will live on a forest floor, consuming minuscule leaf-eating invertebrates — a tiny niche, yet vast when considering that, in many forests, the total biomass of salamanders may eclipse that of birds and small mammals combined.

With the populations of detritivores regulated by salamanders, soils can be nourished by slowly decomposing leaves, making forests more resilient and slowing the release of carbon into the atmosphere.
Salamanders are also eaten by many other creatures, thus becoming conduits of energy and nutrients between pools and the surrounding forests.
“I like to think of the annual vernal pool cycle as a breathing cycle,” Mr. LeClair said. “It inhales water in the spring and exhales salamanders in the summer.”
Mr. LeClair found a pulverized wood frog identifiable only by its foot, and then, beside the road, an animal he had been looking for all night: a spotted salamander, about six inches long, purple-black with bright yellow spots, the charismatic megafauna of northeastern amphibians.

Apart from being beautiful, spotted salamanders are the world’s only photosynthetic vertebrate. Algae living inside the cells of larvae supply the animals with oxygen, a symbiosis that ends as the salamanders mature. Within two years they attain adult size, Mr. LeClair said, so this one was anywhere from 2 to 30 years old, potentially born years before him.

The salamander’s cheeks pumped as he rested in Mr. LeClair’s hand. This was another ancient trait, a form of breathing ancestrally derived from fish and suggesting an evolutionary lineage that traced directly to the earliest terrestrial vertebrates.

A juvenile eastern newt, in the bright orange “red eft” stage.
Image

Mr. LeClair documenting a frog fatality on the roadway.




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HerpDigest Volume # 23 Issue #25 5/29/20
FREE NEWSLETTER COVERING THE LATEST NEWS ON REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS
_________________________________________
HERPDIGEST IS A NON-PROFIT 501 C 3 CORPORATION- Is supported by your donations. Publication in HerpDigest does not reflect an endorsement of what is said or implied in said article. HD’s mission is to try to supply the herp community with relevant, interesting information on the conservation, science and different cultural attitudes toward herps around the world.
______________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1) Sea turtles appear next to Rio airport thanks to fewer flights amid pandemic

2) Shock as a feral cat is found with 17 critically-endangered lizards inside its stomach

3) Iguana Species Hiding in Plain Sight is a New Specie No One Knows Not Until Now

4) Lawmakers fighting to control united Pests

5) What to do with a 20-foot python? Coronavirus puts the squeeze on unusual museum

6) Spring brings snapping turtle sightings

____________________
1)Sea turtles appear next to Rio airport thanks to fewer flights amid pandemic

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) 5/28/20 by Sergio Queioz- Sea turtles have been spotted swimming amid garbage next to an airport in Brazil’s tourist hotspot of Rio de Janeiro, as the scream of jet engines that would normally keep them away has been largely silenced due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Animals are increasingly entering areas normally populated by humans, as people shelter indoors to contain the spread of the disease, from rare snow leopards sightings near a city in Kazakhstan to wild pigs roaming the streets in Israel.

A Reuters videographer spotted at least four turtles swimming not far from a runway at Rio’s Santos Dumont airport on Tuesday.

“(The quarantine) made it possible for these animals to appear in places where they are not normally seen,” said Mario Moscatelli, a Rio-based biologist and consultant for environmental recovery projects.

Moscatelli said it’s not unusual for sea turtles to enter the bay, but with fewer people, boats and planes taking off, they are now being seen in places they wouldn’t be normally.

Brazil’s air carriers have canceled more than 90% of their flights since the coronavirus lockdowns began. Usually one of Brazil’s five busiest airports and known for its stunning views of the Rio bay on arrival, Santos Dumont now has fewer than 15 departures per day.

But animals that venture into human areas are still at risk, as water next to the airport is filled with waste.

“These beautiful animals end up confusing plastic garbage with food. That can lead to death as the plastic material obstructs the digestive tract,” Moscatelli said.
_____________________________________
2) Shock as a feral cat is found with 17 critically-endangered lizards inside its stomach
• The cat was found by a ranger at the Kaitorete Spit in Canterbury in New Zealand

• On inspecting the cat's stomach content, the ranger found 17 dead lizards

• An estimated 200 feral cats are believed to be roaming around Kaitorete Spit

May 29, 2020 by Sahar Mourad for Daily Mail Australia
A feral cat trapped inside a spit was found with 17 dead lizards inside its stomach.

The cat was found by a ranger on the Kaitorete Spit in Canterbury in the South Island of New Zealand during a routine clean up.
On inspecting the cat's stomach content, the ranger found 17 highly endangered lizards.

The Department of Conservation refused to disclose the name of the lizard species in fear of reptile smugglers, Stuff reported.


On inspecting the cat's stomach content, the ranger found 17 lizards from a highly threatened species

The impact of roaming pet cats on Australian wildlife

An estimated 200 feral cats are believed to be roaming around the spit and are increasingly putting the lives of other endangered species at risk.

The lizards become more vulnerable in winter which sees them increasingly targeted by feral cats.

Southern grass lizards, another endangered species, are also common around around the Kaitorete Spit.

Threatened species ambassador Erica Wilkinson predicts a massive decline in the southern grass lizard population of up to 70 per cent within the next 10 years thanks to feral cats.
Endangered species such as birds, insects and plants are also at risk from the 200 feral cats.


A feral cat prowling around a banded dotterel nest on Kaitorete Spit
____________________________________
3) Iguana Species Hiding in Plain Sight is a New Specie No One Knows Not Until Now
Erika P. May 28, 2020 Sciencetimes.com
• (Photo : Twitter) New iguana species found hiding in plain sight

• (Photo : Twitter) New iguana species found hiding in plain sight

• (Photo : Twitter) New iguana species found hiding in plain sight


For a long time, scientists have thought that the Eastern Caribbean iguana had just two species. These are the critically endangered Lesser Antillean iguana and the highly variable common green iguana. But recent investigative work has revealed that there are several "new" species of the iguana, Phys.org reports.

But calling them "new" is something a misnomer since these two-meter lizards have been lounging plain sight for as long as anyone could remember. Unscrupulous wildlife traders have long regarded them as distinctive island varieties.

For example, the Santa Lucia iguana sports a broad black bands, while another specie named Grenadines pink rhino iguana often turns pinkish white when it gets old.

Threatened with Extinction

Fauna & Flora International (FFI), Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, and the forestry departments of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) and Saint Lucia joined forces with French taxonomists to investigate this further as they are not convinced that the resident lizards were merely aberrant forms of the green iguana.

Thanks to DNA sampling that spawned a scientific paper in which FF has contributed, both iguana species were formally recognized as endemic, threatened by extinction with its numbers down to less than a hundred. Without CITES permits from their respective country of origin, it is illegal to trade either of the two iguanas internationally.

The team is working on conserving these two lizards and also the Central American horned iguana, which are known to be invasive alien species on many islands in the region, as they breed rapidly hybridizing with the native lizards.

FFI and SV Forestry Department collected data and photographed the iguanas across St Vincent and the Grenadines to further analyze them. The results showed conclusively that the two iguanas are indeed new species.
This new species is named the Southern Antilles iguana, which has a cluster of horns on the nose, a high crest, and dark-brown eyes. FFI is already involved in conserving this newly recognized species, based on their ongoing efforts to safeguard two of its subspecies, the Saint Lucia iguana and Grenadines pink rhino iguana.

They All Look Almost the Same!

It is more complicated in identifying the new species because they are virtually indistinguishable from those of the native pure-bred Southern Antilles iguanas. All of the juvenile iguanas in the Eastern Caribbean are bright green, making it harder for conservationists and law enforcers to tell which species is which.

According to Pius Haynes, Head of Wildlife at the Saint Lucia Forestry Department and a co-author of one of the papers, Saint Lucia iguana is used to be called "Iyanola," which means the Land of the Iguanas. He also said that iguanas play an important role in forest regeneration through dispersing seeds.

The Director of the SVG Forestry Department, Fitzgerald Providence, emphasized the need to "work with conservation organizations such as FFI and the island communities and establishing legislation and policies to protect their islands' biological diversity.

Dr. Jenny Daltry, FFI Senior Conservation Biologist, and a fellow co-author said that "Caribbean iguanas are in grave danger because of invasive alien species habitat loss and over-hunting for bushmeat and the pet trade.”

Meanwhile, Redonda has also been confirmed as an entirely separate species, known as the melanistic or Saban black iguana.
___________________________________
4) Lawmakers fighting to control uninvited Pests
By Michael Salerno, Daily Sun Senior Writer

First observed in Florida in 1976, African redhead agamas were introduced to the state via the exotic pet trade. The agamas compete with the native green anole for food and habitat.
Charles J Sharp, Wikimedia Commons

Bad enough Florida has giant snakes that eat everything. But now, wildlife managers also are facing explosions of the African redhead agama, or “rainbow lizard,” first spotted in South Florida but also known to go as far north as Duval County. And the emergence this month of the Asian giant hornet, or “murder hornet,” out West became a national curiosity. It hasn’t hit Florida, but fear and hysteria over the “murder hornet” could threaten beneficial native insects. Florida is the most vulnerable state to invasive species threats, and the animals and plants that don’t belong continue to wreak expensive ecological havoc on the state. It costs at least $500 million annually for Florida to manage invasive species, according to a joint report from the National Park Service and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

That’s a large share of a high national cost — $127 billion per year for nationwide management efforts, according to a 2017 Congressional Research Service report.

And the problem persists despite all management efforts because warming temperatures are causing the species that establish here to migrate north, said Josh Grau, vice president of the environmental group Ending Non-Native Destructive Species

Taking action nationally

Fortunately, stopping invasive species in Florida is an issue gaining more national ground.

It now has the attention of Florida’s U.S. senators, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, who teamed up to introduce the SLITHER Act (SLITHER short for “Suppressing Looming Invasive Threats Harming Everglades Restoration”).

Their legislation, included in the America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2020, aims to combat significant threats to biodiversity in South Florida, including Burmese pythons and giant lizards like the Argentine tegus and Nile monitors.

“Even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the Senate is taking important steps to protect and improve Florida’s ecosystems,” Rubio said in a statement.

Burmese pythons, native to Southeast Asia, are giant snakes known to compete with native predators for food and habitat, and eat many imperiled animals critical to the Everglades ecosystem, according to the Everglades Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area.

They can even eat large animals like alligators and deer.
It’s hard to hunt them down because of how they camouflage themselves within the grasses of the Everglades, and hard to manage their populations because a single female Burmese python may lay from 50 to 100 eggs at once, according to FWC.
“We’ve successfully fought to fund projects that preserve and protect our Everglades, but this progress is threatened by invasive species,” Scott said in a tweet.

