| Chelonian (183) |  |
| Crocodilian (177) | |
| Reptile (66) | |
| Saurian (180) | |
| Snake (376) | |
it is invulnerable to almost all forms of predators angry alligators being one possible exception Â. Boars are smart, fast, hard to hunt."
Every spring in southern Manitoba, tens of thousands of red-sided garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis) emerge from their underground hibernation dens
. When a female garter snake emerges, she releases a pheromone that attracts hundreds of male snakes towards her.
As if that isn't enough, scientists discovered that some male snakes"cross dress Â; they release female-like pheromones to attract other males.
One common assumption has been that pheromone-releasing males gain a reproductive advantage by diverting fellow male snakes attention from the female.
But Australian and US researchers think this solves a more mundane purpose oe male snakes pose as females to warm up quicker
and to reduce their exposure to predators. The mourning cuttlefish (Sepia plangon) takes its cross dressing even further.
such as the giant tortoises of the Galapagos, the lemurs of Madagascar or the koalas of Australia.
whereas rats and goats that eat the food of rare tortoises are being eliminated. In other places,
and purchase anything being sold as crocodile meat. When they brought the meat back and analysed it,
they found it wasn't from crocodile at all. Its origins weren't exactly clear, but for all the world it looked suspiciously like some kind of python.
Slice it and package it in the right way and one reptile's meat looks oe and may even taste oe like another.
From mislabeled crocodile to fake fur, a global industry has thrived for centuries by supplying shops and markets with fraudulent or counterfeit products.
Until now, perhaps. Scientists and authorities think they can finally put an end to this unscrupulous trading by using a technique that can identify species from its genetic material like a barcode on a cereal box.
It simply doesn't have information about many creatures, like pythons from Southeastern Asia, for instance.
So for barcoding to become really useful for someone like Kolokotronis examining the crocodile meat in Chinatown,
a trend it shares with other perilous beasts from wasps to snakes. And it occurs to me,
like a dragon going through the skies, Â says Harvard Medical school geneticist George Church. And then European settlers arrived.
In Shark Bay, green sea turtles are more willing to face risks from sharks and seek the best grazing areas when their body condition is strong.
5. Pythons which are capable of eating goats and crocodiles and could eventually pose a major threat to children, pets and livestock.
Rounding out the bottom five are killer bees, starlings, mountain pine beetles, brown tree snakes and Asian mongooses.
Some of these are examples of nuisance species, as in ones that are getting in the way of humans.
Owen the baby hippopotamus and Mzee the giant tortoise have been friends since Owen was rescued from a reef where he was stranded during the 2004 tsunami in the Indian ocean
The frightened hippo ran right over to the surprised tortoise and hid behind him just as he would have hidden behind his mother and,
#A Caterpillar That Pretends to be a Fearsome Snake This small caterpillar with bold yellow
At first glance it may look like a fearsome snake but this rearing creature is actually a small caterpillar with a cunning means of defence.
Life-sized models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive in the main hold.
600-acre Tiputini Biodiversity Station on the northern edge of the park. oethe Tiputini Biodiversity Station is home to 247 amphibian and reptile species,
Some animals that are afflicted sometimes include cows, snakes, lizards, turtles, dogs, cats and chickens. This past week, a two-headed pig with one eye, was born on Xiao Jintu s pig farm,
Mosquito#An estimated 2-3 million fatalities a year Venomous Snakes#An estimated 50,000-125,000 fatalities a year Deer-An estimated 2, 000-4, 000
Crocodiles#An estimated 600-800 fatalities a year. Bees#An estimated 400-600 fatalities a year.
gurjum balsam, Sumatran dragons blood resin, olibanum, galangal, oleo gum resin, and frankincense. The RPG Series via Neatorama Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorati n
#Top 10 Photos of the Week Todays couch potatoes have a way of turning every disaster into a spectator sport I saw the movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and
I didnt see any tigers or dragons. And then I realised why: theyre crouching and hidden.##
or beneficial insects with Dragon Juice Dragon Juice naturally helps eliminate many common plant problems.
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Dragon Juice is an all in one#product meaning it helps your plants to take up more nutrients in it s existing system or medium.
Dragon Juice is one of the featured exhibitors at the Davinci Inventor Showcase, which takes place on Oct 13, 2012 at the Denver Merchandise Mart.
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inature/Dragon Juice Products are made from consumable products, meaning that they are safe to use even just before harvest.
