Promotion, Care and Enjoyment of Reptiles and Amphibians through Education

Transcription

1 HERPUTOPIA NEWSLETTER Promotion, Care and Enjoyment of Reptiles and Amphibians through Education JUNE 2012 Estab 1998 Vol 7 Issue 4 """#$%%&"&''&'()*$%(+,-$(*.#-,/#&01,'(230$'$(+-,2*&-* ::;<66="#$#%&'()*$+#,")-.,/01213 COMMITTEE PATRON - KEN GRIFFITHS 4;<6>:<?7@&'*A;&2B$2CDEFGEHGIHgarthfay@bigpond.net.auJ>K<4;<6>:<?7L'&2-(+?&*A&2$(%CDMNEGOCOE 6<K;<78;P 9,'(%%( 4(/Q'$RS( CDCMCOMCOI 866>678?7 6<K;<78;P KA'$+*$2( 4(/Q'$RS( CDEIEHEHND 7;<86T;<;9.22(U"(('+DEOEEDID4TV9>K5LL>K<;4A$%$)U"(('+DEOEEDID?<W69<77<;<:>75;L&.6/$*A DEGODFFD4TV9>6X<;4A$%$)U"(('+ MEETINGS: First Monday of the month at 7.00 pm (excluding January, April & October) Fairy Meadow Community Centre: Guest Park, opposite Woolworths corner Princes Hwy and Cambridge Ave, Fairy Meadow AT EACH MEETING - Lucky Door Prize, Sausage Sizzle $2.00, Drinks $1.00, Free Tea and Coffee 454,67)*4,8)- MONDAY JUNE 4 TH Annual General Meeting election of officers nomination forms in newsletter. MONDAY JUNE 4 TH Chris Comb owns the Wild Crystal Co and is an expert photographer. Bill Tritton has kept and studied reptiles for over 50 years. They will combine to bring us a great talk on the rare Gidgee Skink and the Dwarf Spiny Tailed skink. MONDAY JULY 2 ND Our long time friend Brad Walker will expertly teach us ways to keep our reptiles healthy and happy. -4"6+*4-)9$*+,:/ The May meeting was our trophy presentation and Trivia night. Frances (vice president) stepped up to the mark to present the trophies to all our winners after our successful show in April. Congratulations once again to all our winners. One winner that stood out for me was young Jye Fuller, what a huge smile he had collecting his medal. The trivia night was a huge success. We had a powerpoint presentation as well as myself reading out the questions. Big congratulations to our winning team The Hopefuls and our runner up team The Big Reptiles. I hope that you are all that bit more knowledgeable now and learnt something that maybe you never knew before. Hopefully the trivia night may be a annual event. Trophies were presented for all our annual show winners. Well done to all our members for their range of animals and the health and condition of all the entries. A very high standard was set.

2 Paul Menegazzo, Brett Murphy, Jennae Elrington, John & Silvia Bryce, Tamara Wrench, Cathy Joukador, Aiden Zalunardo, John Redwood, Scott Redwood and Steve Schumacher. Membership Fees Single Member is $20 and Family Membership is $30. Yearly fees are due in August. Direct Deposit to the following account. ILLAWARRA REPTILE SOCIETY INC BSB: ACCOUNT: Please put your member No. in the xxx field for your identification. Adrian Reptile World - DVD available from the front meeting desk for $25, along with the latest issue of Scales and Tails $8 Cane toads were introduced in Australia in the 1930s to control beetles that destroy sugar cane crops, but the toads quickly became an ecological disaster of their own. They produce toxins called bufadienolides, which have proven deadly to many native Australian species that feed on frogs and toads. Bluetongue lizards are one of the vulnerable species, and their numbers began to shrink significantly after the toads arrived in northern Australia. But there's reason to believe that bluetongue populations elsewhere Australia will fare better as the toads spread across the continent. "Our study was stimulated by a puzzling observation that arose during research on the ecological impacts of invasive cane toads in Australia," Shine and his colleagues write. "Some lizard populations were vulnerable to bufotoxins whereas others were not -- and the populations with high tolerance to bufotoxins included some that had never been exposed to toads." Why would these populations have evolved a tolerance to the toad toxin when no toads were present? Scales & Tails $8 Available at each meeting and at Garth s Invasive Plant Protects Australian Lizards from Invasive Toad ScienceDaily (Feb. 22, 2012) An invasive plant may have saved an iconic Australian lizard species from death at the hands of toxic cane toads, according to research published in the March issue of The American Naturalist. It's an interesting case of one invasive species preparing local predators for the arrival of another, says Richard Shine, a biologist at the University of Sydney who led the research. The answer, according to Shine and his colleagues, is likely an invasive plant species known as mother-of-millions, which happens to produce a toxin that's virtually identical to that of the cane toad. After it was imported from Madagascar as a decorative plant some 70 years ago, mother-of-millions has since run amok in parts of Queensland and New South Whales and become part of the diet for local bluetongues. Shine and his colleagues collected bluetongues from places with and without mother-of-millions, and injected each of them with a tiny amount of cane toad toxin. They found that toads from places where mother-of-millions is common had less of a reaction than those from places where it was absent. The results suggest that the plant drove strong selection for lizards that could tolerate bufotoxins -- a remarkable example of evolution over a relatively short period of some 20 to 40 generations of lizards. "Now it appears we have a population of eastern bluetongue lizards that are able to defend themselves well against cane toads -- even though they've never actually met one -- whereas the devastation of the cane toads on the northwestern lizard population continues," Shine said. "Eating this plant has pre-adapted the eastern blueys against cane toad poisons." The Australian government has spent millions trying to deal with the toads and mitigate their ecological impact, but Shine's work suggests the