The America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2020, including the SLITHER Act, was referred to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. A hearing date for the legislation hasn’t been set yet.

The SLITHER Act isn’t the first time the issue of invasive species in the Everglades received national attention this year.
In January, FWC and the South Florida Water Management District co-organized a Burmese python hunt with the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee called the Python Bowl, which tied in with Miami’s hosting of the Super Bowl.

Hunters captured and removed 80 pythons during the 10-day challenge, according to FWC.

Battling emerging threats

Despite legislative actions and species removal challenges, it’s hard to keep up with established and up-and-coming invaders.
Recently, South Florida residents started noticing an explosion of African redhead agamas, also known as “rainbow lizards” because of their red-orange heads, dark blue bodies and multicolored tails.
Agamas aren’t new to Florida — FWC first observed them in 1976, introduced via the exotic pet trade — but their population growth is, said Grau, of ENNDS.

During a phone call with a Daily Sun reporter, Grau noticed five agamas roaming in his yard.

“We went from seeing one or two sporadically to, I have 20 or 30 that live in my yard all the time,” he said. “When we first started seeing them, we could manage them.”

Agama sightings were confirmed in 27 Florida counties, with the most reported in Martin, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, according to the Early Detection and Distribution Mapping System, a project of the University of Georgia that tracks invasive species nationwide.

Only two sightings occurred in the tri-county area, one in 2014 in Marion County and another in 2017 in Lake County, the data showed.

Grau thinks the agamas, as well as the giant, cold-resistant tegu lizards, are proliferating in greater numbers today because of warmer winters in recent years.

“We’re not getting the frosts that we would before,” he said.
The problem with African redhead agamas is that they compete with the native green anole for food and habitat, Grau said.
And green anole populations already are suffering because of competition from another invasive lizard, the Cuban brown anole, he said.

Jim Davis, director of the University of Florida’s Sumter County Extension Office, listed brown anoles as one of the invasive species Villagers may encounter in the tri-county area.
Other local threats include red imported fire ants, Africanized bees and feral hogs.

The displacement of native species is one of the reasons invasives damage Florida’s environment, Davis said.

“Some carry diseases,” he said. “They can eat anything, even each other. Look at feral hogs, they disturb the ground with all the digging they do, it looks bad and it could prevent the growth of native plants. It could introduce weeds, and fire ants love those.”
Not every nuisance animal Florida is tracking crawls on the ground.

Others fly and sting.

The Asian giant hornet, which was recently found in Washington state and gained national attention for its nickname “murder hornet,” are known to prey on honeybees at the entrances of their hives, according to Amy Vu and Jamie Ellis of UF’s Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory.

Up close, the hornet has a large orange-red and yellow head with prominent black eyes.

But it easily can be confused for other beneficial insects like the European hornet, cicada killer and baldface hornet, which are pollinator species and function as a biological control for nuisance species in the environment, Vu said.

“When you look at them up close, you can see the difference,” she said. “But when you see them outside, it’s a different story.”

Entomologists worry that people may misidentify beneficial insects as the “murder hornet” and kill them if they see them.
But they shouldn’t be a worry to Floridians at the moment, as Vu and Ellis stated they haven’t been found anywhere in the U.S. outside of Washington state.
___________________________________
5) What to do with a 20-foot python? Coronavirus puts the squeeze on unusual museum

Susan Nowicke, president of EcoVivarium, with a green iguana named Chance.(Don Boomer)

EcoVivarium was planning to move its 250 reptiles and amphibians into bigger quarters when the coronavirus hit. What now?
By JOHN WILKENS
MAY 29, 20206 AM
This was supposed to be a time of dreams coming true at the EcoVivarium, a living museum in Escondido that’s home to 250 snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodiles, frogs and spiders.

For a decade, museum President Susan Nowicke and her small staff did hands-on animal presentations at schools and fairs and hosted tours, birthday parties and other events at the museum to spark “awareness, understanding and respect” for reptiles and amphibians that are routinely feared and reviled.

They’d been successful enough to outgrow their 1,800 square-foot storefront on a downtown side street and eye a lease-purchase agreement for a 10,000 square-foot building on Grand Avenue, which would enable them to provide more space for the animals and offer more workshops and labs.

Earlier this year, they gave notice to the landlord that the nonprofit museum would leave its current space when the lease expired at the end of May. “The future looked so bright,” Nowicke said.

Then the novel coronavirus arrived, evaporating the museum’s revenue stream. In a period of two weeks, they lost bookings for 280 presentations, 10 assemblies and 15 birthday parties. They had to shutter the museum as a nonessential business.

“All that money, gone,” Nowicke said.

The animals, meanwhile, still have to be fed. So funds that had been set aide for the move went instead to food and other supplies, she said, and the deal for the new building fell through because they could no longer afford to rent it.

Cost is an issue in the existing storefront, too, she said, and with the five-year lease expiring Sunday, they are scrambling to figure out what to do with Bunny, a 20-foot python, Ana, a 100-pound anaconda, Mac, an 8-foot monitor lizard, and all the others — glass case after glass case after glass case of critters that slither and crawl and creep.

Nowicke said she’s in negotiations with another building owner downtown on a lease that would allow the museum to defer rent payments until it gets back on its feet. As a fallback, she said, there’s a small warehouse they might be able to use temporarily to house the animals while they continue to hunt for new museum space.

Or….

“When I started all this, I had the animals at home, about 90 of them,” Nowicke said. “I would be hard-pressed to be able to do that now, but if that’s what it comes down to, that’s what will have to happen.”
She sighed.

“When you’re dealing with animals,” she said, “there’s never a dull moment.”

Into their world

This started with earthworms.

As child, Nowicke caught them outside her home and dumped them on the kitchen table to watch them wiggle. Before too long she discovered something that liked to eat worms: frogs.

“And I was on my way,” she said.

She home-schooled a daughter with special needs who seemed to do better at science and other subjects if there was an animal involved. She got involved with and helped run the San Diego Herpetological Society, founded in 1978 to support collectors and breeders and educate the public about reptiles and amphibians.

In 2009, she created EcoVivarium and started taking animals into schools for presentations. The money she made kept the animals fed and allowed her to expand her collection. Six years later, she opened the living museum and educational center on Juniper Street.

Many of the animals there are “rescues,” donated by people who misunderstood what they were getting into when they bought them as pets. Some were discovered along the side of a road, or confiscated by authorities for health or legal reasons. Many are rare or endangered.
One of the turtles got orphaned after it upset its owner by eating $500 worth of koi babies in a pond. A green iguana was donated by a young man who found it in his grandmother’s garden as a boy, raised it through childhood, and then had to give it up when he went off to college.

In the museum, volunteers built display cases with windows recycled from a housing project. They were placed along a snake-like path to give visitors a sense of different habitats — desert, grassland, swamp.

One large enclosure had a glass dome in the middle of the floor where visitors could stick their heads up for a closer look. There was a tree near one door with shed snake skins dangling from the branches.

But the main attraction was the chance to touch and hold the animals. At birthday parties, the guest of honor sometimes got to walk Mac the monitor lizard around on a leash.

The museum’s motto is “Step into their world,” and Nowicke said visitors often leave with a greater understanding of the cultural, historical and ecological significance of the creatures.

And those who left often told their friends. That meant more visitors, more school assemblies, more presentations at fairs and festivals. And big plans for the future.
“Then the coronavirus just knocked the wind out of our sails,” Nowicke said.

COVID behavior

Like countless other institutions, the museum has moved some of its offerings online. There are bi-weekly animal encounters on Facebook, “Virtual Education Programs” on Zoom. Under the state’s guidelines, indoor museums have to wait until Stage 3 to reopen; San Diego County is now in Stage 2.

Nowicke said they’re using the downtime to assess their organizational structure and make improvements in how they’ll operate moving forward.

But the coronavirus has also brought them additional animals to care for. Some people who have lost their jobs can no longer afford exotic pets and are relinquishing them.

“In these troubling times, we don’t want to turn people away,” she said.

Several of the veteran “animal ambassadors” at the museum are showing signs of stress from the decreased interactions with humans. They’re acting out -- crushing overhead lights, splashing water from tanks, biting.

“It’s COVID behavior,” Nowicke said.

Early on, she furloughed her handful of staff members, but they come to work anyway. Some have dipped into their wallets to help pay for food.

“I’m optimistic we’ll get this all worked out and get back to letting people see these remarkable animals,” Nowicke said.

Then she added a comment that feels universal these days: “Right now, we’re under the gun.”
__________________________________________
6) Spring brings snapping turtle sightings

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Farm And Dairy News- May 28, 2020

May and June in Pennsylvania bring increased sightings of snapping turtles as these ancient reptiles leave their normal aquatic habitat to lay eggs on land. Since these turtles are abundant across the entire state, they are a common sight among pond owners.

These turtles are typically shy and prone to swim away from humans when they are in water, but they are often more aggressive when encountered on land during their spring egg laying. The combination of their scary, dinosaur-like appearance and their aggressive spring-time behavior often results in their untimely death by fearful pond owners.

While snapping turtles may not be welcome at many ponds, they do play an important role in the pond “clean-up crew” by scavenging dead and decaying organic debris and nuisance aquatic plants.

A better understanding of their role, life cycle, and feeding habits often results in a new-found respect and coexistence between “snappers” and pond owners and an overall healthier pond ecosystem.

Identification and life cycle

If you see a turtle swimming in your pond or resting on the bottom with its head above water, there is a good chance that it is a snapping turtle.

They are characterized by a long, toothed tail, large head and neck, and relatively small shell compared to other turtles. The head is dominated by a prominent curved jaw. Their especially long necks and jaws allow them to easily bite and catch prey, but it also makes them more difficult to catch and carry.

Large snappers often have algae growing on the top of their shell, especially in the mid to late summer.

Snapping turtles become more visible in May and June when they make a brief appearance on land to lay eggs. During their time on land, snapping turtles should be avoided if possible.

They are most uncomfortable and prone to aggression when they are out of water — even known to hiss loudly at any perceived threat.

If you must handle a snapping turtle (perhaps to move one from imminent danger on a road), the safest method to avoid a bite is to pick them up from their back legs. But be careful of their clawed feet which can be quite sharp, especially on larger turtles.

Females deposit a few dozen eggs in a shallow nest in loose soil or vegetation sometimes at quite a distance from the closest pond or stream. Their nesting success is often quite low because many eggs are ultimately lost to predators like skunks or other mammals.

Hatchlings appear in mid-summer, about two to three months after the eggs are laid.