Dragon Juice is about the magic and powers that Dragons project. Our hope is that our customers understand that natural products from nature combined without chemicals have a far superior, long term effect on plants, our planet and its people.
and sell Dragon Juice, and have built a mini-following#of 600 Likes#on Facebook, which often leads the customer directly to our web site,
Selling Dragon Juice in VOLUME nation/worldwide would define our ideal success#.We want to have this blow up so huge that Dragon Juice becomes a household name
#Our Patent for Dragon Juice is going along nicely, we have obtained already our Federal Trademark for Dragon Juice,
and We have developed the Product that does something no other garden product does. We have sold Dragon Juice (at least one bottle) in almost every state in the country.
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We feel that Dragon Juice was invented at the right time#as the interest in organic and natural ingredients for the garden has been steadily increasing lately.
The assembly line here is made up of dozens of glass cages housing robots made by Adept Technology that snake around the factory floor for more than 100 yards.
and mistaken by villagers as a deadly, miniature snake. But this legless amphibian s time in obscurity has ended,
with farmers and villagers chopping them in half out of the mistaken belief that they are poisonous snakes.
plans to upgrade its Dragon freighter and Falcon 9 rocket to fly crew as well. Sierra nevada is developing a winged vehicle called the Dream Chaser that resembles a miniature space shuttle.
1.)Mood-Driven Chameleon Wear Yes, most people will go out of their way to avoid having their clothing overtly display their emotional state.
6.)Top 10 Photos February 7, 2011 Today s couch potatoes have a way of turning every disaster into a spectator sport I saw the movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and
I didn t see any tigers or dragons. And then I realized why: they re crouching and hidden.#
and vegetables Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.#
and take pity on turtles, cause fender benders, pileups, and head-on collisions. They nod off at the wheel,
It s long been known that alligators are lost able toregrow teeth, for example, but it was assumed to be a cyclical process,
like snakes shedding their skin periodically. Scientists have discovered recently that this is not the case: An alligator s tooth will grow back automatically to replace a lost one.
This is quite significant because the structure of alligators teeth is pretty similar to ours. The problem has been that the inner areas of teeth contain living tissue known as#oepulp#that doesn t grow back.
But the solution may have been found in stem cells: Scientists in multiple countries are trying to figure out how to get them to produce the correct tissues and structure for the given situation on demand.
A batch of these plant pillows were included on the Spacex Dragon cargo ship which went up to the International Space station last month.
It s just a herd of mud-bathing tortoises. Why do you ask?..Extreme farming, where the wordhorizontal is no longer in their dictionary!..
And is a dragonfly a dragon? That's probably a more obvious no. Here is a list of seven other imaginative but potentially misleading animal names:
but it is really a fish that belongs to the Syngnathidae family along with pipefishes and leafy sea dragons.
and curb shark finning Commercial-fishing techniques are leading to the deaths of too many fish sea turtles
#7 Science Careers You Never Knew Existed Snake venom handler? Sex scholar? A career in science doesn't have to mean a job in a dank lab or cubicle.
Snake milkers are animal care specialists who extract the venom of poisonous snakes. Snake venom while not exactly milk is nevertheless a life-giving substance (when used correctly.
Snake milkers have the job of extracting or milking the toxic substance from a snake's fangs.
The venom can be made into a freeze-dried powder that research laboratories use to produce drugs for blood clots heart attacks and high blood pressure.
Humane and sanitary The insects are purchased from commercial suppliers who raise them predominantly for the pet food industry (reptiles
and yellow bricks with alternating images of dragons and bulls carved in relief. Â A reconstruction of it that incorporates surviving materials is currently in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Vorderasiatisches Museum in Germany.
and dragons representing the holy animals of the weather god Adad and the imperial god Marduk were placed in alternating rows.
But in the last 20 years however research has shown this asymmetry of function in many different animals from mammals to reptiles and fish he added.
#Are Crocodiles Secret Fruit-Lovers?(Op-Ed) This article was published originally atâ The Conversation. Â The publication contributed the article to Livescience'sâ Expert Voices:
Now we can add crocodiles to that list. A new study reviewed the diets of crocodiles
and showed that 13 of 18 species ate fruit of some sort and a wide variety of plants.
In other reptiles seed dispersal is a well-known activity although not as well understood as for insects mammals birds and even in snakes.