3 eastern bluetongues might not need much help. "We're now able to focus our conservation dollars on those populations that can't care for themselves," he said. Story Source: The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Chicago Press Journals. Samantha J. Price-Rees, Gregory P. Brown, Richard Shine. Interacting Impacts of Invasive Plants and Invasive Toads on Native Lizards. The American Naturalist, 2012; 179 (3): 413 DOI: / Bluetongue lizards from tropical Australia like the Darwin specimen to the left die if they eat an invasive cane toad, whereas members of the same lizard species from southern Australia like the Sydney specimen to the right are very resistant to the toad's poison. That tolerance seems to be due to rapid evolution brought about by the presence of a toxic garden plant that has almost identical poisons to cane toads. (Credit: Right: Travis Child Left: Sylvan Dubey F#-/)*4GHI,41J&1 8R+"$%%,2%.&))(&'1,'E/,2*A+ Diamond Python Hatchlings Broome Stimson Hatchlings Wheatbelt Stimson Hatchlings..ready soon Garth Baby Long Neck Turtles Bob x Breeding pair of Liasis Childreni Frank Dempster Children;s Python hatchlings $ Spotted Python Hatchlings $ Bredli yearling $ Children s Python Breeding Pair $ Coastal Carpet Breeding Pair $ Northern Velvet Gecko Male $80.00 Phil B&G Jungle Hatchlings Garth MAY For Sales Windorah Stimson Hatchlings Wheatbelt Stimson Hatchlings ( coming Soon) Broome Stimson Hatchlings Adult Female Diamond Garth Darwin Hatchlings $150 Darwin Female 8y.o. $200 Scott Long Neck turtle Hatchlings Craig Baby long Neck turtles Bob Lights for Cages $5.00 Craig Adult Male Diamond 4-5foot Aaron Hatchlings Childrens pythons Spotted pythons Bredli pythons Breeding pair of Children's pythons Adult Male Children's python Adult Male Diamond python Adult Male Woma Hatchling Ridge-Tail Monitors Phil Members Notices: A&T Custom Cabinets-custom built reptile cabinets in all sizes true_b27@hotmail.com For all you Own Custom made Reptile Cabinets Carmelo

4 Neurotoxin Resistance in Snakes Around the World ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2012) A new study by University of Notre Dame biologist Michael Pfrender and a team of researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno; Utah State University; and the University of Virginia suggests that snakes from different regions of the world have evolved a similar, remarkable resistance to a deadly neurotoxin. The finding, which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, greatly increases scientists' understanding of the genetic basis of adaptation and is a model for understanding the limits to adaptation and the degree to which evolutionary responses are predictable. Pfrender and colleagues found species of snakes in North, Central and South Americas and Asia that are able to feed on amphibians that secrete a deadly neurotoxic poison, tetrodotoxin or TTX. These snakes have similar mutations in a key sodium-channel gene that makes them highly resistant to TTX. These mutations prevent TTX from blocking the sodium channels in muscle, which would otherwise immobilize the snakes by paralyzing nervous and muscle tissue. "The key finding is that adaptive evolution is constrained by the functional properties of the genes involved in these evolutionary responses," Pfrender said. "While there are many possible mutations that can improve fitness, in this case resistance to the neurotoxin TTX, many of these mutations have a cost because they change the normal function of the genes. So, when we look at multiple species that have independently adapted to TTX, we see a very similar, and limited, set of mutations involved. The story is one of repeated evolutionary change that occurs through a limited set of changes at the molecular level." The study stems from Pfrender's interest in understanding how organisms deal with environmental change through adaptive evolution. "We would like to know what the underlying genetic mechanisms are, and what the limits are to these adaptive responses," he said. "Ultimately, we would like to develop a predictive framework to gauge when natural populations will be able to evolve rapidly enough to persist in a changing environment and when the environmental change is too fast or too strong, leading to local extinction." An understanding of how organisms deal with environmental change is relevant to the major themes of Notre Dame's Environmental Change Initiative and to the Eck Institute for Global Health, which examines disease resistance coupled with human health. "Many organisms are exposed to toxic chemicals in their environment, and this system is a model for understanding how they cope with this challenge through evolutionary change," Pfrender said. "A good example of the application of this knowledge is when we are trying to understand how parasites acquire drug resistance. How do they do it and what are the limits to this response? Can we create more effective drug strategies that capitalize on these functional constraints, making it more difficult for parasites to evolve resistance?" Pfrender and the Utah State researchers plan to study more snake species and to expand their research to a number of other species, including insects that prey on the toxic eggs of salamanders. They also are examining other genes closely related to the sodium channel genes that are the focus of the PNAS study to expand their understanding of how adaptation occurs. Story Source: The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Notre Dame Snakes from different regions of the world have evolved a similar, remarkable resistance to a deadly neurotoxin. (Credit: 14ktgold / Fotolia)

5 NOMINATION FORM for IRS COMMITTEE POSITIONS NOMINATION I,, being a current financial member of IRS Inc hereby (print your name) nominate (print name of person you wish to nominate) for the position of (committee position) Signature Dated SECONDED BY I,, being a current financial member of IRS Inc hereby (print your name) HAINES GLASS - DAPTO 298 Princes Highway, Dapto PHONE FAX MOBILE K5J<;>?@7X<65T7XK5867L5; 64<K>897P.*Domestic Specialists * Laminated Glass *Table Tops Shower Screens. Framed Mirrors. Rear view Mirrors second the nomination Signature Dated ACCEPTANCE I,, being a current financial member of IRS Inc hereby (print your name) accept the nomination Signature Dated Please post this completed form to IRS PO Box 183, Albion Park NSW 2527 Please note that the secretary must receive all completed and duely signed nominations before the AGM to be a valid nomination. One membership, One vote.,$kcommittee positions are those at the header of this newsletter.

6