Like most turtles, snapping turtles grow slowly but they do represent the largest turtle species in Pennsylvania often approaching 40 or 50 pounds in old age. Larger turtles are usually more than 20 years old with some approaching 50 years old.

Old snappers can be quite scary in appearance with a large, hooked jaw like the one pictured here.

Through the summer you are likely to see them swimming or floating in the pond or sitting quietly in shallow water on the pond bottom. Snapping turtles prefer ponds to streams, especially if the pond has lots of tasty aquatic plants and soft bottom sediments or “muck.”

They are more active at night but are commonly seen during the day. During the winter, snapping turtles hibernate under water, usually in the bottom sediment of ponds, lakes, or streams or under nearby vegetation or mud.

Villain, nuisance or just plain misunderstood? While some pond owners enjoy watching snapping turtles, many consider them a nuisance.

Penn State Extension surveys of pond owners over the past few decades have found that 42% complain of at least one nuisance wildlife species. The most common complaints are for Canada geese and muskrats with snapping turtles among the top five species.

Many pond owners fear snapping turtles, but only a handful in the Penn State surveys had any personal knowledge of a person being bitten by a snapping turtle.

In some cases, this fear may be perceived from the angry appearance of their large, curved jaws. In others, it may come from observing a snapping turtle catching and/or consuming fish or wildlife.

But many pond owners fail to understand the vital role that snappers play in the pond food web and ecosystem. They are opportunistic eaters with a varied diet that is dominated by aquatic plants but also includes dead or dying fish, organic debris, insects and small animals.

They are probably most notorious for their ability to catch and consume domestic or wild waterfowl like Canada geese although this is a minor part of their diet.

They will occasionally eat a healthy fish, but they are unlikely to have enough of a detrimental impact to the overall fishery to warrant the disdain give to them by some fishermen.
While snapping turtles will aggressively protect themselves on land where they are slow and more vulnerable, they tend to avoid humans while in the water, usually diving below the water surface for escape and cover of the bottom sediments and weeds.

Snapping turtle control

While snapping turtles are valued for their ability to keep ponds clean, there are many instances where pond owners seek to control their population.
Their relative abundance allows for liberal harvest regulations in Pennsylvania. Their meat is also sought after for snapper soup and is even commercially sold to some restaurants or other vendors.

Commercial sale of snapping turtle meat requires a Commercial Turtle Permit through the PA Fish and Boat Commission. Snapping turtle meat is considered tasty by many, but it is important to remove as much fat as possible.
The fat adds a very poor taste and is also more likely to accumulate pollutants from the turtle’s habitat. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission considers snapping turtle meat to be safe consume if fat and internal organs are removed.

In Pennsylvania, a fishing license is required to harvest snapping turtles. Up to 15 can be legally harvested daily between July 1 through Oct. 31.

Most pond owners use turtle hooks mandated as a hook that is at least 3.5 inches long with at least one inch between the tip and shank baited with various types of meat.

This hook design prevents other types of protected or endangered turtles from being mistakenly caught. Turtle hooks should be connected to heavy monofilament line or wire. Turtles can also be caught with setlines, turtle traps, or other devices but these must be tagged with contact information for the owner.

These devices must be designed to allow other species of turtles to escape or be released.

The specific requirements and regulations for harvesting snapping turtles are explained at the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission website. While snapping turtles can look and act the part of a pond villain, consider the important role they play in the overall health of your pond or lake before you decide to remove them.

In ponds where they have become too abundant or interfere with other pond uses, be sure to follow state regulations when harvesting snapping turtles.

________________________________________________________


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HerpDigest Volume # 23 Issue #28 6/17/20
FREE NEWSLETTER COVERING THE LATEST NEWS ON REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS
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HERPDIGEST IS A NON-PROFIT 501 C 3 CORPORATION- Is supported by your donations. Publication in HerpDigest does not reflect an endorsement of what is said or implied in said article. HD’s mission is to try to supply the herp community with relevant, interesting information on the conservation, science and different cultural attitudes toward herps around the world.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1)Fossil Footprints Suggest Ancient Crocodile Walked on Two Legs
The lumbering crocodylomorph lived during the early Cretaceous period, about 106 million years ago

2) Shining like a diamond: A new species of diamond frog from northern Madagascar

3) World’s most complete health analysis of nesting sea turtles conducted in Florida-Study provides critical data for sea turtle conservation and population recovery

4) Study evaluates stress level of rehabilitated sea turtles during transport

__________________________________________________________________
1)Fossil Footprints Suggest Ancient Crocodile Walked on Two Legs
The lumbering crocodylomorph lived during the early Cretaceous period, about 106 million years ago


Reconstruction of Batrachopus trackmaker from the Lower Cretaceous Jinju Formation of South Korea (Anthony Romilio, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

By Theresa Machemer
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM JUNE 16, 2020

A prehistoric ancestor of the crocodile may have walked on two legs, according to a paper published on June 11 in Scientific Reports.

The new research focuses on large footprints in the Jinju rock formation in South Korea. A 2012 investigation of large, poorly defined footprints suggested that they might have come from a flying reptile called a pterosaur, but clearer footprints discovered recently changed the story. The new footprints capture the shape of the ancient creature’s toes and the texture of its skin, both of which are classically crocodilian. But the footprints had another curious feature: there were only prints from back feet.

To paleontologist Martin Lockley, who specializes in trace fossils at the University of Colorado Denver, the lack of front footprints probably means that the ancient crocodile walked only on its back legs. “We have dozens of these things, and not one sign of a front footprint, so we’re pretty convinced,” Lockley tells Science News.

The tracks are between seven and ten inches long and the animal that left them was probably similar in size to modern crocodiles. It lived during the early Cretaceous period, about 106-million years ago. (The late Cretaceous saw the lifetimes of several dinosaur celebrities like Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops and Iguanadon.) The muddy, lake-covered coastal area where the ancient crocodylomorphs lived was a prime location to preserve.

footprints, Tim Vernimmen writes for National Geographic, and thousands of tracks can be found there today.



The texture of the animal's skin and the blunt shape of its toes suggest that it's an ancient relative of the crocodile. (Kyung Soo Kim, Chinju National University of Education, Kyungnam, South Korea.)

“When Martin Lockley visited the site in November 2019, I asked him what he thought of these tracks,” Kyung Soo Kim of Chinju National University of Education in Jinju tells National Geographic. “He immediately suggested that they were of the type known as Batrachopus, a crocodylian. I didn't believe it at that time, because I couldn't imagine a bipedal crocodile. But later, I was convinced by the blunt toes, the toe pads, and the details of the skin.”

The find came as a surprise. Paleontologists have found evidence of bipedal crocodiles before in North Carolina, but that animal lived about 231 million years ago, per Science News. That places it during the Triassic period, or at least 70 million years before the Cretaceous.

“No one knew that large bipedal crocs existed in the early Cretaceous,” Lockley tells New Scientist’s Layal Liverpool.
The new footprints suggest that the previously discovered tracks belong to an ancient crocodile, too. But based on the tracks it left behind, the creature was unlike modern crocodiles in more ways than one. For one thing, the tracks it left behind show that the animal put its feet one in front of the other as it walked, instead of keeping each foot in its own lane like modern crocs, National Geographic reports. And the fossilized footprints show no sign of webbing between the toes, which modern crocs have, per New Scientist.

Stony Brook University paleontologist Pedro Godoy tells New Scientist that while he agrees that the tracks don’t belong to a pterosaur, the unusually large size of the tracks makes him think that more evidence is necessary to link them to an ancient crocodile. But to Emory University paleontologist Anthony Martin, the evidence is convincing.

“[The imprints] really do look like they were made by big crocodilians,” Martin, who was not involved in the new study, tells National Geographic. “Indeed, by ones that were walking on their rear feet and on land. That’s pretty weird. But then again, the Cretaceous was a weird and wondrous time.”
_______________________________________________________
2) Shining like a diamond: A new species of diamond frog from northern Madagascar
Date: June 16, 2020
Source: Pensoft Publishers
Summary: Despite the active ongoing taxonomic progress on the Madagascar frogs, the amphibian inventory of this hyper-diverse island is still very far from being complete. More new species are constantly being discovered, often within already well-studied areas. So, in one of the relatively well-studied parks in northern Madagascar, a new species of diamond frog, Rhombophryne ellae, was found in 2017.

FULL STORY
Active ongoing taxonomic progress on Madagascar's frogs, the amphibian inventory of this hyper-diverse island is still very far from being complete. The known diversity of the diamond frog genus Rhombophryne in Madagascar has increased significantly (more than doubled!) over the last 10 years, but still there are several undescribed candidate species awaiting description. New species are constantly being discovered in Madagascar, often even within already well-studied areas. One such place is the Montagne d'Ambre National Park in northern Madagascar.

Montagne d'Ambre National Park is widely known for its endemic flora and fauna, waterfalls and crater lakes, and considered to be a relatively well-studied area. Yet, only two studies have been published so far on the reptiles and amphibians of the Park.

Serving the pursuit of knowledge of the herpetofauna in the region, Germany-based herpetologist Dr. Mark D. Scherz (Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, Technical University of Braunschweig, University of Konstanz) published a description of a new diamond frog species: Rhombophryne ellae, in the open-access journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.

"As soon as I saw this frog, I knew it was a new species," shares Dr. Scherz, "The orange flash-markings on the legs and the large black spots on the hip made it immediately obvious to me. During my Master's and PhD research, I studied this genus and described several species, and there are no described species with such orange legs, and only few species have these black markings on the hip. It's rare that we find a frog and are immediately able to recognise that it is a new species without having to wait for the DNA sequence results to come back, so this was elating.”

The new species is most closely related to a poorly-known and still undescribed species from Tsaratanana in northern Madagascar, but is otherwise quite different from all other diamond frogs. With the orange colouration on its legs, Rhombophryne ellae joins the growing list of frogs that have red to orange flash-markings. The function of this striking colouration remains unknown, despite having evolved repeatedly in frogs, including numerous times in Madagascar's narrow-mouthed frogs alone.

"The discovery of such a distinctive species within a comparatively well-studied park points towards the gaps in our knowledge of the amphibians of the tropics. It also highlights the role that bad weather, especially cyclones, can play in bringing otherwise hidden frogs out of hiding -- Rhombophryne ellae was caught just as Cyclone Ava was moving in on Madagascar, and several other species my colleagues and I have recently described were also caught under similar cyclonic conditions," says Dr. Scherz.

The species is known so far only from a single specimen, making it difficult to estimate its conservation status. Yet, based on the status of other, related frogs from the same area, it will probably be Red-listed as Near Threatened due to its presumably small range and micro-endemicity.