The recent study published in the Journal of Zoology shows that for crocodiles almost a quarter of the fruits consumed were of the oefleshy kind.
However none of the recordings were of direct observations of fruit eating so exactly how
Most of the evidence come from dissection of crocodiles'stomachs and their faeces. So there is some chance that these crocodiles are indirect eaters of fruit who feast on fruit-eating animals.
But direct observations (see video) have been made many times to believe that they might actually like eating fruits.
First researchers that crocodiles learnt this behaviour from alligators in captivity. But the review makes note of observations in the wild.
Perhaps this odd phenomenon might help in part explain why crocodiles are such successful animals.
Crocodiles are obligate carnivores their primary diet is meat and as such fruits are classed often as anomalous food items
That the review study picked up so many independent instances of crocodiles feeding on fruit and having ingested seeds is solid evidence for this.
and then crying crocodile tears when the wolves show up for a free meal. The people who want to kill wolves don't want to admit that their agenda is driven by an irrational hatred and a lack of understanding of wolves.
and parades with dancers dressed as dragons. Many people make pilgrimages to Confucius'birthplace in Shandong Province on his birthday Sept. 28.
The expedition also turned up five other potentially new frog species many insects and one snake.
They include the pale pink worm lizard (Amphisbaena vanzolinii) rarely seen aboveground and the brightly-colored tiger leg monkey frog (Phyllomedusa tomopterna) which earns its moniker from its orange-and-black underbelly and limbs.
>If a snake eats a monkey in the forest and no one sees it does it make a difference?
</p><p>For the first time scientists have witnessed a boa constrictor attacking and eating a howler monkey. The finding and boa-eating-monkey video is noteworthy
since reports of primates being eaten by predators are relatively rare according to the study published this month in the journal Primates.</
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/39172-boa-constrictor-eats-howler-monkey. html target=blank>Boa constrictor Seen Eating Howler monkey in a First</a p></p><p
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/39159-time-travel-with-wormhole. html target=blank>Wormhole Is Best Bet for Time machine Astrophysicist Says</a p></p><p>Crocodiles
and alligators are infamous carnivores but it turns out they do not live on meat alone scientists have discovered unexpectedly that these predators occasionally snack on fruit as well.</
</p><p>These surprising findings suggest crocodilians which include alligators crocodiles and their close relatives might via seeds they poop out
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/39198-crocodiles-alligators-eat-fruit. html target=blank>Crikey!
Crocodiles and Alligators Snack on Fruit</a p></p><p>Ancient trash heaps in Bolivia used for millennia now suggest humans explored the western Amazon as early as 10000 years ago researchers say.</
</p><p>The Sunshine state already home to man-eating sinkholes invading Burmese pythons swarming sharks tropical storms
In the oetrees down theory it is thought that small reptiles may have evolved flight from gliding behaviors.
This hypothesis accounts for the extinction of the largest animals of the time the dinosaurs and giant marine reptiles.
Crocodiles and Alligators Snack on Fruit Crocodiles and alligators are infamous carnivores but it turns out they do not live on meat alone scientists have discovered unexpectedly that these predators occasionally snack on fruit as well.
These surprising findings suggest crocodilians which include alligators crocodiles and their close relatives might via seeds they poop out
Scientists investigated 18 species of crocodilian ranging from the American alligator to the fearsome Nile crocodile and found evidence that 13 of those speciesâ devoured fruit of some kind including a variety of berries legumes nuts and grains.
Crocodilians consume fruits and such behavior seems very common contrary to what people have thought for many years said researcher Steven Platt a herpetologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Alligators vs. Crocodiles: Photos Reveal Who's Who Although at times the reptiles ate the fruit accidentally for instance
if the fruit was in the guts of prey they captured the researchers found evidence that the fruit was consumed also deliberately and in large quantities.
For instance scientists have seen crocodilians eating wild grapes elderberries and citrus fruit directly from trees. I had found seeds in crocodiles before but
I had assumed just they were not important and when I talked with other crocodilian biologists everyone had the same experience Platt told Livescience.
Everyone just rejected the notion that crocodilians eat fruit because everyone supposed they only ate meat.
Although early research suggested crocodilians were unable to digest sugars and other plant-based nutrients subsequent work with the American alligator has demonstrated otherwise.
Crocodilians do not chew any fruit would likely get swallowed whole to digest in the strong acids of their guts.
