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Tag: Reptiles

  • DC man catches alligator at The Wharf – WTOP News

    A 23-year-old man fished out an alligator that was swimming along the boats at The Wharf Marina in Southwest D.C.

    Imagine Phoenix Norwood’s surprise when he heard there was a four-foot alligator swimming among the boats at The Wharf Marina in Southwest D.C.

    CLICK TO ENLARGE: A 23-year-old man fished out an alligator that was swimming along the boats at The Wharf Marina in Southwest D.C. (Courtesy Phoenix Norwood)

    “At first I heard about it … then I started looking for it, and I actually saw it twice,” Norwood told WTOP.

    The 23-year-old resident of The Wharf thought the gator was fake at first.

    Then, it started swimming. That’s when he grabbed a dip net and fished it out Thursday.

    “If I had just let it be on its own, it would have probably swam away again, and authorities were about like 10, 15 minutes away at the time,” Norwood said. “I had to get it at that point in time. I probably should have had shoes on, though.”

    Norwood is a reptile enthusiast and an avid fossil collector.

    “I got some crocodile teeth and all that stuff, but I don’t really have experience with live gators,” Norwood said. “This is definitely a first for me.”

    Norwood held the reptile until officials with D.C. animal control arrived to secure it. They will work with a group to relocate the animal to a more appropriate environment.

    Hopefully, far away.

    Where did it come from? There’s plenty of speculation, but authorities guess it was someone’s pet that was released into the Washington Channel recently.

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    Alan Etter

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  • Animal shelters at capacity after accepting 1,200 animals in a month

    METHUEN — A series of large surrenders have left all four MSPCA-Angell shelters, including Nevins Farm, at capacity.

    On Thursday, the nonprofit sounded the alarm on a situation that began with the surrender of 50 cats from a single Norfolk County home in July. The pattern continued into August with more large-scale arrivals, according to a press release from the MSPCA.


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    By Teddy Tauscher | Staff Writer

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  • ECO Publishing Releases New Book Entitled ‘A Photographic History of Snakebite Treatments: Bad Medicine: Snake Oil, Potions, Elixirs and Kits’

    ECO Publishing Releases New Book Entitled ‘A Photographic History of Snakebite Treatments: Bad Medicine: Snake Oil, Potions, Elixirs and Kits’

    The Book Offers a Compelling and Entertaining Photographic History of Snakebite Treatments


    RODEO, N.M., February 20, 2024 (Newswire.com)
    –
    ECO Wear & Publishing, a niche publisher specializing in reptile books and nature wear, announces the release of a photographic history of snakebite treatments across the ages called “A Photographic History of Snakebite Treatments: Bad Medicine: Snake Oil, Potions, Elixirs, and Kits.” A collection of reptile experts provided their expertise on the topic; it’s authored by Bob Ashley, Charles F. Smith, and Gordon W. Schuett, contains an introduction by Kimberly M. Wyatt and William K. Hayes, and includes a foreword by Sir David Warrell. While herpetologists, clinicians, and historians are a key audience for the title, the book’s rich photographs and fascinating historical details give it broad appeal to the general public. 

    “Snakes are symbolic across cultures, countries, and centuries, and snakebites are a universal human fear,” says co-author Bob Ashley. “We wanted to chronicle history through this thread of commonality, using beautiful photographs and factual descriptions to highlight the inventive and often hilarious ways humans have responded to snakebites.” 

    Snakebite treatments date back to the earliest written records, including Hebrew Scriptures from the 14th-12th centuries BCE and records from ancient Egyptians in the Brooklyn Papyrus. The book covers shamanic and religious treatments, cures sought from the natural world — including fermented potions and animal part emetics, and attempts to remedy venom through bodily assaults like bloodletting, The history also includes modern-era approaches with clinical and medical bases. 

    The project combines the passions of its three authors. Bob Ashley is ECO Wear & Publishing’s founder and has published more than 40 titles on reptiles and amphibians. He is also the founder of the Chiricahua Desert Museum in New Mexico, a co-founder of the North American Reptile Breeders Conference and Trade Show, a former President of the International Herpetological Symposium, and the current Vice President. Charles F. Smith and Gordon W. Schuett both hold PhDs and have collectively published hundreds of papers on life sciences, biology, and reptiles topics, as well as several previous co-authored books. 

    “A Photographic History of Snakebite Treatments: Bad Medicine: Snake Oil, Potions, Elixirs, and Kits” was designed to be both informative and entertaining and could have equal demand as a reference guide or a conversation-starter coffee-table book. A special collector’s edition is available in hardcover with an embossed sleeve. The book is currently available through the ECO Publishing site and on Amazon. 

    About ECO Publishing — ECO Wear & Publishing, Inc. is a world-famous publisher of reptile books and also offers t-shirts with fantastic realistic screen prints that bring your favorite wildlife to life. For more information, visit ECOuniverse.com.

    Source: ECO Wear & Publishing

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  • New species with “hieroglyphic” pattern discovered among sand dunes

    New species with “hieroglyphic” pattern discovered among sand dunes

    A brand new lizard species with a hieroglyphic pattern on its back has been discovered among the sand dunes in eastern Iran.

    The discovery, which was detailed in a study in the journal Zootaxa on November 10, was made back in 2010 in the South Khorasan province of the desert, while researchers were conducting a survey for local reptiles and amphibians.

    The researchers found a total of 10 strange-looking lizards in the sand dunes, all with an unusual pattern on their skin. They discovered that it was actually an entirely new species, now named Eremias graphica, or the “hieroglyphic racerunner lizard.”

    The new species is named using the Greek word “graphikos,” according to the study, as reported by the Miami Herald. This translates to either “drawn” or “written,” and was used because of the lizard’s strange pattern which resembles hieroglyphs.

    A photo shows the new lizard species found in the sand dunes of Iran. A closer look at the creature shows a strange pattern on its back.
    Eskandar Rasegar-Pouyani, Valentina Orlova, Khosrow Rajabizadeh, Hossein Nabizadeh, Nikolay Poyarkov, Daniel Melnikov and Roman Nazarov

    Hieroglyphs are generally associated with Ancient Egypt, though other forms of writing also exited at the time.

    The researchers found that most of the lizards were about 7 inches long and were easily disguised in the sand dunes due to their sandy coloring, according to the study.

    The researchers, who are from multiple organizations from across Russia and Iran, analyzed 93 genetic samples from the lizards in the desert.

    “We hypothesize that the diversification of the Eremias fasciata species complex was largely influenced by the fragmentation of sand massifs in the region,” an abstract from the study read. “This same hypothesis has been used to explain the high level of endemism among the sand-dwelling species of reptiles along the Iranian Plateau in the same area. The two new species described herein can be distinguished from other congeneric species by their phylogenetic position and a combination of morphological characters. We use these data to discuss the taxonomy of Eremias based on morphology, habitat choice, and genetic data.”

    The study noted that the lizards can mainly be found scuttling around the vegetation found in the sand dunes, the Miami Herald reported. They can also be found burrowing for shade and shelter. The researchers reported that they typically eat insects.

    Closer analysis of the creature showed that it was most active during some hours in the morning, and evening. During the rest of the day, it tends to hide under the bushes of the sand dunes.

    So far, the new species has only been found near one road near the city of Tabas, in central-eastern Iran.