Story Source:
Materials provided by Pensoft Publishers. The original story is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:
1. Mark D. Scherz. Diamond frogs forever: a new species of Rhombophryne Boettger, 1880 (Microhylidae, Cophylinae) from Montagne d’Ambre National Park, northern Madagascar. Zoosystematics and Evolution, 2020; 96 (2): 313 DOI: 10.3897/zse.96.51372
__________________________________________________________3) World’s most complete health analysis of nesting sea turtles conducted in Florida-Study provides critical data for sea turtle conservation and population recovery
Date: June 16, 2020
Source: Florida Atlantic University

While it's only about a 10-kilometer stretch, Juno Beach is home to one of the largest aggregations of nesting green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) in Florida and is one of the highest-density nesting beaches in the state. Although this high-profile turtle population has routinely been monitored for nest counts since 1989, an in-depth health assessment of these turtles has never been conducted.

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Loggerhead Marinelife Center have conducted the most comprehensive health assessment for a green turtle rookery in the world to date. Findings from the study provide critical insights into various aspects of physiology, biology, and herpesvirus epidemiology of this nesting population and are especially timely as the world observes "Sea Turtle Day.”

Results, recently published in the journal Endangered Species Research, are hopeful for this population of green sea turtles in southeastern Florida and offer important data on the profile of health for future comparative investigations.

"Effective conservation measures cannot take place unless the animals we are trying to protect are healthy," said Annie Page-Karjian, D.V.M., Ph.D., lead author, assistant research professor and clinical veterinarian at FAU's Harbor Branch. "Chronological and longitudinal studies of biology, physiology, and overall health in both free-ranging and captive populations are critical for supporting large-scale efforts to promote sea turtle population recovery.”

A total of 4,343 green turtle nests were documented on Juno Beach in 2017, which was the busiest nesting year on record for this beach.

For the study, researchers collected blood samples from 60 female green turtles that nested on Juno Beach in 2017. They evaluated a broad suite of biological and health data, including measures of reproductive success, morphometrics, hematology, plasma chemistry, plasma protein fractions, haptoglobin, corticosterone, and measures of oxidative stress, antioxidative capacity, and innate immunity. They also tested for two herpesviruses of green turtles, ChHV5 and ChHV6, which are implicated in fibro-papillomatosis (FP) and respiratory and skin disease, respectively. FP is a debilitating disease of sea turtles characterized by neoplastic growths on the skin, shell, and/or internal organs.

Results showed that all 60 turtles included in the study were in good body condition with no external FP tumors. Five of the 60 turtles (8 percent) tested positive for ChHV5 and all turtles were negative for ChHV6. Of the 41 turtles tested for antibodies to ChHV5 and ChHV6, 29 percent and 15 percent tested positive, respectively, and 10 percent tested positive for antibodies to both viruses. Notably, there were no statistically significant differences between health variables for nesting turtles that tested positive for ChHV5 DNA versus those that tested negative; and also no differences between turtles that tested positive for ChHV5 or ChHV6 antibodies and those that did not. Findings from the study suggest that these viruses are endemically stable in Florida's adult green sea turtles.

Researchers differentiated between previous viral infection versus recent infection/reactivation, and evaluated the results alongside health analytes to understand whether either infection state was associated with detectable physiological changes.

"The fitness of the turtles examined for this study is likely representative of the health of the ecosystems in which they forage and the oceanic corridors through which they migrate," said Page-Karjian. "As human activities continue to affect sea turtle population recovery, these comprehensive baseline data from our study will provide a valuable resource for evaluating the impacts of various stressors such as habitat degradation on the population over time and will help inform wildlife and environmental policy management.”

Green turtles are the second most common sea turtle species to nest on the coast of Florida, after loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta). Sea turtles are considered to be sentinel species of environmental health, whereby sea turtle health is thought to reflect the health of the ecosystems they inhabit. Thus, examining sea turtle health is an important component of any coastal ecosystem health survey that includes sea turtle developmental, foraging, and/or nesting habitat(s).
Conservation threats to sea turtles in Florida are numerous, and include habitat encroachment and pollution, illegal harvesting, artificial beach lighting and coastal armoring, and human interactions such as entanglement, hook ingestion, and boat strike trauma. Diseases, including FP, also directly threaten sea turtle conservation.

Story Source:
Materials provided by Florida Atlantic University. Original written by Gisele Galoustian. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:
1. A Page-Karjian, R Chabot, NI Stacy, AS Morgan, RA Valverde, S Stewart, CM Coppenrath, CA Manire, LH Herbst, CR Gregory, BW Ritchie, JR Perrault. Comprehensive health assessment of green turtles Chelonia mydas nesting in southeastern Florida, USA. Endangered Species Research, 2020; 42: 21 DOI: 10.3354/esr01036

__________________________________________________________
4) Study evaluates stress level of rehabilitated sea turtles during transport
Date: June 16, 2020
Source:New England Aquarium

A new study co-authored by six scientists with the New England Aquarium has found that rehabilitated Kemp's ridley and loggerhead sea turtles experience a substantial stress response when transported to release locations in the southern United States but that the turtles remained physically stable and ready for release.

Every year, dozens and even hundreds of "cold-stunned" turtles are treated at the Aquarium's Quincy Animal Care Center for a variety of life-threatening medical conditions that result from weeks of hypothermia and the inability to feed during stranding season. Typically, the stranding season begins in early November and runs through early January when New England water temperatures quickly turn cold and the turtles get stuck on the north side of Cape Cod. The turtles are then rescued and rehabilitated for two to eight months. When the time comes to be released back into the wild, the turtles must enter the ocean at beaches with appropriate water temperatures, often requiring transportation to southeastern states by climate controlled SUV or van. These transports may take up to 24 hours, and can induce a stress response.

"As for humans, traveling many hours over long distances can be stressful for turtles. We wanted to characterize the degree of the stress response and document whether the turtles were still in good condition after such a long trip," said Dr. Charles Innis, Director of Animal Health at the New England Aquarium.

Until now, the full impact of the transport process was unclear. In this new study, led by Dr. Kathleen Hunt of George Mason University and published in the journal Integrated Organismal Biology, all turtles had stranded in a cold-stunned state along the shore of Cape Cod Bay between October and December of 2011-2017 and were rehabilitated at the Aquarium's Animal Care Center for six to eight months. During trips to release the turtles back into the wild, scientists studied the responses of Kemp's ridley and loggerhead turtles before and after vehicle transport for under six hours, 12 hours, 18 hours, and 24 hours, gathering blood samples.

The researchers found that transport induced a physiological stress response for both sea turtle species. The duration of those transports significantly affected the stress responses, with both species showing more pronounced changes on longer journeys. Importantly, despite the findings, both turtle species in the study remained in good clinical condition based on evaluation of vital signs and blood data, even after 24-hour transport. Nonetheless, the researchers suggest that minimizing transport time, when possible, may help to ensure that rehabilitated turtles are released into the ocean under the best possible conditions.

"Results of this study will be used to ensure that sea turtle transports are conducted under controlled environments and at safe durations," said Connie Merigo, Marine Animal Rescue Department Manager. "This study will be helpful to the global community of sea turtle rehabilitators, veterinarians, researchers and biologists."


Story Source:
Materials provided by New England Aquarium. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:
1. C Innis, K McNally, J Wocial, L Lory, A Kennedy, D Davis, C Loren Buck, E A Burgess, C Merigo, K E Hunt. Effects of Ground Transport in Kemp’s Ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) and Loggerhead (Caretta caretta) Turtles. Integrative Organismal Biology, 2020; 2 (1) DOI: 10.1093/iob/obaa012

______________________________________Wish to make a donation to HerpDigest? You can by either of two ways:
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Allen Salzberg
Publisher/Editor of HerpDigest
Free Email Newsletter Reporting on
Latest Herp Conservation and Scientific News (www.herpdigest.org)
Conservation Chairperson for New York Turtle & Tortoise Society
Member of IUCN Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle IUCN Species Survival Group
https://www.facebook.com/dartden/

https://twitter.com/DartDen


"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana".
Reply
HerpDigest Volume # 23 Issue #32 8/14/20
FREE NEWSLETTER COVERING THE LATEST NEWS ON REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS
_______________________________________
HERPDIGEST IS A NON-PROFIT 501 C 3 CORPORATION- Is supported by your donations. Publication in HerpDigest does not reflect an endorsement of what is said or implied in said article. HD’s mission is to try to supply the herp community with relevant, interesting information on the conservation, science and different cultural attitudes toward herps around the world.
_______________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1) PhD course in Reptile Biology Offered at USC (Course will concentrate on turtles)

2) DNR: Effort underway to protect snake, frogs, lizards

3) Feds: High Extinction Risk for All Seven Leatherback Sea Turtle Populations

4) Natural selection in action: Hurricanes Irma and Maria affected island lizards

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1) PhD course in Reptile Biology Offered at USC (Course will concentrate on turtles)

The University of Southern California program in Integrative and Evolutionary Biology invites applications from outstanding applicants to a PhD course in Reptile Biology. We seek potential doctoral students specializing in the areas of chelonian and possibly other reptilian behavior ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation biology. Students are expected to conduct original field research in areas of biology including but not limited to ecology, behavior, physiology, morphology, reproductive biology and genetics. Funding is available for qualified applicants from fellowships and teaching assistantships. Application deadline is 1 December 2020 for entry to the program in August 2021.

The University particularly encourages women and members of underrepresented groups to apply. For further information please consult the webpages for the program: https://dornsife.usc.edu/bisc/admissions/; and contact Dr. Craig Stanford; stanford@usc.edu
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2) DNR: Effort underway to protect snake, frogs, lizards

Roberta Baumann, Lake Mills Leader, 8/14/20

New efforts are underway to help Wisconsin’s “creepy crawlies” — native frogs, salamanders, lizards and snakes — from perishing under the wheels of cars and trucks.

Wisconsin residents and visitors are being asked to report road crossings where these reptiles and amphibians are found dead or alive to help better understand where their populations occur and to save more of them in the future. The new reporting form is now available on the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ Reptiles and Amphibians webpage.

“Our goal is to fill in gaps of where these animals are found in Wisconsin and how they’re doing in the state so we can better protect them,” said Rich Staffen, a DNR Natural Heritage Conservation Program zoologist. “We also want to identify high road mortality areas where we can work to incorporate mitigation efforts to diminish the threats to them.”

Rori Paloski, a DNR Natural Heritage Conservation biologist, says that reducing road kills can help protect Wisconsin’s herptiles. The term herptile encompasses amphibians and reptiles.