Crocodilians always surprise us Platt said. I've been doing research on them for 25 years and
I'm still learning something new all the time they're fascinating animals. Crocodilians might potentially spread plants far and wide researchers suggested.
Some crocodilians make transoceanic journeys some crocodilians such as the saltwater crocodile have been found to wander 1000 miles (1600 kilometers) swimming from island to island Platt said.
There are all sorts of interesting implications there for the movement of plants across islands. The researchers would now like to feed fruit to crocodilians to see what happens to the seeds Do they regurgitate them out their mouths
or do they come out in their feces? Platt asked. What effects do their guts have on the seeds?
The scientists detailed their findings in the July issue of the Journal of Zoology. Followâ Livescienceâ@livescience Facebookâ & Google+.
+Original article on Livescience i
#Critically Endangered Pygmy Hogs Slowly Reintroduced to Wild Researchers are breeding and releasing critically endangered pygmy hogs into the wilds of northeast India.
 The desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) actually becomes less likely to die with age. The tortoises aren't immortal of course they do still die.
But their mortality rate in youth is actually higher than their mortality rate in old age. If they make it past their younger years they're likely to keep trucking until as old as 80 years of age.
It's not only long-lived creatures like the desert tortoise that show declining or constant mortality with age.
and turtles find the river or beach where they hatched after years at sea. The distances covered by some species run into thousands of kilometres.
They have a remarkable knack for causing trouble ranging from eating threatened species like dune lizards
The overpopulation also menaces federally protected species such as snowy plovers desert tortoises and California least terns the jays eat their eggs too.
and germinate after being eaten by three types of fish one turtle and one type of bird said Sarah Sumoski a researcher at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science
and monitor lizards that humans have introduced. Some cultures hunt flying foxes and consider them a delicacy but residents of the Mortlock Islands do not generally hunt the animals the researchers say.
Besides humans giraffes'only predators are lions and crocodiles. Giraffes can defend themselves with a deadly kick
and it needs its mom's protection from lions crocodiles and adult male hippos which sometimes attack calves in the water.
Leopards eat anything from carcasses fish and reptiles to mammals such as baboons antelopes warthogs hares and rodents.
Tasmanian devils eat meat from snakes birds fish and insects. Their prey can reach up to the size of small kangaroos.
These spiders usually eat insects or small vertebrates like lizards or frogs. Tree dwellers While most funnel spiders live on the ground a few species on the eastern coast of Australia live in wet forest trees.
Emily Dondero lives in Sonora Calif. and witnessed the Great Rim fire that has devastated the Sierra nevadas and part of Yosemite Park.
A chimera is the name of a creature from Greek mythology that mixed together features of a lion a goat and a snake.
They apparently formed in two phases an older layer made up primarily of the shells of freshwater apple snails as well as the bones of deer fish reptiles
#Imported Tortoises Could Replace Madagascar's Extinct Ones Two millennia ago millions of giant tortoises roamed Madagascar an island nation off the southeastern coast of Africa that is rich in species found nowhere else On earth.
Those tortoises kept Madagascar's unique ecosystem in check by munching on low-lying foliage trampling vegetation and dispersing large seeds from native trees like the baobab.
Dozens of species disappeared altogether including 17 giant lemurs three pygmy hippopotamuses two aardvarklike mammals a giant fossa (a catlike carnivore) eight elephant birds a giant crocodile and two giant tortoises.
Now researchers think they've found a way to replace Madagascar's lost giant tortoise species:
Pedrono's team has identified a very close relative of the extinct giant tortoises and they plan to transplant a few hundred of them to Madagascar to help fill the ecological gaps left by their extinct kin.
Wacky Madagascar Animals Ecological shoes to fill Using fossils from two species of extinct Madagascan giant tortoises Pedrono located a group of very similar giant tortoises living on the nearby Aldabra Atoll.
The Aldabra giant tortoise's appearance is nearly identical to that of the extinct Madagascan tortoise and preliminary DNA studies show they're also very similar genetically Pedrono said.
In fact it's likely that ancestors of the giant tortoises living on Aldabra Atoll made the 249-mile (400 kilometers) swim from Madagascar about 100000 years ago the blink of an eye evolutionarily speaking.