“Most amphibians and reptiles migrate between different habitats throughout the year, which unfortunately means they must often cross roads,” Paloski said. “Road crossings pose challenges for animals, but it is also a time when citizens are most likely to see the animals and can therefore help us gather information.”

The roadkill reporting effort for snakes, salamanders, lizards and frogs is modeled after DNR’s well-established Wisconsin Turtle Conservation Program, which encourages people to report particularly deadly road crossings for turtles. Since that effort started in 2012, people have provided nearly 3,000 turtle crossing location reports and DNR has identified 47 of those sites as particularly deadly for turtles and worked with partners to reduce mortality rates there.

Putting the brakes on decreasing reptile and amphibian numbers

Many snake populations have declined in Wisconsin due to habitat loss and human persecution; 13 of Wisconsin’s 21 snake species are considered “rare” and listed as endangered, threatened or special concern.

“Snakes play very important roles in many ecosystems as predator and prey and they help farmers by keeping grain-eating mammals in check,” Staffen said. “They also reduce disease threats posed by high rodent populations.”

Three of Wisconsin’s four lizard species are in trouble, including the legless and endangered slender glass lizard.

Wisconsin is home to 12 species of frogs including the American toad. A few species have relatively stable populations but many have declined throughout the state due to habitat destruction and fragmentation.

Wisconsin has seven different species of salamanders, one considered “special concern” because of uncertain population numbers. These secretive animals are often undetected by humans but live most of their lives on land, returning to aquatic habitats only for breeding.
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3) Feds: High Extinction Risk for All Seven Leatherback Sea Turtle Populations

Atlantic Population Faces 50% Drop by 2050, Pacific Declining 5% Annually

Contact- Chatherine Kilduff, (202) 780-8862, CKilduffl@biologicaldiveristy.org

WASHINGTON, DC — For Immediate release 8/10/20

A new review of leatherback sea turtle science concludes that seven distinct populations of leatherback sea turtles face a high extinction risk. The National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today a finding that all seven leatherback sea turtle populations remain endangered, denying a petition by the commercial fishing industry to relax some protections.

If trends continue, the review found, U.S. leatherback sea turtles in the Atlantic will decline by half within 30 years. Pacific annual nest counts at the two most important beaches (Jamursba-Medi and Wermon, both in Indonesia) declined annually by 5.7% and 2.3% respectively in the most recent monitoring period.

“Giant leatherback sea turtles won’t make it into the next century unless we help them now,” said Catherine Kilduff, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This announcement shows we’re not doing enough to save leatherback sea turtles or protect their habitat. To save these magnificent creatures, we have to confront the problems they face, from climate change and plastic pollution to lethal entanglement in fishing nets.”

Today’s announcement confirmed that seven distinct populations of leatherback sea turtles exist around the world, and all meet the definition for endangered species. The species is already listed as endangered throughout its range under the Endangered Species Act. The Services did not propose changes to the existing global listing.

Fishing gear remains the primary threat to leatherback sea turtles. The vast majority of deaths occur outside of U.S. waters, in gillnet fisheries off the nesting beaches in Trinidad.

Leatherback entanglements off the U.S. East Coast are regular occurrences. A recent video of U.S. marine authorities freeing an entangled leatherback shows how difficult rescues can be. Estimates indicate that approximately 622,000 vertical lines are deployed from fishing gear in U.S. waters from Georgia to the Gulf of Maine. There are currently no mitigation measures to prevent leatherback entanglements in vertical fishing lines in the Atlantic.

Off the U.S. West Coast, whale-watch trips observed three leatherback sea turtles in the past week in Monterey Bay. The California Fish and Game Commission will meet next week to vote on whether to protect leatherback sea turtles under the California Endangered Species Act.

The Center has brought two recent lawsuits to protect leatherback sea turtles off California. The Center won its challenge to federal longline fishing permits issued for vessels off the U.S. West Coast in 2019. It sued the state wildlife department in 2017 for failing to prevent the commercial Dungeness crab fishery from entangling and killing endangered whales and leatherback sea turtles. In 2019 California officials agreed to evaluate the risk of leatherback sea turtle entanglement when deciding whether to open and close the fishery.

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4) Natural selection in action: Hurricanes Irma and Maria affected island lizards
Holding on in hurricane-force winds. Colin Donihue, CC BY-ND

by Colin Donihue, Harvard University, 8/13/20
THE CONVERSATION

The Turks and Caicos anole is a small brown lizard found running through the undergrowth in the Turks and Caicos Islands. It’s an endemic species, meaning these few islands are the only place to find Anolis scriptus anywhere in the world. Despite the species being fairly common there, scientists know relatively little about its behavior, diet, detailed physical appearance or habitat preference.

In 2017, my colleagues from Harvard University and the Paris Natural History Museum and I took trains, planes, cars and boats to get to two barely inhabited islands called Pine Cay and Water Cay in Turks and Caicos. There, in contrast to most visitors, we turned our backs on the miles of white sand beaches and headed into the low, dense, scrubby undergrowth to fill those knowledge gaps on this lizard species.

After a week of walking, catching, measuring and videotaping, we were ready to leave the island – just as Hurricane Irma was brewing far over the horizon to the south and east. The skies were still blue as we headed to the airport, but you could feel a charge in the air from the thrum of activity as everyone prepared for the storm. Four days after we left the islands, the massive Category 5 eye of Hurricane Irma passed directly over our study sites.
I realized that my team and I had the last look at those lizards before they were hit by the storm, and we might have a unique, serendipitous opportunity to revisit and see if there were any patterns to who survived.

Were some more suited to survive a hurricane?

There are a handful of examples of extreme climate events like droughts, cold spells and heat waves driving evolutionary changes in affected populations.

What about hurricanes? Hurricanes are so severe and fleeting that it seemed entirely possible to us that survival would just be random – there could be no physical attributes of a 3-inch-long lizard that helped them weather the catastrophic storm.

But what if survival was not random and some lizards were better suited to hanging on for their lives? This would mean the hurricanes could be agents of natural selection. In this scenario, we predicted survivors would be those individuals with particularly large adhesive pads on their fingers and toes or extra-long arms and legs – both physical features that would enable them to grab tight to a branch and make it through the storm.

As we were preparing our revisit, another monstrous hurricane, Maria, hit Turks and Caicos. So it was six weeks and two hurricanes after our initial survey that we returned to Pine Cay and Water Cay to retake the same measurements that we had previously on the surviving lizards.

What we found surprised me. Indeed, the surviving populations on both Pine Cay and Water Cay had significantly larger toe pads, on average, than the initial populations had before the hurricanes. We went one step further and used a customized meter to measure the pull of the lizards on a standardized smooth surface and confirmed that large-toepadded animals did have a stronger grip than those animals with smaller toepads.

We also found that, on average, the surviving lizards had longer arms relative to the lizards we’d measured before the hurricanes.
This pattern was repeated on both islands, suggesting these patterns weren’t flukes – hurricanes can be agents of natural selection.

Contrary to our expectations, though, we found that the back legs of the lizards were shorter on our second visit. This was a head-scratcher for us, as we’d predicted they would be longer among the survivors. So why were stubbier legs an advantage at a time when the lizards were presumably clinging to trees with all their might to avoid being blown away by hurricane winds?

Longer legs more likely to blow away.

As we were planning our second visit, we realized we had some basic questions about what the lizards did during the hurricanes. Obviously, no scientists were out there in ponchos following the lizards during the storms. We imagined they’d try to ride things out in tree branches. It was possible they’d head to tree roots but that’s not necessarily a safe strategy. Hurricanes often bring storm surge and deluges of rain that would drown a lizard just as sure as the wind would blow them away.
We decided we needed a way to simulate hurricane force winds in the field. So we bought the strongest leaf blower we could find, packed it in our luggage and – despite some very confused customs agents – set it up in our makeshift laboratory on Pine Cay. We then videotaped about 40 lizards as they clung to a perch while we slowly ramped up the leaf blower wind speed, until they were blown, unharmed, into a safety net
.

What we saw was unexpected: The lizards situated themselves on the perches with their elbows tucked in close to their bodies but their back legs jutting out from either side of the branch. As the wind speed increased, their legs, particularly their thighs, caught wind like a sail, eventually resulting in their hindquarters being blown off the perch.

Once half their body was aloft, they soon lost grip altogether. This might be the reason lizards with shorter hind legs survived the hurricanes. Shorter legs mean less surface area to catch the wind like a sail, resulting in all four legs staying in contact with a perch.

Our study, published in the journal Nature, suggests that hurricanes could change the evolutionary trajectory of these lizard populations. This is an important insight because hurricanes are getting stronger and more frequent due to climate change and so may play an important role for the evolution of many other populations in their path. Our study is the first to indicate that hurricanes may indeed be agents of natural selection. We’re still waiting to see whether future generations of these island lizards – descendants of hurricane survivors – will carry forward the advantageous physical features that were helpful when the 2017 storms hit. My colleagues and I hope to head back to find out very soon.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.
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Reply
HerpDigest Volume # 23 Issue #33 8/18/20
FREE NEWSLETTER COVERING THE LATEST NEWS ON REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS
_______________________________________
HERPDIGEST IS A NON-PROFIT 501 C 3 CORPORATION- Is supported by your donations. Publication in HerpDigest does not reflect an endorsement of what is said or implied in said article. HD’s mission is to try to supply the herp community with relevant, interesting information on the conservation, science and different cultural attitudes toward herps around the world.
_______________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Concern over dead turtles

2) Endangered sea turtle shells disguised as blue plastic seized at MIA en route to Asia

3) Microscopically, Crocodile Tears Look Sort of Like Our Own

4) He Doesn’t Mind Being Shared, Unless His Mates Try to Eat Each Other’s Eggs
A Brazilian frog species engages in reproductive behavior never seen in amphibians before.

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1) Concern over dead turtles
8/18/20 Majorca By Majorca Daily Bulletin reporter

15 dead turtles a day being found in Llucmajor Marina. 8/17/20

There’s deep concern at Llucmajor Marina over the large number of turtles being found dead.

Some people believe it might be birds, such as kites that are killing them, but Ecologists and experts say there’s never been a case of birds hunting turtles to eat them.

Farmers and hunters insist that the turtles are not dying because of lack of water saying that because of the number of hunters in the area there are lots of rafts and trough spaces.

Hunters also say that the numbers of kites in the area has increased significantly in recent years and could be killing the turtles.
Some days more than 15 turtles are found dead in Llumajor Marina.
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2) Endangered sea turtle shells disguised as blue plastic seized at MIA en route to Asia
By Adriana Brasileiro 8/13/20, Miami Herald



Customs and Border Protection seized 1,400 sea turtle scutes, or shell pieces, from 100 turtles at an air cargo warehouse. Endangered Hawksbill and Green turtle shells were seized at Miami International Airport. Photo by Pedro Portal

Five large boxes full of scutes — the sections of a sea turtle shell — had arrived at Miami International Airport that day on a flight coming from the Caribbean, and were scheduled to be loaded on another flight to Asia a day later, CBP said.

The shell pieces from about 100 turtles were covered with a chalk-like blue paint, and registered in a customs manifest as “plastic recycle” in an attempt to disguise the items that are illegal to sell and export in the United States and most nations. But looking closely, the distinctive brown, orange and light beige hues of hawksbill shells were visible underneath the powdery periwinkle coating.


Supervisor Silvia Gaudio, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service washes a piece of an endangered sea turtle shell disguised as blue plastic that was seized at MIA by the U.S. Customs & Border Protection last November. Photo by Pedro Portal

“Wildlife trafficking is a serious crime that impacts species at home and abroad,” said Aurelia Skipwith, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Sea turtles are critical members of healthy ocean ecosystems. Unfortunately, they are also severely impacted by the illegal wildlife trade.”

CBP’s Contraband Enforcement Team and Agriculture Specialists estimated that about 65 percent of the 290 pounds of scutes came from hawksbill turtles, while 35% came from green turtles that were likely caught in the Caribbean or Central America.

Both species are protected by the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora, known as CITES. The international agreement between governments regulates trade in wildlife and plants and bans trade in sea turtle shells.

CBP and FWS didn’t arrest anyone in connection with the shipment because these agencies don’t have the authority to conduct investigations in other countries without specific permissions. But the federal agents were allowed to seize the shells because the shipment was in violation of CITES and in transit to other countries.

“Even though there were no prosecutions related to this case, it was still an important action that helped combat wildlife crime,” said Eva Lara, regional supervisor wildlife inspector at FWS’s Office of Law Enforcement. “Seizures can help deter wildlife trafficking by sending a clear message that wildlife crime isn’t welcome here in the U.S.”

Demand for hawksbill scutes, the flexible plates of a turtle shell used in tortoiseshell products like eyeglass frames, combs, brushes, jewelry, musical instrument picks and bow parts, and furniture inlay, is driving the critically endangered species to extinction, scientists say.
China and other Asian countries are particularly avid buyers, using the beautiful shells in personal and decorative items, and the turtle’s oil in traditional medicine.

Global hawksbill populations have declined by a staggering 85% over the past 100 years and estimates suggest there are as few as 15,000 to 20,000 nesting females worldwide, a fraction of their population just a few decades ago, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In addition to the illegal trade of their shell, the species faces the same threats as other sea turtles: degradation of nesting habitats, poaching for their eggs and meat and entanglement in fishing gear and marine pollution. Conservation efforts such as protecting nesting beaches haven’t been as effective for this species because these sea turtles make fewer nests in many different beaches in their range, said Sarah Milton, professor and interim chair of Florida Atlantic University’s Biological Sciences department.

“Their nesting range is more dispersed than other species; They nest a few at a time on many beaches, so measures to protect large nesting areas don’t work as well for hawksbills as they do for loggerheads or leatherbacks, for example,” Milton said.

The hawksbill gets its name from the shape of its curved, pointed beak. The species has been traded for centuries because of demand for tortoiseshell, which has been used since ancient times by many cultures.

The ancient Greeks used shells to make lyres, while the Romans prized the elaborate patterns on hawksbill’s scutes for furniture, small decorative items and jewelry. In Louis XIV’s France the shells were widely used as thin inlays on ornate dressers, cabinets and even on entire walls at Versailles palace. Tortoiseshell is a key element of a furniture style that’s named after him.

Wide-scale trade started in the 17th century when tortoiseshell carving became popular in Japan and in Europe and trading boomed in colonial networks around the world. Until 1977, when CITES banned the international trade of hawksbill turtles among its signatories, there was no protection for these animals.

Because the species is found throughout the Caribbean Sea and western Atlantic Ocean including the Gulf of Mexico and South Florida, and from Central America to northern Brazil, Miami has become a gateway for the illegal export of these animals to Asia and Europe. The city is already a global hub in the import-export industry, and it’s the main port of entry for exotic reptiles and plants, dirty gold and smuggled songbirds, as well as shark fins.
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3) Microscopically, Crocodile Tears Look Sort of Like Our Own
Humans are the only species known to cry in response to emotional turmoil, but a new study finds reptile and avian tears aren’t so different

Researchers collecting tears from Broad-snouted caiman. (Arianne P. Oriá) By Alex Fox SMITHSONIANMAG.COM,/AUGUST 17, 2020

To the best of our scientific knowledge, only humans cry, which is to say the tears of other animals are not inspired by their emotional states, reports Katherine J. Wu for the New York Times. The reason we shed a tear seems to be the only thing that sets our sobs apart from other watery-eyed creatures—at the molecular level, tears are tears.

Specifically, new research published last week in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science, found that the tears of birds and reptiles structurally aren’t so different from our own.

Learning about how and why other animals produce tears could help researchers develop better treatments for chronically dry eyes, the study's lead author Arianne Pontes Oriá, a veterinarian at Brazil’s Federal University of Bahia, tells the New York Times.

Previous studies examined the tears of mammals including dogs, horses, camels and monkeys, but the new study looked into the tears of slightly less relatable fauna, reports Virginia Morell for National Geographic. Researchers collected tears from barn owls, blue-and-yellow macaws, roadside hawks, broad-snouted caimans, as well as loggerhead, hawksbill, and green sea turtles. For comparison, Oriá and her team also collected tears from ten human subjects.


Researchers collecting tears from a Turquoise-fronted amazon parrot. (Arianne P. Oriá)

They’re not going to start blubbering when Bambi's mom dies in Bambi, but the new study finds, even reptilian crocodile tears follow the same basic formula that trickles down human cheeks: mucus, water and oil. Suspended in that watery solution are also salty electrolytes, urea (which is also found in urine) and proteins.

"Although birds and reptiles have different structures that are responsible for tear production, some components of this fluid (electrolytes) are present at similar concentrations as what is found in humans," says Oriá in a statement. "But the crystal structures are organized in different ways so that they guarantee the eyes' health and an equilibrium with the various environments.”

With the help of 65 captive animals and 10 people, the researchers used small absorptive strips of paper (or in the case of the loggerhead sea turtles, a syringe) to humanely collect tear samples.

Some of the differences were subtle: reptiles and bird tears have slightly higher concentrations of electrolytes like sodium. Oriá tells National Geographic that this variance may be to help protect their eyes from inflammation caused by their environment, which for aquatic reptiles and birds in the study is often swift moving air or water.

Caiman tears were remarkably long-lasting, and though researchers still aren’t exactly sure why, Oriá says it may be due to added proteins present in the tears, per National Geographic. Caiman’s tears allow the scaly crocodilians to go without blinking for up to two hours at a time, according to the Times.


The crystal patterns from the dried tears of a blue-and-gold macaw (A); turquoise-fronted amazon parrot (B); barn owl ©; roadside hawk (D); red-footed tortoise (E); loggerhead sea turtle (F); and broad-snouted caiman (G). (Arianne P. Oriá

These proteins may be responsible for unique crystallization patterns the team observed when they dried out caiman tears. The sea turtles’ tears also exhibited striking, snowflake-like crystallized patterns when dried.
The sea turtles had the thickest tears in the group, forming a gooey layer on top of the turtles’ eyes. Oriá tells National Geographic that turtles’ mucus-laden tears help keep them from washing away underwater as well as protecting the turtle’s eyes from the salty ocean.

"This knowledge helps in the understanding of the evolution and adaptation of these species, as well as in their conservation," says Oriá in the statement.

Understanding the adaptations that various creatures use to keep their peepers lubricated and healthy may also inspire new treatments for people and animals with eye issues.
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4) He Doesn’t Mind Being Shared, Unless His Mates Try to Eat Each Other’s Eggs
A Brazilian frog species engages in reproductive behavior never seen in amphibians before.



A male Thoropa taophora frog of Brazil.

By Katherine j. Wu, 8/12/20, New York Times

From the standpoint of sex, male frogs tend to segregate into two camps: the monogamous bunch and the free wheeling philanderers.

This split seems to apply to all amphibians, which don’t really compromise between these two amorous extremes. Researchers have long found this odd; plenty of other animals practice group fidelity, wherein one male strikes up a long-term liaison with several females at once, but won’t engage with anyone else.

Now, a team of scientists has found a rule-breaking river frog in Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest called Thoropa taophora, whose sexual shenanigans involve everything from cannibalism to peacemaking hugs and some surprisingly well-muscled forearms.

Over the course of a single breeding season, some males will couple up with exactly two females, who alternately visit their mate like a sperm-dispensing timeshare.

“There is a bond between the male and the female, but there is more than one couple,” said Fábio de Sá, a biologist at the University of Campinas in Brazil and an author on a paper published Wednesday in Science Advances that describes the new behavior.

Much of Thoropa mating boils down to location. These frogs prize wet, rocky habitats called seeps, where their eggs can mature. Males will wage all-out war over seeps, emitting aggressive calls and jabbing at their rivals with the spine-studded thumbs at the ends of their bulging, battleworthy forelimbs. Once their real estate is won, the victors spend their nights on patrol, in the hopes that a female will drop by and leave behind a cache of fresh eggs.

Where seeps are abundant, both sexes of Thoropa taophora frogs take multiple partners, Dr. de Sá said. But when seeps become scarce enough to render some males homeless, the frogs are sometimes forced into a seismic sexual shift.

“For females, males become the limiting resource,” Dr. de Sá said. Under these circumstances, females queue up to mate with the seep-straddling males. In a series of video recordings, the researchers found that two, perhaps three, females might share the same beau, with one usually emerging as a “dominant” consort who monopolized most of the mating.