Since the tortoises are so similar morphologically and genetically it's likely they'll fill the same roles in the Madagascan ecosystem Pedrono said.
and multiple leaf shapes that protect young sprouts from browsing tortoises. These so-called evolutionary anachronisms could disappear altogether
if no species can fill the giant tortoise's shoes Pedrono said. To help the Aldabra giant tortoises take over for their extinct kin Pedrono's team plans to move 300 young tortoises to a nature reserve in western Madagascar where they'll live in an enclosed pen for five years.
That will give researchers a chance to monitor their eating habits and other ecological interactions before the tortoises can breed
and disperse across the island. A'welcome breakthrough'The plan seems like a good one says Elizabeth Hunter an ecologist at the University of Georgia who has studied giant tortoise restoration on the Galapagos islands
but wasn't involved in Pedrono's research. I would fully support going forward with this plan Hunter said.
Giant tortoises are good species with which to start testing these sorts of ecological replacements Hunter said.
Pedrono's team plans to do thorough veterinary checks to make sure the new tortoises aren't bringing invasive plants or exotic diseases with them to Madagascar.
Similar plans to replace missing giant tortoises have been carried out in several locations including Seychelles and the Mascarene Islands and researchers have seen very good success everywhere Pedrono told Livescience's Ouramazingplanet.
Replacement tortoises on the Mascarene Island of Rodrigues are restoring seed dispersal and grazing patterns after only seven years on the island.
The giant-tortoise-replacement scheme could also be a boon for Madagascar's ecotourism industry Pedrono said.
Based on its considerable success elsewhere and the optimistic prospects for Madagascar this proposed giant-tortoise translocation could represent a welcome breakthrough in the struggle to retain
because they reveal more than just bone show that hadrosaurs had pebbly skin not unlike that of today's crocodiles and birds.
Some say it has a tail like a lizard; others say it has no tail at all.
Amazonian Butterflies Drink Turtle Tears The sight of butterflies flocking onto the heads of yellow-spotted river turtles in the western Amazon rain forest is not uncommon at least
if one is able to sneak up on the skittish reptiles. But the reason why butterflies congregate onto the turtles may be stranger than you think:
to drink their tears. The butterflies are attracted likely to the turtles'tears because the liquid drops contain salt specifically sodium an important mineral that is scant in the western Amazon said Phil Torres a scientist who does much of his research at the Tambopata Research center in Peru
and is associated with Rice university. Unlike butterflies turtles get plenty of sodium through their largely carnivorous diet.
Meat contains significant levels of the salt Torres told Livescience. But herbivores sometimes struggle to get enough sodium and other minerals he added.
Butterflies Drink Turtle Tears Drinking tears Turtle tears are not the only source of such salts for butterflies;
and sweating people said Geoff Gallice a graduate student of entomology at the Florida Museum of Natural history who has witnessed butterflies flocking to turtle tears in the western Amazon rain forest.
or have no impact on the turtles? Torres said it's not completely clear but the teary endeavor probably has little impact on the turtles other than perhaps making them more vulnerable to predators like big cats
since the butterflies can obstruct their vision. In fact the turtles blinded and drowning in butterfly kisses are sometimes easier to photograph than unadorned animals which may be able to spot an approaching photographer more easily.
The photos were taken by Jeff Cremer marketing director for Rainforest Expeditions an ecotourism company that hosts guests in the Peruvian Amazon
Gallice said based on his observations that the feeding likely does little direct harm to the turtles.
The turtles have enough tears to feed the butterflies simply because the butterflies are taking so little he said.
'Torres has witnessed also bees drinking turtle tears. Bees appear to annoy the turtles more than the butterflies perhaps due to their buzzing wings he said.
 The lack of salt in the region has driven other animals to exhibit unusual behaviors.
The Top 10 Weirdest Animal Discoveries Swabbing turtle eyeballs The butterflies also may be seeking other minerals in the turtles'tears
Basically we have to go start swabbing turtle eyeballs and see what we get. The tear-drinking phenomenon doesn't appear to take place often outside this region.
I have been studying turtles in the wild from the northern U s. Mexico and Amazonas for over 50 years and have seen never butterflies drinking tears of turtles said Richard C. Vogt a researcher at the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Manaus Brazil.
Juarez Pezzuti a turtle specialist at Brazil's Federal University of Parã¡hasn't seen it either.
However neither he nor Vogt doubt that it happened and they said it makes sense as some turtles eliminate excess salt through their tears.
Emailâ Douglas Mainâ or follow him onâ Twitterâ orâ Google+.+Follow us@livescience Facebookâ or Google+.
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