But the group courting the males “had consistent membership” over a long period of time, said Kelly Zamudio, a biologist at Cornell University and an author on the study. A genetic analysis of the eggs laid in each male’s seep also revealed that the tadpoles were all full- or half-siblings of various ages — a hint that they had come from two moms who repeatedly visited the same dad.
_______________________________________

Wish to make a donation to HerpDigest? You can by either of two ways:
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Allen Salzberg
Publisher/Editor of HerpDigest
Free Email Newsletter Reporting on
Latest Herp Conservation and Scientific News (www.herpdigest.org)
Conservation Chairperson for New York Turtle & Tortoise Society
Member of IUCN Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle IUCN Species Survival Group
https://www.facebook.com/dartden/

https://twitter.com/DartDen


"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana".
Reply
HerpDigest Volume # 24 Issue #13 3/22/21
FREE NEWSLETTER COVERING THE LATEST NEWS ON REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS
_________________________________________
HERPDIGEST IS A NON-PROFIT 501 C 3 CORPORATION- Is supported by your donations. Publication in HerpDigest does not reflect an endorsement of what is said or implied in said article. HD’s mission is to try to supply the herp community with relevant, interesting information on the conservation, science and different cultural attitudes toward herps around the world.
_____________________________________________________
WISH TO MAKE A DONATION TO HERPDIGEST?
You can by either of two ways: By check made out to HerpDigest and mailed to Allen Salzberg/67-87 Booth Street -5B/Forest Hills, NY 11375
Or by PayPal, account is asalzberg@herpdigest.org
______________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1) Critically endangered turtle Batagur Baska lays 23 eggs at Karamjal
2) A reptilian nightmare: Florida bans nonnative species despite industry outcry
3) A Small Band of Panamanian Golden Frogs Is Saving Their Species From Oblivion
4) Plastic Straws That Quickly Biodegrade in the Ocean? Not Quite, Scientists Say

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1) Critically endangered turtle Batagur Baska lays 23 eggs at Karamjal

Photo: Collected

The Daily Star, 3/20/21

Batagur baska, a critically endangered riverine turtle species, has laid 23 eggs at Karamjal wildlife breeding centre in the Sundarbans in Bagerhat.

"The turtle laid the eggs on the edge of a pond at the Wildlife Centre this morning. The eggs were kept in an incubator. The eggs will hatch at the end of 65-67 days," said Azad Kabir, officer-in-charge of the wildlife breeding centre in Karamjal of East Sundarbans.

This brings the total of turtles laying eggs this year to four, our Bagerhat correspondent reports quoting the official.
One turtle laid 27 eggs on February 28, another turtle laid 23 eggs, on March 3 and one other laid 23 eggs on March 5.
There is a possibility of two more turtles laying eggs this year, said Azad Kabir.


"At present there are more than 300 turtles here. We are keeping a close eye on breeding," he said.

On the occasion of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's birth centenary, 10 turtles will be released in the Sundarbans by the end of this year, according to the forest department.
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2) A reptilian nightmare: Florida bans nonnative species despite industry outcry

Tom Rahill handles a Burmese python in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The invasive snakes first appeared in the Everglades in 1979. (Rhona Wise/AFP/Getty Images)
By Craig Pittman
March 20, 2021, Washington Post

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Florida's promoters like to sing its superlatives — best beaches, prettiest sunsets, perfect climate (except for the occasional hurricane). But there's a No. 1 distinction the boosters never mention.

Florida is infested with more exotic and invasive species than any other state and perhaps, some say, than anywhere else in the world. Though a few nonnatives have been running amok for centuries — today’s feral hogs descended from pigs that arrived with explorer Hernando de Soto in 1539 — most showed up in recent decades. Green iguanas, which now pop up in toilets and fall out of trees during cold snaps. Nile monitors, which terrorize tiny burrowing owls. Argentine tegu lizards, which gobble up native turtle eggs. And the poster child of invaders: the Burmese python, which first appeared in the Everglades in 1979.

The state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has tried for years to cope with the influx. Among other strategies, it has told homeowners to shoot the iguanas on sight and invited amateur hunters to compete for prizes in a python roundup. Then late last month, commissioners took more extreme action, deciding 7 to 0 to ban possession and breeding of both those reptiles and 14 other nonnative species.

“We have to put our foot down,” said chairman Rodney Barreto, a Miami developer recently criticized for his role in a Palm Beach dredge-and-fill project. “The time has come to take a bold stand against these real threats to our environment.”
The vote came at the conclusion of a four-hour online public hearing. More than 80 people had called in, from as far away as Oregon and Maine, many to object. Reptile breeders and dealers argued that the move would gut their industry, while herpetology hobbyists bemoaned the loss of pets they regard as part of their family.
One caller even cried, explaining that she relies on her pythons and iguanas to help her cope with lonely nights and difficult days.

“If you take them away,” she said, “I would be really messed up.”

As passed, the ban will be phased in over three years to give businesses time to get rid of their breeding stock. It does not require a roundup of pets. Their owners can keep them for as long as the animals live, just not replace them.


Snake hunter Amy Siewe pulls a dead python from a plastic bag in the backyard of a house in Delray Beach, Fla. (Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images)

Siewe catches invasive pythons and iguanas that damage the state's ecosystem. (Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images)

The wildlife commission’s action has drawn praise from the supervisor of Everglades National Park, environmental activists, animal welfare groups such as the Humane Society of the United States and others. All say it is critical to saving species that are native to Florida, including turtles, tortoises and imperiled wading birds. Most of the 5,000-plus comments collected in the months leading up to the vote voiced the same sentiment.

“We are very much in support of this,” said Mike Elfenbein of the Everglades Coordinating Council, an umbrella group of hunting and fishing organizations. “I cannot begin to express the devastation that this region has seen.”

Yet in a state where one island community voluntarily taxes itself to employ an iguana trapper — who has written an iguana cookbook — biologists who specialize in nonnative species say drastic measures are long overdue.

“Not only have they closed the door after the horses are gone,” said Don Schmitz, the former executive director of the North American Invasive Species Network, “but the barn has collapsed and been completely destroyed by now and the horses are all dead.”

The U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers condemned Florida’s ban as a betrayal of its attempt to find a compromise that would allow continued ownership and breeding of six types of pythons, plus green anacondas, green iguanas, Nile monitor lizards and every kind of tegu.

“People have literally spent millions and even moved to Florida from out of state, built cages and started businesses, and now they have to get rid of everything,” said Brian Love, a founding member of the group’s state chapter.

Legislators tried imposing a similar ban last year on a smaller group of reptiles, passing a bill that Gov. Ron DeSantis ® signed into law. USARK of Florida sued, and a judge tossed out the law, ruling that only the wildlife commission has the power to impose such a ban. The same group seems likely to sue again.


A sunbathing iguana in Key Biscayne, Fla., is one of 16 species of nonnative reptiles the state wants gone. (J Pat Carter/AP)

“There are grounds for damages,” stressed Love, who owns Love’s Reptiles in Palm City on the southeastern coast. He runs the thriving business from his home and specializes in albino lizards and snakes. He said he rents out his scaly menagerie — some of his lizards grow to be 10 feet long — to zoos and aquariums around the country. Preventing him from doing that, he noted, won’t help round up all those pythons, iguanas and monitors already running loose in the wild.

Like others, Love blames DeSantis. The governor oversees the wildlife commission and has made ridding the Everglades of pythons one of his signature environmental policies.

At a 2019 news conference that featured two people holding a live python, DeSantis tied the importance of eradication to the millions of tax dollars being spent on replumbing the “river of grass,” as it’s long been called. What’s the point, he asked, if these snakes wipe out all the native fauna?

“We’re putting a lot of money into restoring the Everglades,” he said. “We want to make sure that ecosystem is strong.”

DeSantis has since doubled the number of state-sanctioned hunters searching for the big snakes and expanded the area where they’re allowed to stalk their quarry. But the work is tedious and time-consuming, and their captures have barely made a dent in a population estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands. In the absence of actual progress, imposing a ban gives him at least the appearance of a win, according to his critics in the reptile industry.

“I like DeSantis. The problem is he’s trying to be an environmentalist,” said Eugene Bessette, who started his Central Florida python business, Ophiological Services, in 1980. “He wants things cleaned up and done.”

Rare is the Republican politician accused of being anti-business — especially a business as lucrative as Florida’s reptile industry. The wildlife commission’s staff calculated the industry is worth $50 million to $200 million, though Ariel Collis, an economist hired by USARK, has deemed that number too low because it leaves out such ancillary businesses as the companies supplying rats for the reptiles to eat and the veterinarians who treat the snakes and lizards.
The Port of Miami handles more herpetological imports, by dollar value, than any other U.S. port, Collis reported. About 500,000 reptiles, with a declared value of $6.4 million, arrived there in 2018, he said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis announces at a 2019 news conference that Florida will double its resources for python removal. (Taimy Alvarez/Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service/Getty Images)

The people breeding and selling these creatures find Florida attractive for its year-round tropical climate, which mimics that of their products’ countries of origin. And for the past decade, they could do so under a state permitting program called the Controlled Species List. The rules required secure caging, extensive documentation and implanting identification tags under the skin. USARK counts some 266 reptile keepers with permits, and in comments submitted to the wildlife commission, the organization said there have been no escapes from permitted facilities and only six citations issued for violations. (Iguanas and tegus are not part of the program.)

Those opposed to the ban contend it will backfire, like a reptilian version of Prohibition. Some predict it will create an unregulated black market leading to escapes and releases that will exacerbate the invasive species problem rather than solve it.

“If people want something, they’re going to find a way to get it,” Bessette said.

Others say it will discourage the industry’s own efforts at controlling the most notorious interlopers.
Reptile expert Joe Wasilewski, who began fielding Everglades rangers’ calls about pythons in the 1980s, knows of South Florida dealers who pay a bounty to residents bringing them local iguanas. They in turn sell those iguanas to collectors in other states, he says, thus removing tens of thousands from Florida every year.

“If they have to stop doing that,” Wasilewski warned, “then whooo! You ain’t seen nothing!”
____________________________________
3) A Small Band of Panamanian Golden Frogs Is Saving Their Species From Oblivion
Victims of a deadly fungus, the amphibians are now being selectively bred through a program at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo


Panamanian golden frogs—such as F1, seen here—are native to the rainforests and cloud forests of Panama but haven't been seen in the wild since 2009. Each creature's bright coloration warns predators of its deadly skin, which contains enough toxins to kill 1,200 mice. (Spencer Lowell)
ByRachel Nuwer, Smithsonian Magazine, 4/2021

At first glance, frog number 307457, also known as “the Old Man,” looks no different from the 30-odd Panamanian golden frogs he shares a basement room with at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. His personality, though, is more muted. Although he has an entire enclosure to himself, he often prefers to hide among the leaves rather than bask under the warm lights like the others.

But the Old Man’s understated demeanor belies his outsized importance. He is not just any Panamanian golden frog, which, despite the name, is technically a type of toad. He’s a member of what might be called his species’ Greatest Generation, the first to battle the most formidable of all existential threats, extinction. Scientists captured his parents in 2003 in the verdant cloud forests of El Valle de Antón and Cerro Campana—the only places where Panamanian golden frogs existed in the wild—after it had become clear the beloved species was doomed.

In Panama, everyone knows about the golden frog, the national animal, celebrated in murals, lottery tickets and T-shirts. There’s even Panamanian Golden Frog Day. The creature is a natural marvel, not least for its defensive traits: The neon-yellow skin of just one frog contains enough toxin to kill 1,200 mice. Unlike many other amphibians, which prefer the cover of darkness, this toad, endowed with a lethal defense against predators and an unmistakable coloration to advertise it, is most active during the day. Panamanians have long seen the golden frog as a symbol of the nation’s biodiversity and natural heritage, making its abrupt disappearance all the more poignant.

In the 1990s, herpetologists around the world began warning of unexplained deaths and sudden disappearances of various amphibians. In 1999, researchers pinpointed the pathogen behind the plague: a deadly amphibian chytrid fungus. Correctly fearing the malady it caused would reach pandemic proportions, the nonprofit Maryland Zoo, in Baltimore, worked with Panamanian and U.S. scientists to launch Project Golden Frog. The team trekked into remote mountain forests, where they searched moss-covered streambeds for flashes of brilliant yellow.

In 2003, the 40 or so healthy adult frogs they eventually amassed—the Old Man’s parents among them—were shipped to the Maryland Zoo. The next year, eight “founder” couples—selected to start a captive breeding colony—arrived at the National Zoo, where researchers assigned them an important job: sex. The Old Man was hatched in June 2005. Meanwhile, all signs suggest the creature has vanished from its natural habitat; no one has seen a Panamanian golden frog in the wild since 2009.

The animals in captivity offer a life raft for the species. The Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project, in collaboration with the National Zoo, is investigating the skin resistance of individual frogs in order to selectively breed a more resilient generation for release into the wild; if successful, they hope to reintroduce a disease-resistant version of species into the wild. While captive breeding programs can be expensive and risky, in the case of Panamanian golden frogs, “I think it is an example of a species where we have been able to mitigate an extinction,” says Brian Gratwicke, leader of amphibian conservation programs at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. “But we still need to work on finding a way to rebuild sustainable wild populations.”

The Old Man’s offspring could bolster those efforts. The Maryland Zoo manages the golden frog studbook—a compendium of genealogies, maintained to ensure the best possible genetic pairings. Until now, the Old Man has not been called on to mate, primarily because of a dearth of ideal females. But even at 15, he could still become a father before he croaks. Longevity might even be in his genes: The Old Man’s dad was around 17 when he died. “We need to find him a suitable female,” says Matthew Evans, assistant curator of herpetology at the National Zoo. “We want to continue to pass along these very valuable genes to the benefit of the whole golden frog program.”
___________________________________________
4) Plastic Straws That Quickly Biodegrade in the Ocean? Not Quite, Scientists Say
Companies are touting straws and bottles made from a plant-based plastic, but researchers say some claims are overstated



Consumers are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of single-use plastics, and many companies are responding.
PHOTO: ANDREY NEKRASOV/ZUMA PRESS
By Saabira Chaudhuri 3/20/21

Imagine you’re walking along a beach sipping a cool lemonade. When you finish, there’s no trash can in sight, so you leave your plastic cup and straw on the shore, assured that if washed away they’ll quickly disappear.

That’s the image touted by a growing number of companies using Nodax—a plant-based plastic—to make straws, bottles and bags that they claim can biodegrade in oceans within a few months.

Nodax’s owner, Danimer Scientific Inc., DNMR -12.87% counts Nestlé SA and Bacardi Ltd. among its customers and PepsiCo Inc. PEP 2.45% as an investor.

Nodax breaks down far more quickly than fossil-fuel plastics, which can last for hundreds of years. But many claims about Nodax are exaggerated and misleading, according to several experts on biodegradable plastics. They say more testing and stricter regulations are needed, and warn that marketing products as marine biodegradable could encourage littering. Biodegradable straws, bottles and bags can persist in the ocean for several years, they say.

“The claims are what I would call sensationalized,” Jason Locklin, a University of Georgia professor, said of Danimer’s Nodax marketing. Mr. Locklin directs the university’s New Materials Institute and co-authored a study cited by Danimer as validating its material.
Plastic Promise

Nodax, a type of plant-based plastic, is said to biodegrade in the ocean within months. Here's how it's made.


1. Seeds from canola plants are crushed to press out oil.
2. The oil is fed to bacteria, which convert it into a carbon. That carbon, known as PHA, is then extracted.
3. The PHA is combined with other biopolymers to create resins used to make plastic products.
4. If the plastic ends up in the ocean, microorganisms feed on it, eventually breaking it down to carbon dioxide, organic material
and water.
Source: Danimer
Merrill Sherman/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Consumers are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of single-use plastics, while regulators are threatening and implementing bans. More companies are promising to make eco-friendly containers, a shift Danimer says is a big tailwind. Plastic in the oceans is a particularly emotive issue for some, dismayed by images circulated by conservation organizations showing bleeding turtles, dead fish and tangled seabirds.

Companies since the 1970s have tried with little success to develop plastics that naturally disappear in the environment. While plastics made from materials like corn can biodegrade in compost facilities under specific heat and moisture conditions, plastic that quickly breaks down in nature has proved elusive.

Until now, Danimer says. Its chief executive, Steven Croskrey, has described Nodax as “the holy grail of plastic,” highlighting that the material has been certified by TUV Austria—a leading international certification body whose logo is found on items like compostable food waste bags—as able to biodegrade in seawater. Danimer’s share price has more than doubled since it went public through a deal with a so-called blank-check company in late December.

Nodax is the brand name of a resin that belongs to a family of plastics known as PHAs. It is made by feeding canola oil to bacteria, from which carbon is extracted and turned into plastic. Unlike conventional plastics, Nodax is consumed by microorganisms when thrown away, Danimer says.

Mr. Locklin’s study—described in marketing material by Danimer and its customers as verifying Nodax as “a truly biodegradable alternative to petrochemical plastics”—showed that Nodax in powdered form breaks down quickly, but that the rate is much more variable when tested as a film, the form used to make bags, straws and bottles.

Making broad claims about Nodax’s biodegradability “is not accurate,” said Mr. Locklin, adding: “I think that’s greenwashing.”

‘The material truly is biodegradable so we’re not greenwashing.’

— Phil Van Trump, Danimer Scientific’s chief technology officer
Danimer says its claims are factual. “The material truly is biodegradable so we’re not greenwashing,” said its chief technology officer, Phil Van Trump. “The only thing that will potentially change is how long it takes to biodegrade.”
Rum giant Bacardi is working with Danimer to develop Nodax plastic spirits bottles by 2023. Its marketing materials call Nodax a “plant-based wonder material” and say the upcoming bottles will “disappear” in 18 months.

Bacardi says the claim is based on internal tests and a separate certification Danimer has received from TUV on a lab test showing that a sheet of the raw material used to make the bottle will disintegrate by 90% in seawater within 12 weeks. Extrapolating from this, Bacardi and Danimer say a Nodax spirits bottle would break down within 18 months in the ocean.

But variations in temperature and microorganisms in the ocean make it very difficult to promise a bottle made from Nodax will biodegrade in 18 months, according to Ramani Narayan, a professor at Michigan State University who has been researching biodegradable plastics for over 30 years.

The marine biodegradability test used to gain certification from TUV is conducted in a lab using seawater at a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit). But the average ocean temperature is 4 degrees Celsius (39.2 Fahrenheit), which means items could degrade more slowly in real life, Mr. Narayan said. He compares it to bread, which gets moldy less quickly inside the fridge.

At some ocean temperatures, Nodax straws could take between five and 10 years to biodegrade, he said. Bags and bottles could take even longer.

Mr. Van Trump called that assessment a “worst-case scenario” and said even Danimer’s most conservative testing shows far quicker biodegradation. Rodolfo Nervi, Bacardi’s sustainability head, said he is confident the upcoming bottle will be 100% biodegradable in 18 months.

Bottled-water giant Nestlé is also developing a bottle made from Nodax, which it says will be recyclable as well as biodegradable. Some recyclers worry the containers could mix with regular plastic bottles in recycling streams, breaking down and causing contamination. Gerhard Niederreiter, head of Nestlé’s Institute of Packaging Sciences, says Nestlé will take an active role in educating consumers and developing collection, sorting and recycling plans.

Several companies are marketing ocean-friendly straws made from Nodax.

Columbia Packaging Group markets its Biolo line of Nodax straws, films and bags as “certified biodegradable,” displaying logos from TUV Austria for marine and soil biodegradability on its website.

TUV said it doesn’t certify products like bottles or straws as ocean biodegradable because it doesn’t want to encourage littering, nor does it allow companies to make such claims about finished products even when the raw materials have been certified.

Lab tests are done on sheets of plastic, while finished products come in different shapes and thicknesses or have dyes and labels, all of which could impact how they biodegrade in the real world, said Philippe Dewolfs, head of TUV’s bioplastics certification department.

Columbia Packaging says that TUV has certified the material used to make its products as being marine and soil biodegradable and it makes that clear to customers.

Straw maker Urthpact LLC on its website says its Nodax straws will degrade “anywhere on earth.” A promotional video says the items will biodegrade in three to six months in oceans, backyards and landfills. A company spokeswoman said Urthpact stands by its marketing.

Given the lack of widespread composting facilities that accept packaging waste, many products made from Nodax today are bound to end up in landfills.


Plastic and other debris in the Danube River delta on the Black Sea.
PHOTO: ANDREY NEKRASOV/ZUMA PRESS

However, modern landfills are designed to prevent biodegradation since organic matter releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas, when it breaks down. Even if an item does biodegrade in landfills, experts say it’s hard to predict how long the process would take since landfills differ widely from one another—plus that would be an undesirable outcome.

Nodax doesn’t have any certification indicating it biodegrades in landfills. However, Mr. Croskrey on an investor call in October said the product would be consumed by bacteria if it ended up in a landfill. Responding to questions from The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Van Trump said the claim by the Danimer chief wasn’t wholly accurate, saying Nodax products are unlikely to biodegrade in most modern landfills.

Few laws exist to address claims about biodegradability. California bans the sale of plastic products that use the terms “biodegradable” or “degradable,” saying such claims can be misleading. Last year the state passed a separate law barring products from using the term “marine degradable.”

Making claims about soil biodegradability—as Bacardi and Columbia do—is tricky, too, since products need to be fully buried in soil rather than simply littered to break down entirely, Mr. Narayan said.

“Everything biodegrades at some point,” including fossil-fuel plastics, he said. “The question is how soon.”
_______________________________________________
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